olauda equiano

1. A Kidnapped Prince: Olauda Equiano

Does this man look like a slave?

2. Olaudah Equiano was born free in an Ibo village near the Niger River in the land now called Nigeria. His father was a wealthy chief.

He became a slave.

He traveled around the world and he earned money to buy his freedom.

He wrote a popular book about his life in 1790.

3.Why is this book important?

•First English language account of slavery.

•Early example of a slave narrative.

http://www.childrensbestbooks.com/

In Ibo language, Olaudah Equiano means "when he speaks, others listen."

ttp://www.history-map.com/picture/000/Africa-North-Map-of.htm

4. Olauda Equiano was born about 1745 in Essaka, an Ibo village in the southeast of present-day Nigeria.

Nigeria Today


My father, besides many slaves, had a numerous family, of which seven lived to grow up, including myself and sister, who was the only daughter.


With us the slaves do no more work than other members of the community, than even their master; their food, clothing and lodging were nearly the same as ours, except that they were not permitted to eat with those who were free-born.


As I was the youngest of the sons,I became the greatest favorite with my mother, and was always with her.


I was trained up from my earliest years in the art of war: my daily exercise was shootingand throwing javelins, and my mother adorned me with emblems, after the manner of our greatest warriors.


In this way I grew up till I had turned the age of eleven.

h tt p ://atlassh ru gs2 0 0 0 .typ ep ad .co m /p h o to s/u n catego rized /slavery.jp g


One day, all our people were gone out to their works as usual, and only I and my dear sister were left to mind the house. Two men and a woman got over our walls, and in a moment seized us both. Without giving us time to cry out, or make resistance, they stopped our mouths, and ran off with us into the nearest wood. Here they tied our hands, and continued to carry us.

5. The kidnappers took the children to the coast of Africa where they stayed in a prison for six months.

Commercial agreement.

This is an agreement among merchants involved in the sale and transportation of slaves between Timbuktu in Mali and Ghadamas in Libya.

Loaned by the Mamma Haidara Commemorative Library, Timbuktu, Mali http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/mali/images/amm0021rs.jpg

http://www.decsy.org.uk/downloads/Triangular-Trade-map.gif

The Triangular Trade Route

The Triangular Trade

NewEngland

WestAfrica

WestIndies

RumGunsClothTools

EnslavedAfricans

LumberFishFlour

SugarMolasses

http://www.socialstudiesforkids.com/graphics/triangulartrade.jpg

A slave holding pen on Gorée Island, Senegal.

http://www.vagabondish.com/wp-content/uploads/portal-of-sorrow-goree-island.jpg

6. Olauda Equiano never saw his sister nor the rest of his family ever again.


Olaudah Equiano never saw the ocean nor ships before.

… I looked round the ship and saw a large furnace of copper boiling.

… Black people of every description were chained together, every one of their countenances expressing dejection and sorrow.

I no longer doubted my fate and quite overpowered with horror and anguish, I fell motionless on the deck and fainted..

I asked if we were not to be eaten by those white men with horrible looks, red faces and long hair?

7. Equiano wrote about his terrible experiences on the slave ship.

“The shrieks of the women and the groans of the dying rendered the whole a scene of horror almost inconceivable.”

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/1h300b.html

http://www.si.umich.edu/CHICO/Schomburg/text/migration6Big.html.html

"I now wished for the last friend, Death, to relieve me."

http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/online/wallpapers/graphics/1024x768/SlaveShip1024x768.jpg

The slave ship went to the Caribbean island of Barbados.

This was the first of Olaudah Equiano’s many trips across the Atlantic Ocean.

http://www.brycchancarey.com/equiano/equimap2.jpg

Slaves on the Caribbean islands worked on sugar plantations.http://www.haiyingart.com/images/graphics/a8.jpg


Virginia

8. No one bought Equiano in Barbados.After a few weeks, slave traders sent him to Virginia Colony to do farm work.

http://historyproject.ucdavis.edu/ic/collection/halttunen/Seventeenth_Century/Early_American_Slavery/6986.html

tobacco plantshttp://www.marvistavet.com/assets/images/tobacco_plant.gif


The Travels of Olaudah Equiano, Part I: Taken into Slavery –1756

9. In 1757, a British naval lieutenant named Michael Pascal bought Olauda Equiano.Lieutenant Pascal took him from Virginia to London.

http://viceroybooks.com.au/product_info.php?manufacturers_id=20&products_id=332&osCsid=aeffa9fce90a107000a85a041d526a00


England is north of here.

10. The officer changed Equiano’s name to Gustavus Vassa.

http://pro.corbis.com/images/PG5279.jpg?size=67&uid=996B1FD1-AC53-4619-8FFF-AEFD7626344F

Gustav Vassa: became king of Sweden in 1523.He won a war of freedom for Sweden.

http://www.adnax.com/views/viewsoflondonbridges01.htm

London, 1700s

http://www.newforestnpa.gov.uk/text/great_britain_and_nfnp4web1.jpgtMargaretsChurch.jpg

11. While he was Lieutenant Pascal’s slave, Olaudah Equiano has new experiences:

He lived in London and learned how to read and write in English.

He became a Christian in 1759.

http://www.equiano.soham.org.uk/biography.htm

A book of church records shows Olaudah Equiano’s acceptance of Christianity as a young slave in Great Britain.

http://www.brycchancarey.com/equiano/biog.htm

12. As the slave of a naval officer, he trained to become a sailor.

Equiano joined his master fighting sea battles against France in the Mediterranean and North America.

His job: carrying gun powder to the deck.

http://www.brycchancarey.com/equiano/biog.htm


The Travels of Olaudah Equiano, Part II: Slave to a Royal Naval Officer –1757-1762

13. Great Britain won the Seven Years War. (Americans called this the French and Indian War.)

After victories, British sailors won prize money, but Lieutenant Pascal refused to share his money with Olaudah Equiano.

Captain Pascal sold Equiano to a sea captain who brought him back to the Caribbean islands.

14. On the island of Montserrat, a Quaker merchant from Philadelphia, Robert King, bought Equiano.


Robert King saw that Equiano was skilled in reading and writing. King gave him business work on his ships.


Robert King saw that Equiano was skilled in reading and writing. King gave him business work on his ships.

Equiano had free time and was able to earn his own money.


The Travels of Olaudah Equiano, Part III:

Slave to a Quaker Merchant –1762-1766

15. Robert King promised, “If you pay me £40, I will give you your freedom.”

In 1766, Equiano earned his freedom after saving money for three years.

At that time, £40 was equal to about $4,000 in today’s money.He was twenty-one years old.

“Before night, I who had been a slave in the morning, trembling at the will of another, was become my own master and completely free. I thought this was the happiest day I had ever experienced.”

North America was a dangerous place for Africans because men kidnapped Free Africans and forced them to become slaves.

http://www.clker.com/cliparts/3/b/1/1/1207583894321393493bobocal_Shaking_Hands.svg.hi.png

Equiano declined King’s offer. He decided to go back to Great Britain.

16. Robert King respected Equiano. He asked him to become his business partner.

17. Olauda Equiano, aka Gustavas Vassa, sailed back to Great Britain.

http://www.history.org/Foundation/journal/Winter03-04/images/cart_barber.jpg

17. Olauda Equiano, aka Gustavas Vassa, sailed back to Great Britain.

2. He got a paycheck from the Royal Navy.

1. He found his old master, Lieutenant Pascal. Equiano demanded that Pascal give him his prize money, but he was unsuccessful.

3. He trained to become a hairdresser.

http://www.history.org/Foundation/journal/Winter03-04/images/cart_barber.jpg

http://greeningwashington.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/polar-bear2.jpg

18. Olaudah Equiano wanted to earn more money, so he returned to sailing.

He traveled around the Mediterranean Sea.

He joined a ship that explored the North Pole, where he escaped an attack from a polar bear.

19. In 1775, Equiano returned to the Caribbean to start a plantation in Central America.

There were slaves on the plantation and he tried to help them.


The Travels of Olaudah Equiano, Part IV: A Free Man –1766-1797

The North Pole

20. Equiano became involved in the new movement to abolish slavery in England.

First, he became a popular speaker.

Later, he wrote the story of his life in a book. The book was published in 1789.

Equiano’s book became wildly popular in England, Europe and North America. Sales of the book made him rich.After reading it, many readers were convinced that slavery should be stopped.

A newspaper advertisement for Equiano’s book.

21. In 1792, Equiano married an English woman, Susannah Cullen.

http://emeagwali.com/igbo/index_files/olaudah-equiano-marriage-certificate.jpg

http://www.equiano.soham.org.uk/extraordinary-equiano.htm

Actors portrayed Gustavas and Susannah in a movie made in England in 2007.

http://www.equiano.soham.org.uk/wedding.htm

In 2007, the church put up this plaque to remember their wedding.

22. The couple traveled together around England as Equiano sold his book and made speeches supporting the abolition of slavery.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Olaudah_Equiano_-_Project_Gutenberg_eText_15399.png

23. They had two daughters. Anna Maria was born in 1792 and Joanna was born in 1795.

24. The rest of this story is sad.

Susannah, Equiano’s wife, died in 1796, after the birth of Joanna. She was only 34 years old. Equiano died a year later in 1797. He was about 51.

The eldest daughter, Anna Maria, died when she was four years old.

http://www.standrews-chesterton.org/vassa.htm

Joanna inherited a lot of money from her father’s earnings.

http://www.breakingthechains.co.uk/news.jsp?newsID=14

Historians think that Joanna Vassa was raised by her mother’s family.

When she was 27, Joanna married a preacher, Henry Bromley.She helped him organize the Sunday School in his church.

This is an imagined picuture of Joanna Vassa with her father, Olaudah Equiano.

http://re-photo.co.uk/?m=200710

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3616/3459494370_cd466177db.jpg?v=1240234227

Catherine Ancholou is an Associate Professor of English Literature in the Awuku College of Education, NigeriaShe wrote The Igbo Roots Of Olaudah Equiano: An Anthropological Research in 1989.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/1i3011.html

Nobody had any idea what happened to those who left the shores of Africa.

…at that time, those who went beyond Africa never came back.

Nobody could tell the story.

Nobody had any idea what happened to those who left the shores of Africa.

…at that time, those who went beyond Africa never came back.

Nobody could tell the story.

It was only after the colonial masters began to return with the freed slaves, some of whom had received some form of education and were coming in as missionaries.

This was…when the stories began to filter in.

http://www.100greatblackbritons.com/archive/eq_sc.html

25. Olaudah Equiano died in 1797…

…ten years before the slave trade was abolished;

…forty years before the end of slavery in the United Kingdom;

….sixty-eight years before the end of slavery in the United States.

http://www.100greatblackbritons.com/archive/eq_sc.html

25. Olaudah Equiano died in 1797…

…ten years before the slave trade was abolished;

…forty years before the end of slavery in the United Kingdom;

….sixty-eight years before the end of slavery in the United States.

26. Equiano did not live to see these events happen, but his work helped abolish slavery.

http://www.leejacksonmaps.com/lottafri.htm

olauda equiano

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