Journal for Equiano

"Equiano's personal account of slavery and of his experiences as an 18th-century black immigrant caused a sensation when published in 1789. The book fueled a growing anti-slavery movement in England." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olaudah_Equiano

"Their complexions, differing so much from ours, their long hair and the language they spoke, which was 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 of my own country. When I looked around the ship and saw a large furnace of copper boiling, and a multitude of black people of every description chained together, every one of their countenances expressing dejection and sorrow, I no longer doubted my fate. Quite overpowered with horror and anguish, I fell motionless on the deck and fainted. When I recovered a little, I found some black people about me, and I believe some were those who had brought me on board and had been receiving their pay. They talked to me in order to cheer me up, but all in vain. I asked them if we were not to be eaten by those white men with horrible looks, red faces and long hair. They told me I was not." (Equiano, p. 683)

This paragraph reminded me of all the countless images that have been created in the Western mind, through various forms, from novels and stories and cartoons to films and even humorous commercials, of Africans as cannibals. The innocent white men have been captured in deepest darkest Africa, they are in a big pot suspended over a raging fire, surrounded by frightening and incomprehensible savages who are preparing to eat them. This piece of writing from Equiano's autobiography takes that image and turns it on its head, where it belongs, and shows us exactly who was barbarously terrorizing whom. It is like the image of the black man as a sexual menace to the white woman, whereas it was the black female who was at the mercy of the white master.

Equiano's narrative shows the horrors of slavery through the innocent eyes of a cherished and happy child who is plucked away from his family, and carried further and further into an unimaginable and incomprehensible world of increasing terror and despair. His description of the Middle Passage is particularly horrific and unforgettable. It is no wonder that this book was instrumental in the success of the abolitionist movement in England.