The Life of Olaudah Equiano [Paperback]

Olaudah Equiano (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 15, 2007

Published in 1789, Equiano's autobiography was the first of its kind to influence a wide audience. He told the story of his life and suffering as a slave. He describes scenes of outrageous torture and made it clear to his readers how the institution of slavery dehumanized both owner and slave. Equiano's work became an important part of the abolitionist cause, because he was able to portray Africans with a humanity that many slave traders tried to deny. Anyone with an interest in the slave trade or the abolitionist movement will find this book essential reading. Nigerian slave and abolitionist OLAUDAH EQUIANO (1745-1797) was sold to white slavers when he was eleven and renamed Gustavas Vassa. He worked on a naval ship and fought during the Seven Years' War, which he felt earned him a right to freedom. Eventually, he was able to purchase his freedom and move to England, where he was safe from being captured back into slavery. There, he was an outspoken advocate of the abolitionist movement.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

First African and then Western slave traders brought his Edenic childhood experiences to an end. Kidnapped, he was taken away from the womb-like Gemeinshaft and his father's compound in which he had been favored and nurtured. Commodified, he was placed in the hold of a slave ship for the brutal journey through the Middle Passage to the 'New World,' where the ultimate symbol of his status were the various names he was given by slave masters whose 'ownership' of him empowered them to desecrate his name. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 188 pages
• Publisher: Cosimo Classics (October 15, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1602068003
• ISBN-13: 978-1602068001
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,672,710 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars an 18th century spiritual and political autobiography, December 16, 2003

By 

Chutes (East Brunswick, NJ USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Life of Olaudah Equiano (Dover Thrift Editions) (Paperback)

As an American who has grown up hearing and learning about slavery and the slave trade in the US, and mainly in the 19th century, I appreciated the insight Equiano's book gives into the institution from other parts of the world, and in particular how racism evolved within an institution that had been taken for granted for centuries and had not been particularly racist.

It is not the narrative of a victim. Not only does Equiano purchase his freedom halfway through the book, but also you can tell from the incidents he describes and from reading between the lines that he was a strong, even pugnacious person who didn't take any guff from people he did not respect. He was pragmatic, ambitious, and a fighter. While he accepted the social hierarchies of the time, including slavery itself until the latter part of his life, he shows no humility (except in terms of his spiritual condition). When he proposes to another person that he work for him as a servant, you get the feeling that he has just given that person an honor.

Equiano's autobiography is important for many other reasons. It is very much a book of its time, the late 18th century, when spiritual autobiographies were important both to the writers and the readers. (Make sure that when you buy an edition of this book you do not buy an edition that has been abridged, as the account of Equiano's religious/spiritual development is what has been cut, making hamburger of what remains). He has wonderful, sometimes acid, comments, to make on the churches he observes at the time. For example, here's his comment on a church service run by the Rev. George Whitfield, at which people are crowding out into the yard and standing on ladders to see into the church: "When I got into the church I saw this pious man exhorting the people with the greatest fervor and earnestness, and sweating as much as ever I did while in slavery....I thought it strange I had never seen divines exert themselves in this manner before; and was no longer at a loss to account for the thin congregations they preached to."

Equiano's autobiography is also a tale of his adventures: he served on board battle and merchant ships much of the time and saw action during the French and Indian war. He was also part of Phipps' search for a passge to India through the north pole, where their ship was frozen in ice just as Shackleford's was two centuries later.

And finally, Equiano's life and story become entwined with the British abolition movement. His book was intended to serve the movement, raising revulsion by demonstrating the cruel and unethical practices that rose from slavery and appealing to logic and the reader's sense of shame. He is one of the earliest writers to point out a psychological blindess in slave holders, the denial and the double vision they had to develop in order to justify themselves. The very existence of the book, written by a literate, very bright, and comfortably wealthy former slave put the lie to the racist arguments that Africans were best suited to slavery. And in one part of the book that is reminiscent of Mary Wollestonecraft, he speaks passionately that the ignorance and helplessness that was so striking in so many slaves had nothing to do with nature, and everything to do with social conditioning.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Somebody at Amazon Has a Sense of Humor!, May 4, 2009

By 

Giordano Bruno (Wherever I am, I am.) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African

I was doing a search for travel guides to the Dominican Republic, on the hunch that I might like to visit there next winter, and amazon came up with the "Life of Olaudah Equiano" as a travel recommendation. if you've read Equiano's autobiography, you'll realize just how knee-slapping funny that is. If you haven't, you should know that Equiano was a remarkable, brilliant African, kidnapped and enslaved, befriended but sold, escaped, recaptured, trusted, mistreated, and eventually a major role-player in the abolition crusade in England in the 18th Century. He figures prominently in the great historical account of English abolitionism -- "Bury the Chains" by Adam Hochschild -- along with Wilberforce and Clarkson and others whose epic courage and humanity should be celebrated forever.

Equiano's own life ought to be made into a movie; few people in history have ever been as resourceful, and few have needed to be. It was a matter of amazement to Englishmen (and Americans doubly so) that an African-born slave could write so fluently and so perspicaciously. In fact, once you get used to the 18th C syntax, his life story is on a par with the best nautical adventure writers. And Equiano was ten times the MAN that any scion of plantation Dixie was!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Equiano's Life..., December 16, 2008

By 

ZMC "Virtuous Reader" (Avon, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano: or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by himself (Paperback)

"The Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano" has always been spoken of in literature courses but to finally read his book gave me good insight into who this man really was. To understand the language used in the 18th century and how that language helped to push the abolitionists into action is key within the study of slavery during this time. If you have never read a narrative by an African who was stolen into slavery and eventually became a self made man, this is the book for you.