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

Equiano was captured by African slavers near his home on the Niger River and sold into the transatlantic slave trade. He was purchased first by an officer in the British Royal Navy who taught him seamanship and navigation and later by a Quaker who helped him become more literate and allowed him to buy his freedom. Equiano’s subsequent work with William Wilberforce in the English abolitionist movement led him to write of his life as a slave in The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano. This work is one of the few detailed, first-person documents describing the life of soon-to-be slaves on the transatlantic routes.