Olaudah Equiano (; c. 1745 – 31 March 1797), known for most of his life as Gustavus Vassa (), was a writer and abolitionist. According to his memoir, he was from the village of Essaka, presumed to be in present-day southern Nigeria. He is also described as a native of the Eboe (Igbo) province in the 1791 4th edition of his book. Enslaved as a child in West Africa, he was shipped to the Caribbean and sold to a Royal Navy officer. He was sold twice more before purchasing his freedom in 1766.
As a freedman in London, Equiano supported the British abolitionist movement, becoming one of its leading figures in the 1780s. Equiano was part of the abolitionist group the Sons of Africa, whose members were Africans living in Britain. His 1789 autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, sold so well that nine editions were published during his life; it also helped secure passage of the British Slave Trade Act 1807, which abolished the slave trade in Britain. The Interesting Narrative gained renewed popularity among scholars in the late 20th century and remains a useful primary source.
According to his 1789 memoir, Equiano was born around 1745 in the village of Essaka (present day Isseke in southern Nigeria) He was the youngest of six surviving sons, and had a sister; their father owned many slaves. Equiano recounted an incident of an attempted kidnapping of children in his village, which was foiled by the bigger children. When he was around the age of eleven, he and his sister were left alone to look after their family premises, as was common when adults went out of the house to work. They were kidnapped and taken far from their home, separated and sold to slave traders. He tried to escape but was thwarted. After his owners changed several times, Equiano happened to meet with his sister but they were separated again. Six months after he had been kidnapped, he arrived at the coast, where he was taken on board a European slave ship. He was transported with 244 other enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to Barbados in the British West Indies. He and a few other slaves were sent on for sale in the British colony of Virginia.
Literary scholar Vincent Carretta argued in his 2005 biography of Equiano that the antislavery activist could have been born in colonial South Carolina rather than Africa, based on a 1759 parish baptismal record that lists Equiano's place of birth as Carolina and a 1773 ship's muster that indicates South Carolina. Carretta's conclusion is disputed by other scholars who believe the weight of evidence supports Equiano's account of coming from Africa. In Virginia, Equiano was bought by Michael Henry Pascal, a lieutenant in the Royal Navy. Pascal renamed the boy Gustavus Vassa after the 16th-century King of Sweden Gustav Vasa who began the Protestant Reformation in Sweden. Equiano had already been renamed twice: he was called Michael while on board the slave ship that brought him to the Americas and Jacob by his first owner. This time Equiano refused and told Pascal 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 used Equiano only 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. Equiano was present at the siege of Louisbourg in 1758, the Battle of Lagos in 1759 and the capture of Belle Île in 1761. Also trained in seamanship, Equiano assisted the crews of the ships he was on in times of battle as a powder monkey. Pascal favoured Equiano and sent him to his sister-in-law in Great Britain so that he could attend school and learn to read and write. Equiano converted to Christianity and was baptised at St Margaret's, Westminster on 9 February 1759. He was recorded in the parish register as "a Black, born in Carolina, 12 years old". 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. In December 1762 Pascal sold Equiano to James Doran, the captain of the merchantman Charming Sally, at Gravesend, Kent. Onboard Charming Sally, Doran took Equiano to the British colony of Montserrat, where he was sold to Robert King, a Quaker merchant from Philadelphia who traded in the Caribbean.
Robert King forced 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 (equivalent to £6,100 in 2025) he 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 1766. The merchant urged Equiano to stay on as a business partner. However, Equiano 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 enslavement.
By about 1768, Equiano had gone to Britain. He continued to work at sea, travelling sometimes as a deckhand based in England. In 1773 on the Royal Navy ship HMS Racehorse, he travelled to the Arctic in an expedition towards the North Pole. 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 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 met with George, the "Musquito king's son".
Equiano left the Mosquito Coast in 1776 and arrived at Plymouth, England, on 7 January 1777.
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 an attempt to influence parliament directly. Under the Test Act, only those prepared to receive holy communion according to the rites of the Church of England were permitted to serve as MPs. Equiano had been influenced by George Whitefield's evangelism.
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.
On 21 October 1785 he was one of eight delegates from Africans in America to present an 'Address of Thanks' to the Quakers at a meeting in Gracechurch Street, London. The address referred to A Caution to Great Britain and her Colonies by Anthony Benezet, founder of the Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage.
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, and many in the nobility subscribed to his book. His lectures and preparation for the book were promoted by, among others, Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon.
Entitled The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African (1789), the book 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 and had been published in Russia, Germany, Holland and the United States. It was the first influential slave narrative of what became a large literary genre although Equiano's experience was very different from that of most slaves; he did not participate in field work, he served his owners personally and went to sea, was taught to read and write, and worked in trading.