Olaudah Equiano, - Memoirs of a Former Slave

Olaudah Equiano – Memoirs of a Former Slave

Thesis: Equiano describes his experience into bondage and questions slavery and its controversy with Christian values.

Describes his capture from Nigeria and experience on a slave ship

· “When I was carried on board, I was immediately handled, and tossed up, to see if I were sound, by some of the crew” – treated like “goods”

· He describes his astonishment to their different looks

o “Their complexions too differing somuch from ours, their long hair, and the language they spoke….Indeed, such were the horrors of my views”

· Explains the fear and hopelessness he had felt

o “if ten thousand worlds had been my own, I would have freely parted with them all to have exchanged my condition with that of the meanest slave in my own country”

· He fainted from the sight of all the other slaves and realization of his fate

· Loss of hope – “I now saw myself deprived of all chance of returning ot my native country, or even the least glimpse of hope of gaining she shore”

· Equiano describes the conditions under ther decks where he was kept

o Foul stench, crowded, many people got sick

o “with the loathsomeness of the stench, and crying together, I became so sick and low that I was not able to eat…I now wished for the last friend, death, to relieve me”

· He got flogged because he refused to eat due to his illness

o Even contemplated jumping overboard to escape the slave holders

· Under the deck

o “the looseness of the place, and the heat of the climate, added to the number in the ship, which was so crowded that each had scarcely room to turn himself”

o this produced an environment breeding illnesses

· Equiano expresses his sorrow and hope

· He meets some people from his own country

o “which in a small degree gave ease to my mind”

o told Equiano that they were going to work in another country

§ “if it were no worse than working, my situation was not so desperate”

o still thought he was going to be killed

· At the slave merchant – separated into sex and age

· Saw people on horseback and other technologies they did not have

o “I did not know what this could mean; and indeed I thought these people were full of nothing but magical arts”

· “O ye nominal Christians! Might not an African ask you, learned you this from your God? Who says unto you, Do unto all men as you would men should do unto you.”

o Questions their commitment to Christianity and morality of slavery