Which violates that first natural right of mankind, equality; and independency; and gives one man a dominion over his fellows which God could never intend! It was published in 1789, at a time when its author was well-known in English abolitionist circles. (including Heavens!

Struggling with distance learning? "My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." When they come among Europeans, they are ignorant of their language, religion, manners, and customs. I was … The interesting narrative of the life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African Contributor Names Equiano, Olaudah, 1745-1797. The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Freedom and Slavery appears in each chapter of The narrative is argued to be a variety of styles, such as a slavery narrative, travel narrative, and spiritual narrative. LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Life of Olaudah Equiano, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work. Detailed explanations, analysis, and citation info for every important quote on LitCharts.From the creators of SparkNotes, something better.

Every rational mind answers, “No.” Equiano doesn’t overly idealize the African hometown where he came from: there too, he says, slavery existed. “This is absolutely THE best teacher resource I have ever purchased. I therefore embraced every occasion of improvement; and every new thing that I observed I treasured up in my memory. The manufacturing interest and the general interests are synonymous. Are any pains made to teach them these? Below you will find the important quotes in I now wished for the last friend, death, to relieve me; but soon, to my grief, two of the white men offered me eatables; and, on my refusing to eat, one of them held me fast by the hands, and laid me across, I think, the windlass, and tied my feet, while the other flogged me severely. Instead, that involvement remains an implicit example of just how pervasive the logic of captivity was in the British Empire. “Would not have made it through AP Literature without the printable PDFs. and should they too have been made slaves? I had never experienced any thing of this kind before, and although, not being used to the water, I naturally feared that element the first time I saw it, yet nevertheless, could I have got over the nettings, I would have jumped over the side, but I could not; and besides the crew used to watch us very closely, who were not chained down to the decks, lest we should leap into the water.

The book describes Equiano's time spent in enslavement, and documents his attempts at …

Does not slavery itself depress the mind, and extinguish all its fire, and every noble sentiment?

Even after he’s freed, he participates in the slave trade himself: as he earns a living and develops his own independent fortune, he travels around the world on ships carrying slaves to plantations, just as he once was carried himself. I no longer looked upon them as spirits, but as men superior to us; and therefore I had the stronger desire to resemble them, to imbibe their spirit, and imitate their manners. I now learned that after I had left the estate which I managed for this gentleman on the Musquito shore, during which the slaves were well fed and comfortable, a white overseer had supplied my place: this man, through inhumanity and ill-judged avarice, beat and cut the poor slaves most unmercifully; and the consequence was, that every one got into a large Puriogua canoe, and endeavored to escape; but, not knowing where to go, or how to manage the canoe, they were all drowned; in consequence of white the Doctor’s plantation was left uncultivated, and he was now returning to Jamaica to purchase more slaves and stock it again. I hope to have the satisfaction of seeing the renovation of liberty and justice, resting on the British government, to vindicate the honour of our common nature. Further, people expect memoirs to have dramatic events and great personages if they are to be interesting. Surely this traffic cannot be good, which spreads like a pestilence, and taints what it touches! Equiano apologizes that he is "neither a saint, a hero, nor a tyrant;" he is merely lucky enough to have been favored by Heaven, which he …