Excerpts from Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African (1789)

Introduction: Olaudah Equiano, born in 1745 in what is now Nigeria, was a central figure in the 18th-century movement to end the Transatlantic Slave Trade. His experiences in British colonial North America began in early 1757, when he was brought to Virginia as an enslaved child. After working briefly on a plantation “weeding grass and gathering stones,” he was purchased by a British naval officer and spent the next several years traveling the Atlantic. From 1763 to 1766, Equiano returned to the American colonies, working primarily out of Philadelphia for a Quaker merchant named Robert King. During these years, he frequently traveled to Georgia and South Carolina, where he witnessed the brutal treatment of other enslaved people and faced personal threats of kidnapping, all while trading small goods to save money for his eventual freedom. Below are two short excerpts from Equiano’s book about his experiences while enslaved, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African, which became an immediate bestseller upon its publication in 1789.

On the meaning of his name given at birth, Olaudah:

“[O]ur children [where I come from] were named from some event, some circumstance, or fancied foreboding at the time of their birth. I was named Olaudah, which in our language signifies…fortunate; also, one favoured, and having a loud voice and well spoken.” 

On having his name officially changed by his enslaver:

“While I was on board this ship, my captain and [enslaver] named me Gustavus Vassa. I at that time began to understand [my enslaver] a little, and [so I] refused to be called so, and told him as well as I could that I would be called Jacob; but he said I should not, and still called me Gustavus; and when I refused to answer to my new name, which at first I did, it gained me many a cuff [i.e., beating]; so at length I submitted and was obliged to bear the present name, by which I have been known ever since.” 

_________________________ 

Source: Equiano, Olaudah. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. Written by Himself. 1789. Electronic edition. Pg. 31; 96. Documenting the American South, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1996, docsouth.unc.edu/neh/equiano1/equiano1.html.