Olaudah Equiano's Views On Slavery

Slavery as is a practice that, at no point in time, should ever be tolerated. It is a horrid practice that displays the absence of morality that unfortunately is embedded into monsters masquerading as humans. With that being said, Olaudah Equiano’s views on slavery were heavily skewed due to his initial interpretations of what slavery truly was. Before being captured and sold to slave traders that were headed to the West Indies, Equiano perceived that slavery was what modern day jail is for society now: loss of freedom due to committing offenses deemed intolerable. From a young age, Equiano was familiar with the institution of slavery. As an upper class citizen, he was entitled to own slaves. Although a slave himself at one time, he looks back on his village's use of …show more content…
In this way, both a sense of humanity and a sense of class order affected his early impression of slavery. It is perhaps because of Equiano's higher class distinction that he seemingly is not against all types of slavery at this point. There seem to be degrees of badness, and he continues to come down the hardest on what goes on in the West Indies. With this argument, Equiano makes his appeal in terms of commerce, trying to convince the reader that this plan would be best for the British people economically. He offers up Africa as a land abounding in "hidden treasures," an "endless field" for the adventurous British merchant. Equiano then follows this persuasive argument with a list of the horrible cruelties that he has seen inflicted on his fellow slaves over the years. This leads into another plea that slavery be abolished, based on what he has put forth in the Narrative. It is interesting that he ends with an economic argument, rather than one based on his religious views. This may be a direct result of Equiano's split between anti-slavery views and his participation in the slave