He was a merchant(A proud Igbo business man like his kin of today).Olaudah Equiano (c. 1745 – 31 March 1797),known in his lifetime as
Gustavus Vassa (/ ˈvæsə/ ),was a prominent African in London , a freed slave who supported the British movement to end the slave trade. His autobiography, published in 1789, helped in the creation of the Slave Trade Act 1807 which ended the African trade for Britain and its colonies.
Since the late 20th century, there has been some debate on his origins, but most of his account has been extensively documented.His last "owner" was Robert King, an American
Quaker merchant who allowed Equiano to trade on his own account and purchase his freedom in 1766. Equiano settled in England in 1767 and worked and traveled for another 20 years as a seafarer, merchant, and explorer in the Caribbean, the Arctic, the American colonies, South and Central America, and the United Kingdom.
In London, Equiano (identifying as Gustavus Vassa during his lifetime) was part of the Sons of Africa, an abolitionist group composed of prominent Africans living in Britain, and he was active among leaders of the anti-slave trade movement in the 1780s. He published his autobiography,
The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789), which depicted the horrors of slavery. It went through nine editions and aided passage of the British Slave Trade Act of 1807 , which abolished the African slave trade.Since 1967, his memoir has been regarded as the "true beginning of modern African literature".
As a free man, Equiano had a stressful life; he had suffered suicidal thoughts before he became a born-again Christian and found peace in his faith. After settling in London, Equiano married an English woman named Susannah Cullen in 1792 and they had two daughters. He died in 1797 in London; his gravesite is unknown. Equiano's death was recognized in Britain as well as by American newspapers. Plaques commemorating his life have been placed at buildings where he lived in London. Since the late 20th century, when his autobiography was published in a new edition, he has been increasingly studied by a range of scholars, including many from his supposed homeland of Nigeria.
Early life and enslavement
Equiano recounted an incident when an attempted kidnapping of children was foiled by adults in his villages in
Igboland , West Africa. When he was around the age of eleven, he and his sister were left alone to look after their family's compound, as was common when adults went out of the house for work. They were both kidnapped and taken far away from their hometown of Essaka, separated, and sold to slave traders . After changing hands several times, Equiano met his sister again, but they were separated and he was taken over a large river to the coast, where he was held by European slave traders.He was transported with 244 other enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to Barbados in the West Indies .He and a few other slaves were sent on to the British colony of Virginia. Literary scholar Vincent Carretta argued in his 2005 biography of Equiano that the activist may have been born in colonial South Carolina rather than Africa based on Carretta's discovery of a 1759 parish baptismal record that lists Equiano's place of birth as Carolina and a 1773 ship's muster that indicates South Carolina.A number of scholars agree with Carretta, while his conclusion is disputed by other scholars who believe the weight of evidence supports Equiano's account of coming from Igboland .
In Virginia, Equiano was bought in 1754 by Michael Pascal, a lieutenant in the
Royal Navy . Pascal renamed the boy as "Gustavus Vassa," after the Swedish noble who had become Gustav I of Sweden , king in the 16th century.Equiano had already been renamed twice: he was called Michael while on the slave ship that brought him to the Americas; and Jacob, by his first owner. This time Equiano refused and told his new owner that he would prefer to be called Jacob. His refusal, he says, "gained me many a cuff" – and eventually he submitted to the new name.He used this name for the rest of his life, including on all official records. He only used Equiano in his autobiography.
Pascal took Equiano with him when he returned to England, and had him accompany him as a valet during the
Seven Years' War with France. Also trained in seamanship, Equiano was expected to assist the ship's crew in times of battle; his duty was to haul gunpowder to the gun decks. Pascal favoured Equiano and sent him to his sister-in-law in Great Britain, so that the youth could attend school and learn to read and write.
At this time, Equiano converted to Christianity. He was baptized in St Margaret's, Westminster , in February 1759. His godparents were Mary Guerin and her brother, Maynard, who were cousins of his master Pascal. They had taken an interest in him and helped him to learn English. Later, when Equiano's origins were questioned after his book was published, the Guerins testified to his lack of English when he first came to London.
Pascal sold Equiano to Captain James Doran of the Charming Sally at
Gravesend , from where he was transported back to the Caribbean, to
Montserrat , in the Leeward Islands . There he was sold to Robert King, an American Quaker merchant from
Philadelphia who traded in the Caribbean.
Release
Robert King set Equiano to work on his shipping routes and in his stores. In 1765, when Equiano was about 20 years old, King promised that for his purchase price of 40 pounds (worth £6000 in the present day), the slave could buy his freedom.King taught him to read and write more fluently, guided him along the path of religion, and allowed Equiano to engage in profitable trading for his own account, as well as on his owner's behalf. Equiano sold fruits, glass tumblers, and other items between Georgia and the Caribbean islands. King allowed Equiano to buy his freedom, which he achieved in 1767. The merchant urged Equiano to stay on as a business partner, but the African found it dangerous and limiting to remain in the British colonies as a freedman.While loading a ship in Georgia, he was almost kidnapped back into slavery.
Freedom
By about 1767, Equiano had gained his freedom and went to England. He continued to work at sea, travelling sometimes as a deckhand based in England.In 1773 on the British Royal Navy ship Racehorse , he travelled to the Arctic in an expedition to find a northern route to India.On that voyage he worked with Dr. Charles Irving, who had developed a process to distill seawater and later made a fortune from it.Two years later, Irving recruited Equiano for a project on the
Mosquito Coast in Central America, where he was to use his African background and Igbo language to help select slaves and manage them as labourers on sugar cane plantations. Irving and Equiano had a working relationship and friendship for more than a decade, but the plantation venture failed.
Equiano expanded his activities in London, learning the French horn and joining debating societies, including the
London Corresponding Society . He continued his travels, visiting Philadelphia and New York in 1785 and 1786, respectively.
Pioneer of the abolitionist cause
Equiano settled in London, where in the 1780s he became involved in the
abolitionist movement. The movement to end the slave trade had been particularly strong among Quakers, but the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade was founded in 1787 as a non-denominational group, with Anglican members, in order to directly influence parliament. At the time, Quakers were prohibited from being elected as MPs. Equiano had become a
Methodist , having been influenced by
George Whitefield 's evangelism in the New World.
As early as 1783, Equiano informed abolitionists such as Granville Sharp about the slave trade; that year he was the first to tell Sharp about the Zong massacre , which was being tried in London as litigation for insurance claims. (It became a cause célèbre for the abolitionist movement and contributed to its growth.
Equiano was befriended and supported by abolitionists, many of whom encouraged him to write and publish his life story. He was supported financially in this effort by philanthropic abolitionists and religious benefactors. His lectures and preparation for the book were promoted by, among others,
Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon .
Memoir
Plaque at Riding House Street, London, noting the place where Equiano lived and published his narrative.
Entitled The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African (1789), the book rapidly went through nine editions in his lifetime. It is one of the earliest-known examples of published writing by an African writer to be widely read in England. By 1792, it was a best seller: it has been published in Russia, Germany, Holland, and the United States.
http://www.google.com.ng/url?q=https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olaudah_Equiano&sa=U&ved=0ahUKEwiAq4vPmJ3TAhVF0xoKHR17CNUQFggUMAI&usg=AFQjCNEoU2e6IkaJgda3tsGYQMExTdTzAw

First ever known by whom? Oyibo people? Lol

Afam4eva:
First ever known by whom? Oyibo people? Lol

it was because of people like him your ancestors were not sold into slavery..

ikeadewole:

it was because of people like him your ancestors were not sold as slaves...

So, we were not sold as slaves? That's good news

Interesting read

Afam4eva:
First ever known by whom? Oyibo people? Lol

First ever igbo man known from...Europe-carribean-South america-North America.

Great man

Tomorrow will be about the 5th president of Liberia a proud Igbo man..