Olaudah Equiano

                            Olaudah Equiano (1745 - 31 March 1797)

What up World!!!! Today I want to talk about an African American man who is widely regarded as the creator of the prototype slave narrative. “Equiano was not the first African-born former slave to recount his experience in bondage and freedom. But he was the first to write the story of his life himself, without the aid or direction of white ghostwriters or editors, such as predecessors in the slave narrative relied on. Equiano’s independence in this regard may be one reason why his story places much more emphasis on the atrocities of slavery and pleads more insistently for its total and immediate abolition than any previous slave narrative. Most slave narrators of Equiano’s era impressed their white sponsors with their piety and their willingness to forgive those who had once oppressed and exploited them. Although Equiano made much of his conversion to Christianity, he made clear his dedication to social change by venting his moral outrage toward slavery and by structuring his story so that freedom, not the consolations of religion, emerges as the top priority of his life in slavery.”[1]

 

References

[1] Gates Jr. Henry L., and Nelie Y Mckay. eds. "African American Literature" 2nd ed. New York: WW Norton & Company, 2004.