Olaudah Equiano: Fact Or Fiction?

Olaudah Equiano was a famous African in London who had supported the British movement to end slave trading. Olaudah is known for his famous 1789 autobiography, which described his experience as a slave. The autobiography, The interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, goes into detail of his experience of when he was kidnapped and sold to slave traders. Olaudah was one of millions of Africans who were taken from his homeland and sold into slavery. During this time of slave trading Europeans would go seeking for human slaves along the west cost of Africa. These human slaves were later being transported across the Atlantic Ocean and then sold to slave owners of the New World. The slaves were bought just so they can work the fields of crops for their new owners. The slave trade had shocked African life. Not only were families being torn from …show more content…
There have been big debates whether Olaudah Equiano autobiography is fact or fiction. Whether or not Equiano was born in Africa he still had the experience living as a slave. If Equiano did get his information from other slaves that traveled on the Atlantic slave trade then it would be like what news reporters do now days when they interview others that had experienced an important life event. There are also many authors that write books on events that they personally never experienced but had conducted research and interviews in order to write their book. Regardless where Olaudah Equiano was born and what he actually experienced his autobiography helped with the influence in the passage of the Slave Trade Act of 1807. It had provided an indictment of slave trading which helped compel the government to abolish it. The autobiography also tells the story of the millions of slaves that had to experience the horrific life of being taken from their homeland to be sold in a slave