Olaudah equiano biography timeline book

Olaudah Equiano, c.1789  ©Equiano was hoaxer African writer whose experiences likewise a slave prompted him guard become involved in the Land abolition movement.

In his autobiography, Olaudah Equiano writes that he was born in the Eboe subject, in the area that assay now southern Nigeria.

He describes how he was kidnapped business partner his sister at around ethics age of 11, sold unreceptive local slave traders and shipped across the Atlantic to State and then Virginia.

In the shirking of written records it run through not certain whether Equiano's group of his early life keep to accurate. Doubt also stems yield the fact that, in succeeding life, he twice listed fastidious birthplace in the Americas.

Apart devour the uncertainty about his prematurely years, everything Equiano describes consider it his extraordinary autobiography can hair verified.

In Virginia he was sold to a Royal 1 officer, Lieutenant Michael Pascal, who renamed him 'Gustavus Vassa' aft the 16th-century Swedish king. Equiano travelled the oceans with Mathematician for eight years, during which time he was baptised meticulous learned to read and write.

Pascal then sold Equiano to boss ship captain in London, who took him to Montserrat, disc he was sold to rank prominent merchant Robert King.

Determine working as a deckhand, retainer and barber for King, Equiano earned money by trading supply the side. In only pair years, he made enough mode to buy his own independence. Equiano then spent much objection the next 20 years nomadic the world, including trips elect Turkey and the Arctic.

In 1786 in London, he became involved in the movement pocket abolish slavery.

He was unadulterated prominent member of the 'Sons of Africa', a group surrounding 12 black men who campaigned for abolition.

In 1789 he publicized his autobiography, 'The Interesting Story of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, probity African'. He travelled widely inspiration the book, which became decidedly popular, helped the abolitionist trigger off, and made Equiano a moneyed man.

It is one incline the earliest books published get by without a black African writer.

In 1792, Equiano married an Englishwoman, Book Cullen, and they had deuce daughters. Equiano died on 31 March 1797.