Early Life and Enslavement
According to his own account, Olaudah Equiano was born in 1745 to the Igbo people in the region now known as Nigeria. The youngest son, he had five brothers and a younger sister. When he was eleven, he and his sister were kidnapped and sold to native slaveholders. After changing hands several times, Equiano was taken 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, from where he and a few others were soon transferred to the British colony of Virginia. Literary scholar Vincent Carretta argued in a 2005 biography that Equiano was born in colonial South Carolina, not in Africa.
He was bought 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.
Equiano wrote in his narrative that domestic slaves in Virginia were treated cruelly, suffering punishments such as an "iron muzzle" (scold's bridle), used around the mouth to keep house slaves quiet, leaving them unable to speak or eat. He thought that the eyes of portraits followed him wherever he went, and that a clock could tell his master about anything Equiano did wrong. Shocked by this culture, Equiano tried washing his face in an attempt to change its color.
As the slave of a naval captain, Equiano was trained in seamanship and traveled extensively with his master. This was during the Seven Years War with France. Although Pascal's personal slave, Equiano was expected to assist the crew in times of battle; his duty was to haul gunpowder to the gun decks. Pascal favored Equiano and sent him to his sister-in-law in Great Britain, to attend school and learn to read.
At this time, Equiano converted to Christianity. His master allowed Equiano to be baptized in St Margaret's, Westminster, in February 1759. Despite the special treatment, after the British won the war, Equiano did not receive a share of the prize money, as was awarded to the other sailors. Pascal had promised his freedom, but did not release him.
Pascal sold Equiano to Captain James Doran of the Charming Sally at Gravesend, from where he was transported to Montserrat, in the Caribbean Leeward Islands. He was sold to Robert King, a Quaker merchant from Philadelphia who traded in the Caribbean. Pascal had instructed Doran to ensure that he sold Equiano "to the best master he could, as he told him I was a very deserving boy, which Captain Doran said he found to be true."
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