Analysis W7: The Life of Olaudah Equiano

Simply Human 

How could there be any justification of the ownership of a human being? I never understood how anyone could justify the inhumane treatment of another human being.  Growing up I would hear and read about such justification: It was God’s divine plan, Africans were naturally inferior to whites because they did not, rather than could not, possess European ingenuity. Somehow, a group of Europeans had convinced themselves and their race that Africans were unhuman, perceived as poor benighted creatures in need of saving.  Yet they were beaten, hung, raped, and enslaved. The autobiography of Olaudah Equiano demolishes, as if it was ever fact, their erroneous claims in a brilliant fashion. 

Africans were ignorant to the European language, religion, manners, and customs but they were far from being an uncivilized race of people. They were not educated in the western culture, nor did they need to be for their way of life. In the same matter, Europeans had forgotten that their ancestors were once, like the Africans, uncivilized, and even barbarous, because their way of life differed from their children (86). Yet, it did not make them inferior nor forced them to serve as slaves to their future generations. The author further ridicules the notion that the lack of understanding is confined to feature of color (86). Being untaught in a matter does not make one stupid, barbaric, or inferior. As a matter of fact, the author enlightens his readers of the culture, customs, and roles of his country, which was opposite from the Europeans oblivious delineation. Equiano informs his readers that the only distinctions between European and African culture was luxury and wealth. “As our manners are simple, our luxuries are few”, “in such a state is of little use; however, we have some small pieces of coin, if I may call them such. They are made something like and anchor; but I do not remember either their value or denomination” (79,80). Equiano connects us with the humaneness of the people in Guinea pre-slave trade by describing their government, wedding ceremonies, sufficiency in architectural designs, clothing, agricultural/domestic employment, family traditions, armies, and African etiquette's. They were a community of selfless people of high morals, “Agriculture is our chief employment’ and everyone, even the children and women, are engaged in it. Thus, we are all habituated to labor from our earliest years. Everyone contributes something to the common stock; and as we are unacquainted with idleness, we have no beggars” (81).  Equiano also introduces the notion of slavery in his story, however interposes that slavery is a type of punishment for a crime or being a prisoner of war. In doing so, he attacks the contention that Africans’ enslaved their own people to begin with, while emphasis the vast differences between their treatment of slaves in comparison to the European slave trade. “with us they do no more work than other members of the community, even their masters; their food, clothing, and lodging were nearly the same as theirs, (except that they were not permitted to eat with those who were free-born); and there was scarce any other difference between them, than a superior degree of importance which the head of a family possesses in our state, and that authority which, as such, he exercises over every part of his household. Some of these slaves even have slaves under them as their own property and for their own use” (82). They treated their slaves with common decency, acknowledging that they were deserving of being treated as a human-being despite their crime or servanthood position. 

In conclusion, the story of Equiano is not just a slave narrative, but the author’s attempt to humanize Africans’ to an audience who might be ignorant and desensitized due to the suffering of Africans due to them being depicted as less than human.

Equiano. Olaudah“The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, the African” The Norton Anthology World Literature. Martin Puchner. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2012. 73-98. Book.