enlightenmentboi: my18thcenturysource: Olaudah Equiano (c. 1745–1797) You may or may not know
enlightenmentboi:my18thcenturysource:Olaudah Equiano (c. 1745–1797) You may or may not know about Olaudah Equiano a.k.a. Gustavus Vassa, but this man was a key abolitionist, writer, and overall badass.Olaudah Equiano was born in the Igbo region in modern Nigeria (some sources indicate that he was from South Carolina, but all seems to be circumstantial, so we’ll go with the info from his autobiography, so Nigeria it is), was enslaved as a child, taken to the Caribbean and sold to a captain of the Royal Navy who renamed him as Gustavus Vassa and with whom he traveled about 8 years.In 1766 he bought his own freedom from an English merchant by trading on his own and carefully saving money. He paid £40, that was about a whole year of a teacher’s salary. Thank god for Vassa’s financial literacy.Later on he established in London and was part of an abolitionist group called the Sons of Africa (that is considered the first black political organisation in Britain), becoming very active in the 1780s anti-slave trade movement.He wrote his memoirs in 1789 under the title “The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano”, and this was the first book published by a black African writer in Europe. In it he describes the horrors of slavery: from he and his siblings being kidnapped, to the slave ships, and the treatment by white men. The book opens with a preface in which he frames this work as abolitionist literature, meaning that he was sharing all those horrible experiences for those in positions of authority could finally abolish slavery. His book was so successful that the second edition is from that very same year and made him wealthy thanks to the royalties, and it aided passage of the British Slave Trade Act of 1807.In more personal details, he married Susannah Cullen in 1792, who was one of the subscribers that helped him publish his work (like crowdfunding, but 18th century style!), and he included his marriage as part of his autobiography since the 1792 edition forward. I just love that little detailWhat a fucking power move -- source link
#history