The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African Written by

About This Book

Published in 1789, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano is one of the earliest and most influential autobiographies by a formerly enslaved person. Equiano (c. 1745–1797), also known as Gustavus Vassa, recounts his kidnapping as a child from what is now Nigeria, the horrors of the Middle Passage, his years of enslavement in the Caribbean and North America, and his eventual self-purchase of freedom. The Narrative became a bestseller in its day and a powerful weapon in the British abolitionist movement. Equiano's vivid, literate account of his experience remains an essential primary source for understanding the transatlantic slave trade. The work is in the public domain.

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