Olaudah Equiano And The Middle Passage

The Middle Passage was one part of the triangular trade that developed across the Atlantic Ocean. Slaves were involuntarily taken from Africa, loaded onto ships, then brought to the Americas where they were exchanged for goods. The deplorable conditions of such ships often led to revolts and suicides. Olaudah Equiano, a former slave, recounted the horrors of the Middle Passage in his autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano. Equiano’s harrowing account sheds light on the evils of the Middle Passage, and conveys his condemnation of the passage and the mistreatment of African Americans as a whole.

A growing economy and the gradual normalization of racism didn’t bode well for African Americans like Equiano. White colonists began to view “race-based

He was only eleven years old when he was captured, reflected in how he thought the ship functioned, “The white men had some spell or magic they put in the water...in order to stop the vessel” (Equiano, p.3 l. 90-91). The belief also signifies how he viewed himself as inherently different from the whites. Despite his age, he was still punished just as severely as the adults. It is a testament to the ruthlessness of his captors, who did not care who they were punishing - man, woman, or child. Equiano cited one instance when his age somewhat played into his favor, when he wasn’t chained by the ankles due to his “extreme youth” (Equiano, p.3 l. 115). Nevertheless, his last observation of families being separated directly condemns slavery. He states it in a calculating manner, “without scruple...relations and friends [are] separated, most of them never to see each other again” (Equiano, p.4 l. 161-162): analyzing how slaves, after seemingly enduring the brunt of mistreatment, have to deal with a difficult