Freedom Of Action In Olaudah Equiano's The Life Of Gustavus Vassa

In this historical analysis, the concept of “freedom of action” will be analyzed in relation to the Japanese Edict of Closure 1635, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789), and in Olaudah Equiano’s The Life of Gustavus Vassa (1745). The concept of freedom of action will define individuals and nations were able to do what they wanted do as a form of preservation of individual or collective identity. In 1635, the Edict of Closure was meant to preserve the individual rights of citizens to preserve the Japanese culture by preventing any type of imperialistic European/foreign influence. This early form of collective cultural identity defines a governmental opposition to influence of Christianity and other forms of imperialistic

Much like the Japanese, the racial values of white European colonialism/imperialism had reduced people of color to slaves or servants without human rights, citizen rights, or an individual identity. More specifically, Equiano identifies the power of a ship captain named, Henry Pascal, that gave him the European name Gustavus Vassa because he was considered his “property.” However, Equiano was a high level servant on Pascal’s ship, so he did not lose his identity as many other salves had done: “It was very common in several of the islands, particularly in St. Kitt 's, for the slaves to be branded with the initial letters of their master 's name” (Equiano p.4). This form of individual identity is part of the struggle against freedom of action, which gave Equiano a surname (ala. Vassa) that would enable him greater freedom than other slaves in European society: “Many slaves never graduated to possessing surnames, which also hampers secure identification” (Earle and Lowe 5). This is one way in which Africans were denied their original identity, which is not unlike the Christian missionary conflicts that sought to eliminate Japanese identity through a European colonial context. However, Equiano 's freedom was not based on a collective preservation of identity through governmental representation, but through the individual desire to move freely amongst European and non-Europeans as a free man. In this manner, the slow evolution towards a more universal freedom was being identified through the oppression of slavery, which Equiano sought to achieve (like the Japanese ) from European colonialism and imperialistic