The Injustice Upon African Americans Slaves

Slavery was a practice throughout the American colonies in the 17th and 18th centuries, and through slavery, African-American slaves helped build the economic foundation of which America stands upon today, but this development only occurred with the sacrifice of the blood, sweat, and tears from the slaves that had been pushed into exhaustion by the slave masters. A narrative noting a lifetime of this history was the book The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African written by Olaudah Equiano. Equiano was a prominent African involved in the British movement for the abolition of the slave trade. He was captured and enslaved as a child in his home town of Essaka in what is now known as south eastern Nigeria, later he was shipped to the West Indies, he then moved to England, and eventually purchased his freedom (Equiano). Olaudah Equiano, with many other millions of slaves, faced many hardships and was treated with inconceivable injustices by white slave masters and because of the severity of these cruel and barbarous occurrences, history will never forget these events.

Equiano’s first major event marked in his life was when he and his sister were kidnapped from their country with the kidnapper’s intent of selling them as slaves. This was not an uncommon event for the children knew to be on the lookout for a “kidnapper, that might come upon us; for they sometimes took those opportunities of our parents' absence to attack and carry off as many as they could seize” (Equiano 128). Equiano and the populace of his country all lived with the fear of a child being taken from their home to never find their friends and family ever again. The kidnappings that occurred in Africa were wrong and noth...

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...eedom and take control of his life. Oppressed from slavery, many African Americans believed obtaining their freedom an impossible task. Olaudah Equiano found means to overcome injustice and achieve the life he desired.

Works Cited Page

Equiano, Olaudah . The Interesting Narrative of the life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, The African, Written by Himself. 9th ed. W.W. Norton &Company, Inc., 2000. 448. print.

Rosenbaum, Alan S. Is The Holocaust Unique?. 3rd ed. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 2008. 387. Print.

Kinsella, Kate , Colleen Stump, Joyce Carrol, Kevin Feldman, and Edward Wilson. The American Experience. California ed. Monrovia, California: Prentice Hall, 2002. print.

Klein, Herbert S. The middle passage: Comparative studies in the Atlantic slave trade. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press , 1978. 282. Print.