Olaudah Equiano Dbq

Collin Thornton 11/17/16 Pg. 113 Final Draft Two Personal Accounts of Exploration and Settlements The two selections that give the most complete picture of this historical period are The General History of Virginia and The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano. In the early 1600s, Captain John Smith found himself in a precarious situation, the failing Virginia colony. Likewise, Olaudah Equiano was put in a difficult situation as he faced many atrocities on the slave ship at the hands of the slave traders and owners.

On the other hand, Equino’s situation and attitude deteriorate as he is moved into ever stranger and more dehumanizing circumstances. Both captives were allowed to earn money: in fact, Equiano eventually earned enough to buy his freedom. Mary, too, was eventually freed when her ransom was

Way Back When “Analysis of the Hardships of the Slave Trade” Even if you fall on your face, you’re still moving forward (Kiam, Victor). Sometimes it may seem as though you aren’t not moving forward in life, but in actuality you are always moving. Olaudah Equiano describes the trip him and many other slaves took across the ocean. Many of the slaves on the boat were kidnapped. This means that they were not slaves before this (page 171).

This chapter addresses the central argument that African history and the lives of Africans are often dismissed. For example, the author underlines that approximately 50,000 African captives were taken to the Dutch Caribbean while 1,600,000 were sent to the French Caribbean. In addition, Painter provides excerpts from the memoirs of ex-slaves, Equiano and Ayuba in which they recount their personal experience as slaves. This is important because the author carefully presents the topic of slaves as not just numbers, but as individual people. In contrast, in my high school’s world history class, I can profoundly recall reading an excerpt from a European man in the early colonialism period which described his experience when he first encountered the African people.

In Equiano's personal slave narrative, "The Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African", Equiano flips the idea that the African people are backwards and barbaric, thus ripe for slavery, by demonstrating his personal exceptionalism through his literacy to show that it is truly the white people who are backwards and barbaric through their own hypocrisy. This reversal that Equiano demonstrates in his slave narrative shows that the savagery of African people exists as a misconception and makes the reader fully grasp the need to abolish slavery and any inequality present. On page seventy-eight, Equiano uses first person pronouns like 'I', 'my', and 'me' to separate himself from the other African people and whites around him. This separation that Equiano creates demonstrates his exceptionalism as an African slave.

The second half of “The Life of Olaudah Equiano” written by himself focuses on his life as a freeman. Equiano, a tradesman traveling the world encountered new adventures, which led to spiritual transformations. Equiano endures a cultural mainstream through multiple viewpoints. He acknowledges similarities and differences between cultures, which transforms his curiosity for adventure toward the practice of converting new cultures to his beliefs as a Christian. What would one expect the identity of a man that bought his freedom out a slavery, only to take part in the practicing of slavery himself?

(first name) Equiano’s journey although seemingly terrible, may have changed his life for the better. His life included slavery and beatings, but these hardships may have better equipped him to speak out against slavery. Equiano was taken from his home as a child and was sold into slavery by a neighboring tribe. Although he was forcibly removed from his home, leaving home may have made his life “better” in the end. If he had not been removed from his home, he would have continued to live a simple life and would never tried to make anything better of himself.

Olaudah Equiano was actually a slave when the Columbian Exchange was taking place. He was sold and transported to the Atlantic Ocean. In his account, he mentioned that “I was soon put down under the decks, and there I received such a salutation in my nostrils as I had never experienced in my life; so that, with the loathsomeness of the stench, and crying together, I became so sick and low that I was not able to eat, nor had I the least desire to taste any thing. I now wished for the last

As we look at America today, we see a free, democratic nation that is a world power to be reckoned with. Although, before the fame and the glory, America had many struggles that the country and people had to deal with. I chose A Narrative of the Captivity by Mary Rowlandson and The Interesting Story of the life of Olaudah Equiano by Olaudah Equiano as my two pieces that I feel best represents the American experiences and struggles of the early colonial period. These two pieces best represent the struggles because they both deal with being a newcomer to a foreign country and greeting people not of the same language or culture. As a result, they represent the struggles of being a newcomer to early colonial America.

In this article “African Dimensions Of The Stono Rebellion”, John Thornton a professor of history and African American studies, who wrote about the African slaves in the Americas, and specifically the servants in South Carolina during the early eighteenth century. In his writing, the author describes the personality of Africans and their desire to escape from slavery, going through obstacles on their path to freedom. John Thornton is primarily an Africanist, with a specialty in the history of West Central Africa before 1800. His work has also carried him into the study of the African Diaspora, and from there to the history of the Atlantic Basin as a whole, also in the period before the early nineteenth century. Thornton also serves as a consultant

As the boom from the transatlantic slave trade was being put into a question of universal humanity and morality, millions of Africans were still being sold into a life of victimhood. Amongst those millions were freemen being stripped from their homes, because of their race, in the core and coastal regions of Africa. The Neirsee Incident occurred on, “January 21st, 1828” at a “British owned palm oil house near old Calabar” (Blaufarb and Clarke 71). The Neirsee as it was stopped at the port near the British owned palm oil house, was interrupted by a character name Feraud who “slipped out of old Calabar on the Neirsee”, where the ship was eventually seized after it had, “just loaded its human cargo” (Blaufarb and Clarke 72). The incident had led to innocent British citizens lives being sold into the slave trade.

Alexander Falconbridge served as a surgeon on the ships that transported slaves through the middle passage. He managed to only make four voyages between 1780 and 1787 due to the harsh circumstances he was witnessing, which ultimately led him to write An Account of the Middle Passage. The Middle Passage was the hardest and most dangerous part of the voyage for any slave transported out of Africa. The article carefully describes the strenuous conditions the slaves were in while being in the ships. An analysis of Alexander Falconbridge’s An Account of the Middle Passage reveals how this surgeon’s perspective aided the progression of the abolition movement by showcasing a new perspective of the Middle Passage, and how his purpose was to inform the general public on how dreadful these

By bringing up religion he appealed to the Christian morals that so many British people lived by. For example, when Equiano told of how he learned about God, was taught by Daniel Queen to read the Bible, and of his own baptism he persuaded the readers that his religious beliefs were genuine. The use of God as a pathos method made the British feel guilty for the hellish enslavement of the African's even though they thought they lived by the values of humanity, love, and faith. When Equiano said he would rather have “God's thunder” kill him than to “be sold from lord to lord” the British could not ignore his plea to abolish slavery for the sake of abiding by their own Christian

My name is Olaudah Equiano. I was born in the Eboe of Africa. While I was just a young child, my sister and I were taken by kidnappers and they sold us to these slave traders. This was the worst and terrifying day of my life. I was sent to the West Indies or the island of Barbados.

17.1 Captivity and Enslavement, Olaudah Equiano, the interesting Narrative of the life of Olaudah Equiano written by himself 1. What are Equiano’s impressions of the white men on the ship and their treatment of the slaves? How does this treatment reflect the slave traders’ primary concerns? Equiano’s first impression of these white men is a feeling of uncertainty and sorrow for the future. As his story goes on Equiano is afraid of these white men, but also he is wishing to end it all because of the conditions and treatment of the slaves.