Slavery in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries consisted of brutal and completely unjust treatment of African-Americans. Africans were pulled from their families and forced to work for cruel masters under horrendous conditions, oceans away from their homes. While it cannot be denied that slavery everywhere was horrible, the conditions varied greatly and some slaves lived a much more tolerable life than others. Examples of these life styles are vividly depicted in the personal narratives of Olaudah Equiano and Mary Prince. The diversity of slave treatment and conditions was dependent on many different factors that affected a slave’s future. Mary Prince and Olaudah Equiano both faced similar challenges, but their conditions and life styles …show more content…
Mary Prince and Olaudah Equiano’s lives were very different because of the work they did. The work they were forced to do affected their physical and mental health, as well as their general quality of life. Many slaves in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries worked on huge plantations in the Americas, but there were also household slaves, and slaves who worked on ships as sailors. The conditions a slave faced were largely dependent on what kind of work they were doing. Olaudah Equiano spent most of his enslaved life as a sailor and was relatively lucky with the conditions he faced. While he had many terrible experiences, and often endured horrible conditions, because he was a sailor he was treated better than most slaves. Olaudah even acknowledges that his conditions were much better than most slaves. “I did all I could to deserve his favour, and in return I received better treatment from him, than I believe, any other, in my situation, ever met in the West-Indies”. For a slave living in his time, Olaudah had a better quality of life than most slaves. Even when he was sick, he was cared for and allowed to rest. Because he was better fed and better treated he was mostly physically healthy, which was not the case for Mary Prince. Even when Mary was incredibly ill, she was forced to work and continued to be beaten. She was overcome by several illnesses in her life and …show more content…
Christianity played a large role in both of their lives. They both looked to God to help them through dark times. They also both believed that their good fortunes were because of the Lord. Mary Prince admits that “if the Lord had not put it into the hearts of the neighbours to be kind to me, I must, I really think, have lain and died.” Olaudah Equiano also thanks God for his good luck. He recognized that he was luckier than most slaves and thanks God for this. “I had all the opportunity I could wish for to see the dreadful usage of the poor men- usage that reconciled me to my situation, and made me bless God for the hands into which I had fallen” . Both Mary and Olaudah found hope in Christianity that helped them survive the often horrendous conditions they
Olaudah tells the story of slavery from a different perspective; “Their complexions too differing so much from ours, their long hair, and the language they spoke, (which was very different from any I had ever heard) united to confirm me in this belief. Indeed such were the horrors of my views and fears at the moment, that, if ten thousand worlds had been my own, I would have freely parted with them all to have exchanged my condition with that of the meanest slave in my own country.” “I asked them if we were not to be eaten by those white men with horrible looks, red faces, and loose hair. They told me I was not.”
There are various things that make up a piece of literature. For example: choice of diction, modes of discourse, and figurative language. Mary Rowlandson and Olaudah Equiano were great examples of authors that used these elements of literature. There are similarities and differences in A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson and From Africa to America. Though Mary Rowlandson and Olaudah Equiano shared similarities in experiences, they had different writing personalities, purposes, attitudes, tones, and relations with their communities.
Olaudah Equiano in his Interesting Narrative is taken from his African home and thrown into a Western world completely foreign to him. Equiano is a slave for a total of ten years and endeavors to take on certain traits and customs of Western thinking. He takes great pains to improve himself, learn religion, and adopt Western mercantilism. However, Equiano holds on to a great deal of his African heritage. Throughout the narrative, the author keeps his African innocence and purity of intent; two qualities he finds sorely lacking in the Europeans. This compromise leaves him in a volatile middle ground between his adapted West and his native Africa. Olaudah Equiano takes on Western ideals while keeping several of his African values; this makes him a man associated with two cultures but a member of neither.
The History of Mary Prince is the story of the first female British slave to escape slavery. The book is told by Mary herself, and was used to help the anti-slavery movement. This book is the main source of information on Mary’s life, but there is no way to ensure that all of it is authentic. One should be aware of who truly had the control over this book, and how it may have affected whether or not all of the stories Mary had to tell got in. Without following the standard expected of her, she may not have ever been able to share her experiences like this. Mary Prince was able to convey her story of slavery to others by following the expectations set by the Antislavery Society, such as emphasizing Christianity, only including likable character
The story of Olaudah Equiano and his people went through a lot throughout the time of the 18th Century. Africans faced, “the part of Africa, known by the name of Guinea, to which the trade for slaves is carried on, extends along the coast above 3400 miles, from the Senegal to Angola, and includes a variety of kingdoms.” This is where it first started the business of slavery and selling and buying slaves for them to work for their owners. During this time men and women had to face different types of punishment from adultery and other types of reasons to put them to death, execution, but if the woman had a baby they were often spared to stay with their child. African’s displayed there different types of traditions through weddings, friends, public
To understand the desperation of wanting to obtain freedom at any cost, it is necessary to take a look into what the conditions and lives were like of slaves. It is no secret that African-American slaves received cruel and inhumane treatment. Although she wrote of the horrific afflictions experienced by slaves, Linda Brent said, “No pen can give adequate description of the all-pervading corruption produced by slavery." The life of a slave was never a satisfactory one, but it all depended on the plantation that one lived on and the mast...
More often than not, the authority on the ship and in the cities that Olaudah visited was vicious. The stories he shares of the slaves begging on the ships for the scraps and suffering from illness. The horror of it all heightens Olaudah’s desire to aid the fight to abolish slavery. Whether he was the one suffering from the abuse or he was witnessing it happen; his dream of men being equal to bring themselves closer to God was bright in his sight.
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.
influenced the perception of African Americans in England forever. He was taken from his home in Africa by slavers when he was young and separated from his family. However, he eventually bought his freedom and moved to England to affect the abolitionist movement there. Even though he had a rough start to his life, Olaudah Equiano rose above the hardships to had a great influence on the abolitionist movement and shed a light on the injustices of the slave trade.
The interesting narrative published in 1789 by Olaudah Equiano is an autobiography telling his experience as a captive in the transatlantic slave trade. Although the story is meant to entertain readers, it also furthered the cause of abolition. In the narrative of “The interesting life of Olaudah Equiano,” Equiano says that he is from South Carolina but through his description of Africa portrays it as his home. This is important because it shows a man struggling to reveal his true origin in order to go forth in fighting for a purpose and struggling to find within himself his true identity.
When reading a slave narrative it helps readers get an idea of the personal torment that slaves went through. No one will ever exactly know to the full extent of the hardships they faced. The authors of the slave narratives were writing them in hopes that word would spread of what they were going through, and their initial aim was for people of their time to know what was going on and to try and find a way to put an end to it. In Mary Prince’s narrative The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave she gives her readers a great look into the punishments she went through and punishments other slaves went through.
In 1745, Olaudah Equiano was born in a small village in Isseke,Nigeria. His father was one of the chiefs in the village. At age eleven Equiano and his sister were kidnapped by two men and a woman never to see his home or parents again. After being kidnapped he was hiked across part of Africa untill he arrived at the coast where he was loaded onto a slave ship. While crossing the Atlantic to Barbados onboard the slave ship he and his countrymen were subject to horrors you could hardly imagine. Equiano tells about the horrors and torture slaves face not only on the slave ship but also on plantations and many other aspects of a slave's life. Equiano experienced almost all parts of a slave's existence. He was a slave throughout Africa, England, and the New World. Equiano is bought and sold several times. Religion also played a huge role in Equiano's life and I think that it helped him get through some really hard times. He is bought by a British Naval officer and serves in the British Navy during the Seven Years' War. He is then sold to Robert King where he begins trading goods between islands and eventually makes enough money to buy his freedom. Equiano tells of the joy he feels when he becomes a free man. The rest of his life is devoted to helping slaves and to the cause of abolishing slavery.
Slavery is a term that can create a whirlwind of emotions for everyone. During the hardships faced by the African Americans, hundreds of accounts were documented. Harriet Jacobs, Charles Ball and Kate Drumgoold each shared their perspectives of being caught up in the world of slavery. There were reoccurring themes throughout the books as well as varying angles that each author either left out or never experienced. Taking two women’s views as well as a man’s, we can begin to delve deeper into what their everyday lives would have been like.
Religion, more specifically, Christianity can be seen throughout The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano. Religion plays a major role in Equiano’s remarkable journey; that of which can be seen through his personal experiences. Religion plays a significant role in his Narrative and his life overall as he undergoes a spiritual rebirth. This narrative shapes Equiano’s physical move from slavery to freedom and also his journey from sin to salvation.
In his autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, he begins with a detailed description of life in his homeland. He describes a culture that had a hierarchal, patriarchal system, not unlike that of Pocahontas’ tribe. There is an established government, with chiefs and judges, one of which, is his father. It is important to note that while Equiano states that he was slated to claim the status of “grandeur”, he never reached that point in his narrative before he was kidnapped and sold as but another slave in the Middle Passage. Thus, early life for Equiano, while perhaps better than some of his counterparts, was still of the same class, dictated by the governance of these socially superior figures. Similar to Pocahontas too, Equiano eventually regained a “free” status. But unlike Pocahontas who is still bound by the voyeuristic gaze of the men surrounding her, Equiano’s unfreedom stems from the social stigma and struggle of being non-white European. As he recounted during his time in the Barbados, “as I knew there was little or no law for a free negro here […].” The social intolerance of African people, while different in the Caribbean from in England or America, was still clear.