4c Slave Narratives in British America

0:03 welcome back today's the third in our series of lectures on Africa and the Atlantic slave trade and today our focus is slave narratives I've called it between black and white African and American as we learned in the last lecture resistance to slavery was as old as slavery itself resistance to slavery occurred in the form of revolts escaping and also more subtle forms of cultural resistance that allowed Africans to preserve some aspect of their culture but a new form of cultural resistance came in the form of the 18th century slave narratives in these narrative narratives autobiographies ex-slaves

0:50 presented the horrors of slavery and the middle passage in the most graphic terms and made strong cases for the abolition of slavery one of the most famous slaves narratives of the 18th century British colonial world was the narrative written by a lotta equiano's in 1789 he was a freed British colonial slave and it's a fascinating book on a literary level the book was many things it was an adventure story it's a travel narrative it's an ethnographic account of his homeland in Africa it's a slave narrative it's an account of the Middle Passage it's also also a

1:36 political essay for the abolition of slavery it's a spiritual autobiography it describes his reconversion to Methodism it's also a sort of success story in presenting this for lack of a better term rags to riches story it would definitely lay the groundwork for future slave narratives in the 19th century like the famous autobiography of Frederick Douglass so who was this author a lot of equiano's was an ebow of my status of noble birth from a village in present-day Nigeria he was captured at the age of eleven and taken into

2:23 slavery in colonial America so you can see it would have been present-day Nigeria um he was captured at age eleven and taken into slavery in colonial America and the British colonial world he was also a domestic slave in Africa before he was exported his narrative his interesting life of a lot of equina was published in 1789 it was a best-seller it was reprinted nine times during his lifetime he made enough profits from it to live off the proceeds from it he was married to a white english woman he had two daughters and in his will he listed

3:09 himself as a gentleman meaning that he did not work but lived off the income from the book and his investments it was very very rare for a free black men to have enough estate to write a will um what I'm gonna do so what I'm gonna do in the lecture is tell you about a few really interesting themes in the book then we're gonna do like a brief biography of equiano's and then we'll look at some of the most important themes and death in depth as the title of my lecture should jest his narrative really shows how complicated it was to

3:54 be a free black in the 18th century British colonial world he's between white and black African and American it's as if he's caught between the color gun line so he was a an ex-slave who managed to purchase him his freedom but was he ever really free um his attitudes towards abolition the ending of slavery were complicated and we'll discuss this yes his narrative favored abolition but not in the simple straightforward way we might expect like it doesn't necessarily say end all types of slavery immediately Acquia no actually condones approves of some forms of slavery he does not object

4:41 to African domestic slavery definitely he criticizes some aspects of it but overall portrays it positively and far less worse than the horrors of American slavery will discuss this nor does he really come out to favor the outright abolition of the Atlantic slave trade until the end of the narrative and he seems to approve of more civilized or you main types of slavery quote-unquote you main types of slavery for instance at one point is look one at one point in his life he actually works as a slave overseer for his former master which surely is a condoning of the slave system he does this partially because he

5:28 believes with his employer that perhaps they could have a humane form of slavery somehow however he quits the job because the conditions were inhumane cruel bad and he refused to be part of this the reasons why the author equally ah no only comes to an outright condemnation of slavery at the end of the book are complex I'll suggest two reasons it might reflect his own personal journey it might reflect his own personal journey towards abolition maybe he only became an outright abolitionist at the end of his life but it might reflect that I think this is even more important it might reflect a deliberate rhetorical strategy designed to lure right designed

6:15 to lure white readers in that is to say have he come out as a radical abolitionist right at the beginning of the book and made these radical pleas he might have alienated white readers make them feel uncomfortable keep in mind when he's publishing this this is the time when when no country condone this was a time when no country was really against slavery and the British were the leaders in the world slave trade so he sort of has a strategy in the book of leading the reader to turn against slavery gradually so by coming to favor abolition gradually in the book the softer more moderate approach may have

7:01 been a little literary strategy designed to appeal to British and American readers and again his attitudes toward slavery are complicated because domestic African slavery is portrayed in a much more positive light another interesting and perplexing theme about the book that we'll return to is his dual identity as an African and an Englishman the subtitle of the book was a lot of aqueon oh the African but at the same time he was fully acculturated in anglo-american culture he himself thought that English culture was superior to many aspects of

7:47 African culture and repeatedly in the book declares that he is English he repeatedly declares his love for quote old England he speaks of his desire to return quote to England where my heart has always been end quote and basically speaks of himself as an Englishman more or less he didn't necessarily see the these aspects of his identity in conflict his English identity he's African identity despite the fact that American English society that despite the fact that Anglo American society was racist and was this society responsible for enslaving him so this is complicated he is both as this title suggests an insider an outsider in this world and

8:36 almost between the color line in the way that he's a free free sort of privileged black man so this is very interesting in some face he claims a privileged sense of whiteness that other minority groups did not and could sometimes even pass as white to speck despite the fact that he was in fact black let me give you a practical example he spent much time on board ships will explain his life but during um echo jános days onboard a ship working for ship captain an Indian chief remarked about equiano's whiteness and that he really seemed to belong among

9:24 the other Anglo Americans this Indian chief basically calls equiano's white and this may have been a detail that equiano's included to show readers just how acculturated he was just how much he fit into mainstream british society so he's having a conversation with his Indian chief and the Indian chief finally asked him quote how the the in in plain language the the Indian chief asked him why are you different than the other white men and why don't you drink and smoke and gamble like they do and notably he calls at Leon oh one of the white men meaning that he's a European British whatever let me read you the

10:09 quote the Indian chief says how comes it that all the white men on board and he's referring to equiano's who can read in white read and write observe the Sun and know all things yet swear lie get drunk only accepting yourselves so notably the Indian chief included equiano's in the category of white men and the advanced things that white men could do like read and what but he said that equiano's was different morally superior because he did not swear lie or drink so there was sometimes conflict in his dual identity as an Englishman an African we can also see the conflict between his dual

10:55 identity as African and Englishman in his encounters with other slave let me just tell you a story from one point in his life at one point when he's free when he's already free he encounters a young African slave boy and the young slave boy readily identifies equiano's as one of his own as a as a kinsman but equiano's is hesitant to acknowledge this and embrace the boy and wants to show how different and acculturated he was he might want to show off his privileged status of being free compared to the boy so this boys would have runs at him turned Acquia know at first turns away but then comes to embrace his African

11:42 identity let me read you the passage I was one day in a field belonging to a gentleman who had a black boy about my own size this boy having observed me from his master's house was transported at the sight of one of his own countrymen and ran to meet me with the utmost haste I not knowing what he was about turned a little out of my way at first but to no purpose he soon came close to me and caught hold of me in his arms as if I had been his brother though we had never seen each other before so what are we to make of that excerpt Acquia no is hesitant to embrace this stranger who embraces him as a brother

12:31 partially what equiano's is saying here well partially it's dealing with his privileges free but partially what Acquia no means to say here that the notion of a quote/unquote African identity was very complicated Africa was a vast continent with diverse languages diverse cultures diverse societies and to suggest that these two these two young men shared a bond merely because of their skin color or race was something that equiano's was not fully comfortable with he does embrace it but he's hesitant so as we discussed the notion of a pan korkin or african-american identity defined by race color was only a product

13:17 of slavery itself Africa was a continent not a country or nation and the notion of this African American identity defined by race was a product of the African Diaspora and the Middle Passage and you'll notice as we'll discuss later when he's writing about his home he really stresses the diversity of African cultures and not that all Africans are the same and necessarily brothers as we met in this excerpt so we these are some of the complicated issues that the autobiography talks about before we go any further and of course you have the excerpt from the autobiography I'm going to give you a brief account of his life ok now the this is this text here writes down some of the key date dates and

14:05 names and things so a lot of Acquia know was born an EVO that's the ethnic group in ethnic and language group in 1745 in the part of Africa that is now Southeast Nigeria but what was then the King Kingdom of Benin so right about here trying to show you on the map um so um he was born of high status for lack of a better term his father was a noble man and his father sat on the local Chiefs Council equiano's kidnapped at the age of 11 from his very happy home and first put

14:53 into domestic African slavery he's owned by a number of African owners fellow blacks and eventually after six or seven months he's taken to the coast sold to English slavers um who put him on the Middle Passage and transported him to Barbados in the West Indies and Virginia he's given he's renamed a lot of Acquia know was his birth African name but he's renamed different English names Michael and Jacob so he was first taken to Barbados but within a few days he was taken to Virginia and sold to a tobacco planter but a few months after that he

15:41 wasn't in Virginia long he was sold to a British naval officer named Michael Paschal who took him on a series of military adventures he his life as a slave is pretty unusual he gave him a new European identity he renamed him Gustavus Vassa Gustavus Vassa it was he was named after a famous Swedish king who liberated his country from Denmark so ironically this Swedish king was associated with fighting oppression and this name Gustavus Vassa was the name he usually used thereafter by choice in a spring 1757 Pascal took equiano's to

16:31 London and had his slave follow him into service wherever he went in the British Royal Navy so equiano's saw action with his master during the French and Indian War from 1756 to 1763 they had a pretty close relationship though he was fond of aqueon Oh Pascal became enraged by the assumption that that he would hold true to his promise that he would free Acquia know at the end of the war at one point he sort of makes this loose promise to free him and equiano's at his word he also seems to have been encouraged by the

17:18 common sailors on the ship who liked him additionally equiano's apparently won a great deal of prize money in boxing matches on the ship and he not only believed he was entitled to his freedom as his master promised but this prize money but his owner Pascal reneged on his promise the English sea captain sold him to a Quaker merchant Robert King in the West Indies and this is the next phase of his life eventually equiano's became the first mate on his master ship and after a about ten years he managed to buy his freedom through what was called

18:04 manumission or redemption he cleverly invested the stipend that he was given by his master and saved it and bought his own freedom now son Scott just to note some scholars have argued that the way that he obtained his freedom through manumission buying his own freedom purchasing his own freedom rather than through running away which illegal which was illegal sort of condone the slave system and the institution of slavery why well he was obtaining his freedom through the legal route purchasing himself rather than the more illegal illicit route of simply running away that's up for you to decide but in any

18:51 case he becomes a free man in 1766 by purchasing his freedom as I imagine he was a shrewd businessman and managed to save enough for this by painstakingly accumulating capital through trading ventures in the Caribbean and the u.s. on board his masters ship he purchases his freedom in 1766 however as I argued by purchasing his freedom freedom through the legal route of manumission rather than through the illegal route of escape in effect some scholars have argued that this move implicitly indirectly acknowledged the legitimacy of the institution of slavery in any case like any free black man a woman the

19:38 threat of reinstatement always lingered because of his skin color so this privileged status free but yet not as a free man he worked for his former employer as a free man Robert King for a while he made trading trips for him to Savannah Philadelphia other cities but he had a restless spirit and finally moved to London the next year in 1767 he was based in London but nonetheless spent most of his time on board ships he worked on commercial sailing vessels on voyages bound for the West Indies the Mediterranean he was quite well-traveled he travelled to Italy Turkey Greece in

20:27 1773 he joined an expedition to the North Pole where he actually almost died and then returned to London around 1773 he experienced a reconversion experience and became a convert to Methodism because of the sermons of George Whitfield just to clarify he had been baptized as a child but had a near-death experience at the North Pole and became obsessed with his spirituality and mortality and has the second religious awakening in 1773 again growing West Restless in London from 1775 to 76 he helped another former employer a ship

21:16 owner Charles Irving to develop a plantation in Central America this plantation was supposedly to be humane not cruel and equiano's act as buyer and overseer of the black slaves his fellow blacks however he quit this job within a year and was disgusted at the immortality and cruelty of his fellow workers so this is when he forever turns his back on any involvement with the slave it's moved with the slate the institution of slavery he quit his job in 1776 returned to London the next year from then on he became increasingly committed to the abolitionist cause he

22:02 was involved in the effort to resettle free blacks in in Africa and Sierra Leone and was also a critical abolitionist involved in efforts to end the British slave trade we'll talk about these details later even before he published this book the interesting narrative he publishes it in 1789 he would have been well known to readers as an outspoken colonist columnist letter writer in newspapers like writing letters to the editor where he took on racist and pro-slavery commentators by the way this is not the original edition the original edition was 1789 in 1792 in April he married a

22:51 white English woman who was named Susannah Cullen and they had two daughters this was something that obviously enraged racist commentators however his personal happiness did not last very long he lost both his eldest daughter and his wife not very long after he was married his oldest daughter died in 1797 and her mother had died a year and a half before that equiano's em self died in 1797 and when he did his youngest daughter Joanna inherited a pretty sizable fortune of about nine

23:36 hundred and fifty British pounds which is probably something like two hundred thousand dollars in today's money again very free very few free blacks were prosperous enough to even leave behind any will and he had a written will now before we go on there is come some considerable debate on the details of his narrative the dates of his baptism the date of his enslavement when he was taken to different places I'm not going to get into all of this but I will mention there is some scholarly questioning about the details of his birth some scholars have argued that there's actually evidence proving that he was born in South Carolina rather than Africa itself and that

24:24 equiano's or Gustavus Vassa vasa fictionalized this aspect of his identity he made up this story of being born in Africa in order to make his narrative more dramatic and compelling and supportive talk think about it the stakes of the question of slavery are much higher for someone born into freedom than someone born into slavery and accustomed to it it's not to condone it it just to say that it's different but for me I tend to believe that he was born in Africa because the ethnographic details of his early life are so vivid so colorful too vivid to have been

25:10 invented I think so the details of the narrative are too complex to list here we went over some basic facts about his life so when in the remainder of the lecture these are some of the themes that we will cover we will cover we've already talked about this his dual identity as Englishmen and African he sort of both insider and outsider to white culture he's fully accepts white British English culture that is to say dress education religion he doesn't have a formal education but he's we're very very well self educated extremely erudite so we'll look at this dual identity and the tension and conflict

25:57 between between them we'll look at his depiction of his early life in Africa and how he counters stereotypes of Africans as half as happy primitives will explain this his vivid account of the Middle Passage apologies for the typo there this is something that you would have read yourself in the excerpt and finally the way that this that the narrative autobiography is itself structured how the reader is gradually gradually led to the abolitionist cause the reader is gradually converted to abolition um so you have the account of the middle passage in your excerpt but you don't really have the story of his early life so let's start there

26:45 definitely equiano's resist reductive treatment of all Africans as the same or the idea of Africans as happy primitives so Equiano insists on the similarity of his own people the ebo people but basically he spends a lot of attention focusing on the cultural different differences of the different people he passes on his trip through West Africa to a slaving point simon port so again he focuses on the cultural differences of West Africans in language and customs and manners as he makes his journey from his homeland to the coast he did not

27:31 perceive the people that he met on his journey to the coast as fellow Africans or quote/unquote country myths but he perceived them as strangers with varying degrees of similarity to his own language and culture so in other words the diversity of cultures in West Africa was too great for him to generalize and such a broad African identity or African American identity was only possible for equiano's after his arrival on ashy slave ship and the shared experience of the Middle Passage so once again the notion of this african-american or racially based identity was itself the product of slavery and the African diaspora Africa is a vast continent full of different cultures and societies and

28:19 to generalize them is to not do these cultures justice another way of looking at this equiano's is very eager to counter stereotypes of Africans as ignoble savages or happy primitives now according to some European racist Africans enslavement Africans were happy primitives they were happy in their supposedly primitive state and their enslavement was actually better than their underdeveloped primitive state this is about this is an this is an intolerable racist argument but I'm just repeating what was thought by some at the time let me explain these ideas in European

29:04 culture the idea of the noble savage was the idea that primitive man had something Noble or desirable about him why primitive man had this these good qualities precisely because he was isolated from mainstream civilization and basically the idea was that the noble savage was simple innocent naive like a child but in a good or positive way he's not corrupt he's not ruined he's not he's unspoiled the noble savage is uncorrupted by materialism by politics our greed that's the noble savage so primitive man in a good life the ignoble savage is the opposite of that it's a primitive man a savage but

29:53 someone who was portrayed in a negative way who's simply savage and barbarian in a bad way aqueon oh definitely takes pains to paint his own culture according to the noble savage idea not the ignoble savage idea why much of the early literature on his native West Africa much of the early literature on West Africa was width' written by pro-slavery travelers or slave traders themselves and they represented African culture as completely uncivilized and completely dehumanized and they sort of painted the idea that new world slavery was actually

30:39 a blessing to these primitive people according to this stereotype Africans were indolent meaning lazy they were sinful and deceitful dishonest they lacked advanced technology and economic systems but they were happy in this primitive state so this horrible stereotype went also according to this stereotype both men and women were believed to be sexually lavishes meaning sexually loose very with it with a very hungry sexually sexual appetite but this sexual looseness lavishes especially applied to African women or perceptions of African women now of

31:25 course in retrospect this perception European perception of African women as lavishes probably was something that justified the way that European men exploited them similarly pro-slavery accounts offered evidence of African barbarism and savagery according to these stereotypes Africans supposedly practiced cannibalism they use torture and had other barbaric practices these early accounts of West Africa were vibrantly viral entrer sin sexist and would be revived at the end of the 18th century by pro-slavery forces when the slave trade was under attack to counter arguments of abolitionists in addition

32:12 we'll discuss this pro-slavery forces also used the existence of African domestic slavery to justify the Atlantic American slave trade but this is also something heck we honor refuse so therefore in light of this these stereotypes of Africans as happy primitives or ignoble savages aqueon o therefore takes pains to paint his own people as noble savages who led a simple but honourable way of life um let's uh let's actually mention his ideas on um domestic slavery although he does acknowledge domestic slavery to be although he does acknowledge domestic slavery to be a natural part of African

32:58 light African life in no way is the Masek slavery comparable to the horrors of american slavery he even goes so far as to portray domestic slavery in a quote-unquote positive light as compared to the horrors of American slavery but African slavery was different in African domestic slavery slaves were not regarded as chattel it's property they were not dehumanized they were treated like human beings they were not degraded but they were more or less treated like members of masters own families or households perhaps not quite full family members but at least members of the households African slavery was not

33:45 hereditary if your father is a slave that doesn't mean you you are African slavery was not hereditary or racially based and overall it was similar to conditions of slavery in classical Greece when fellow Greeks owned other Greeks and you know the physical physical conditions and brutality of slavery was nothing like the Atlantic slave trade fyo no definitely acknowledges that his people could benefit from European culture and advancement so he recognizes the superiority of English culture for instance although his people already grew Indian corn and tobacco the region

34:32 he thought could be more prosperous by growing other lucrative cash crops that were grown in the British American colonies but overall the picture that he paints of his homeland and childhood is one of idyllic simplicity with a simple way of life to be admired and he sort of paint a picture of his own people not unlike depictions of 18th century British PEZ peasants so simple simple but in an admiral umbral way he begins his narrative at the very beginning of his narrative he begins by declaring that if he were a European his life would be viewed as a great tragedy but among his countrymen he regarded him selves as called a particular favorite

35:19 of heaven so he's always split between these two aspects of his identity he was born to the ebo people in present-day Nigeria his village was called Sokka and he was born in 1745 so this is a little a little bit more detail than I gave you before he had never heard of white men or Europeans his father was a village elder and his father advised the village chieftain his father was given the title of in Brentt che was which was an ebow term meaning high distinction grandeur high social status his father was responsible for deciding disputes and meeting out justice by sitting on the village assembly this is

36:05 a noble status that acquire equiano's and his brothers would have inherited had they not been captured Eliana was the youngest among many brought brothers and as the youngest enjoyed a very close relationship with his mother who favored him um let's go back to the picture of echo know his people lived in simple housing complex is made of red earth each male head of household presided over a sort of housing complex in these housing complexes there were actually separate houses with living sleeping and visiting quarters for men and women and the main house was given to the male head of

36:51 household so you can say that they practice a sort of female seclusion women lived ate slept separately from the men all female members of the household ebo society was patriarchal ruled by men the main house was given to the male head of household nonetheless both women and men engaged in agriculture which was their chief occupation and warfare at one point in the narrative equiano's says that his people's hard work ethic their dedication made them some of the most desirable slaves to West Indian slave drivers

37:36 as I mentioned equiano's tries to paint a picture of his people as noble savages of heroic dignity he is very concerned to counteract stereotypes of African women as sexually loose or immoral he calls the women of his own people quote modest to a degree of bash bash boldness nor do I remember to have ever heard of an instance of incontinence amongst them before marriage so no premarital sex so basically he's saying that his women that the women of his tribe are not sexually lavishness they're not sexually loose they're very chaste they're very modest they practice strict seclusion in

38:23 his society adultery was very rare and female adultery was a serious crime punishable by death or enslavement so in fact female adultery was one of the very serious crimes so heinous like kidnapping that it could be awarded the judicial punishment of enslavement cimol similarly he sort of justifies the African male practice of polygamy it was acceptable to marry multiple wives but he sort of justifies the African male practice of polygamy by comparing it to Europeans British men it implicit acceptance of male adultery that is to say for British men it was okay for

39:09 upper class British married men to have an affair or kept woman on the side as long as it was quiet so similarly African men's polygamy was acceptable and he basically suggests that that African men only took two wives no more than they could support as he says the men do not preserve the same constantiy constancy to their wives which they expect from them for they indulge in a plurality though seldom in more than two and he means to he pride that he provides a vivid account of evil culture and everyday life he describes their dress as a piece of a long piece of calico or muslin wrapped

39:55 loosely around the body somewhat in the form of a Highland plat it was usually dyed blue our favorite color notice his comparisons to British culture he can play compares it to a Highland plaid a Scottish tartan women of high class status wards old jewelry and engaged in spinning and weaving cotton which they then dyed into beautiful patterns and made into clothing they also engaged in making pottery he describes their diet he says that they're not fond of overly decadent food so it's the noble savage ideas they ate poultry goats plantains yams beet Indian corn and they seemed it seasoned it with pepper and other spices

40:42 he definitely stresses the extreme cleanliness and piety of his people his people were especially known for their extreme cleanliness all of the time but especially insisting on carefully washing their hands before eating any meal which he says quote was an indispensable ceremony so after careful washing prayers and lebay shion's to the gods and ancestors would be made it was a custom that a small portion of drink would be pulled up poured out on the floor and a small amount of food would be tossed into a special place to nourish the spirits of departed ancestors so the symbolic offering to dead ancestors alcohol was unknown to

41:30 his people their principal beverage with palm wine music and dance was very important to the ebo identity as he writes quote we are almost a nation of dancers musicians and poets end quote every great event in the village like the return from a great battle was celebrated with a great communal dance with music accompanied by different types of ROMs and different instruments most different instruments like guitars and banjos in English terms dances were performed communally in different communal groups and the dances often re-enacted events from real life like military triumphs internal achievements

42:17 even sports or athletic events and therefore because they were informed by events in everyday life these communal dances were constantly changing and evolving four groups participated in the dance dancing by group first married men who usually incorporated scenes from war into their dance second the group of married women third the group of young unmarried men and fourth the group of young unmarried maidens in terms of military affairs the military operated as a sort of citizen militia all people could be called on even women at at any time quote on a certain signal such as

43:02 the firing of a gun at night they all rise in arms and rush upon his enemy his people use bows and arrows broad two-edged swords and javelins and guns that were obtained by trading with Europeans now I want to come to a very important part of this I want to talk about his kidnapping which leads us to his account of the Middle Passage but also his his portrayal of African domestic slavery equiano's narrative is notable for its quote/unquote positive or sort of positive portrayal of African

43:49 domestic slavery even at its absolute worst he basically says African domestic slavery is nowhere near the horrors of the Atlantic slave trade like the Middle Passage as he admitted describing the Middle Passage quote I would have freely parted with them all to exchange my condition without of the meanest slave in my own country basically what you said I would have given anything to have gotten out of that Middle Passage and become a slave in my own country even to the cruelest master let's talk about African domestic slavery first I didn't actually mention this equiano's had a very happy

44:36 childhood he was the youngest surviving male child there were a total of seven surviving surviving children the children who didn't die at birth and he was a youngest boy and enjoyed a very close relationship with his mother who doted on him totally but I didn't actually mention that equiano's own family his own father had domestic slaves slaves were also part of his household so he grew up with slavery African slavery was different enslavement in Africa was typically awarded as a judicial punishment for very serious crimes what equiano's called quote/unquote heinous crimes crimes like adultery kidnapping or murder African slavery was not racially

45:22 based or hereditary additionally African slaves had a status similar to servants they were embraced as members of the household and even to some degree members of the family um he describes the conditions of African slavery as completely different to that of slaves in the West Indian Indies in Africa slaves did no more work than other members of the family or community and they weren't necessarily assigned to degrading humiliating bad work different types of work skilled work their food clothing and lodging was nearly the same as their masters but they weren't fully equal they were still slaves they weren't they were not free they were not permitted to go home they were unequal

46:12 in different ways they weren't fully accepted as members of the family for instance they were typically not permitted to eat with their masters so um equiano's himself does farrance domestic slavery while he does try to want runaway from one of his African masters he actually felt so at home and welcomed by one of his other owners who was actually a woman a mistress that he almost forgot the conditions of his enslavement so by one by one of his African owners a woman he had a quote brother a boy who was almost his own age with whom he was best of friends and he was even allowed to eat with him in the family so conditions varied in any case equiano's

47:00 very happy childhood his close relationship with his mother was shattered when he was kidnapped at age eleven in addition to slavery as a judicial sentence for serious crimes African domestic slavery was dependent on warfare slaves were taken from among the prisoners of war among enemy villages so domestic slavery was dependent on warfare one and two kidnapping kidnapping for the commercial slave market the kidnapping occurred because of political rivalry between warring chieftains and also purely for profit aqueon Oh was taken in the latter way for profit because of the rise of slavery by kidnapping village families

47:47 were on the watch for their children when sometimes the adults of the village had to go leave and tend to the fields perform major agricultural tasks when that happened when the adults were gone children were commonly left at the home of a neighbor to supervise a few of the children would typically stand lookout high in a tree looking climbing to the top of a tree and then alert the adults call to them in the fields when the assailants came at gwion Oh in fact almost wit nap witnessed the kidnapping of his neighbor's children in such manner but he was standing guard in the trees and shouted to warn the adults in time but as he says in his autobiography but alas ere long it was my fate to be

48:33 thus attacked and to be carried off one none of the girl man were not so one-day-only equiano's and his only sister were left alone and three strangers two men and a woman managed to get into their yard this time no one was there to alert the adults the children were seized their mouths were stopped with cloth their hands were tied and eventually the terrified children were stuffed into sacks to keep them for script from screaming or being seen the kidnappers took shelter at the end of the day but both siblings refused eat and drink but both siblings refused food and drink quote equiano's quote the only comfort we had was being

49:19 in each other's arms all that night and bathing each other with our tears end quote the next morning at Quiana was pulled away from his sister despite his pleas and cries during his period of domestic slavery in Africa it's about 6 or 7 months he would be temporarily reunited with his sister later for just one night when they met by chance and their respective owners at the time allowed them to sleep next to each other just one more time but of course he never saw his sister his family again at we on Oak airf Alire accorded the landscape and the direction of the Sun in order to be able to retrace his steps and steal away to his father's house as he makes this six to

50:06 seven month journey to the coast he comments on the diversity of peoples that he passes he would pass through a series of African owners before being sold to English slave drivers on the coast at first he remarks quote that quote although I was a great many days journey from my father's house yet these people spoke exactly the same language with us unquote but gradually as he gets nearer to the coast eventually the people the the plants and animals become progressively different and foreign his first master was a goldsmith and his living and working conditions were typical of domestic slavery he was not subject to

50:52 dehumanizing labor he was allowed to leave the house and run errands he was treated relatively well he was treated like a member of the household but not quite a full member of the family for instance he was never allowed to eat at the Masters table he carefully observed the position of the Sun and how it changed since he had left his father's house and admitted in his autobiography quote I therefore determined to seize the first opportunity of making my escape and to shape my escape for I was quite oppressed and weighed down by grieved after my mother and friends my love of Liberty ever great was strengthened by the mortifying circumstances of not daring to eat with

51:38 a Freeborn children although I was mostly his companion so he's saying it's obviously quite missing his family his mother he had a love of Liberty and found it intolerable to not be treated as a family member he did steal away from his first master and managed to hide nearby in the woods however out of fear of retaliation by the master as well as poisonous snakes he returned to his master's home and was treated leniency so he passed through a series of masters over six to seven months in his journey towards the coast their circumstances of other masters of his other African masters varied one of his later mistresses treated him so well

52:24 that he forgot he was a slave he was best friends with the mistresses own child a boy his own age and was fully adopted into the family was permitted to eat with him but once again he was unexpectedly sold and this time landed up with people's on the coast at this point as he becomes close to the coast he'd be close to the coast Eliana begins to speak of the foreignness of the african peoples he encounters they did not circumcise their children like his people did and they did not value cleanliness in the same way they did not wash carefully before eating he also writes that their women were not so modest as his women they did not

53:09 practice female so cute clusion but the women ate drank and slept with their men the women were not as modest and sexually loose finally six to seven months after his initial kidnap equiano's arrived at the coast and was sold to English slavers at one of the so-called slave casuals this is a slave capsule from Ghana not where he was but just for illustrative purposes it was then that he declared that he wish he could trade places with the meanest African domestic slave ie the African slave who was treated the the worst now you read the excerpt about his description of the Middle Passage the

53:56 horrors of his description of the Middle Passage speak for themselves he described as a stench he describes the uncleanliness he describes the longing for death and suicide attempts by many of the slaves of course those who survived suicide were subject to even more cruel torture he describes the cruelty the sadism of the crew how they taunted the slaves with fishing fish that they caught from the sea but they throw the fish back into the sea at Quiana was quote/unquote lucky in the fact that he was young with a delicate Constitution and health and got to spend much of his time above deck in the fresh air of course when there was any threat

54:42 like slaves threatening to jump overboard or whatever the slave were forced below deck in reading the excerpt perhaps you noticed the author's voice the author's voice in the description of the middle passage seems noticeably childlike and somewhat naive night he conveys the perspective of an 11 year old child and conveys his astonishment and amazement in meeting a foreign culture like these Englishmen for instance he thinks that the Europeans are Devils he doesn't understand their hair color and skin colour he believes that they are cannibals that they will eat him which is I think a very interesting inversion of the idea that Africans were cannibals he marvels

55:29 at European technology and inventions that he's never seen and likens these things to magic that is to say how the ships move through some sort of magic or magical charm similarly he's afraid of the alcohol that he's offered after he faints on the ship this just to let you know this naive or childlike voice that he assumes is not typical of the rest of the narrative if you read the rest of the narrative he writes in the perspective of the educated Europeanized adults but I think he definitely assumes this voice to convey the horrors of the Middle Passage from a childlike perspective in order to make his case for abolition all the stronger well I'm not going to go

56:14 through the entire entire book but let's talk now about his later life so after his many adventures equiano's finally settled in London in the 1780s there he becomes very actively involved in the British abolitionist movement he published he published his autobiography in 1789 which became a best-seller and definitely it influenced anti-slavery legislation for instance it indirectly influenced the British ban on this transatlantic slave trade in 1807 the

57:02 British Parliament passed the slave trade Act which ended the transatlantic slave trade for Britain and its colonies to clarify that made the trade in slaves henceforth illegal in Britain and its colonies but it did not end the practice or institution of slavery itself it just made the trade in that slavery illegal equiano's was active with various anti-slavery trade groups and abolitionist groups he helped to publicize the song massacre we talked about that the big scandal where a ship basically deliberately killed the slaves and tried to claim insurance for

57:51 them as we mentioned early opponents of slavery in Britain included included Quakers but he was involved with various nondenominational groups he was a leading member of something called the Sons of Africa which was an abolitionist group led and led by free blacks like himself but he also cooperated closely with the Society for the abolition of the slave trade and this was a group that attracted mostly white reformers and would have attracted members of parliament and British politicians it was partially the financial support of fellow abolitionist and religious reformers that allowed him to publish this book very typical of the

58:38 18th century publishing world his book was sold on subscription meaning that a number of subscribers paid for the book in advance and this gave him funds to live on to write the book finish the book and names of the subscribers the subscribers were listed prominently in the front frontispiece of the book so you would announce your support for abolition by becoming a subscriber of this book in his late early years equiano's became involved in efforts to help free blacks and particularly poor blacks in england some of these free blacks in England were ex American slaves some of whom were freed by the

59:25 British for fighting to the British on the side of the British during the American Revolution there were about 20,000 free blacks living in London in the 1780s and as I mentioned some of these free blacks were blacks who had supported the British during the American Revolution and were henceforth freed he was instrumental in the efforts to resettle free blacks in a new British colony on the west coast of Africa it was to be called Freetown it is now Sierra Leone however aqueon Oh was eventually fired from his position in the new society because of the way he protested against the corrupt financial mismanagement of

1:00:11 the colony's white leaders he returned to London after being involved in Sierra Leone and basically settled into family life in the 1790s he married the English woman Susanna Cullen they settled in Cambridge and had two daughters he died a relatively prosperous man and listed himself as a gentleman so to close um we'll think about the the legless legacy of equiano's at the tone for future slave narratives like that of frederick douglass how he contributed to the ending of the slave trade in Britain and the colonies and this is a historical

1:00:56 plaque that commemorates him and the house in London where he lived when he wrote this book thank you very much