Christopher L. Bennett
World History II
The Interesting Narrative
and the Peculiar Institution:
Olaudah Equiano=s Views on Slavery
Through most of the history of agrarian societies, slavery has been an accepted institution. The Atlantic slave trade which began in the 1600s CE elevated (or lowered) slavery to unprecedented levels of cruelty, and thus over time turned world opinion against this ancient practice. One of the first efforts in the centuries-long campaign against slavery was The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, The African, the autobiography of a British subect who had spent many of his formative years as a slave. Born in the Ibo province of central Africa, Equiano was enslaved by fellow Africans in his childhood, around 1755, and shuffled through various owners before coming into European hands and being shipped to the West Indies. There, he worked briefly on a plantation before being sold to a British officer and commencing an active naval career during the Seven Years= War and after. Purchasing his freedom after eleven years of slavery, he continued his maritime career and became a keen proponent of Methodism. A fairly prominent African in English society, he became heavily involved in the campaign to abolish the Atlantic slave trade, and published The Interesting Narrative largely to promote this cause.
However, issues of slavery and racism dominate the Narrative far less than the modern reader might expect. The early chapters are packed with Hornblower-style adventures on the high seas, and the book ultimately turns out to be a religious biography pertaining more to the author=s quest for spiritual freedom than that for legal emancipation. The injustices he suffers as a slave and later as a free Afro-Briton are a running theme throughout the work, but are treated as formative experiences in Equiano=s spiritual growth.
Early on, Equiano describes the relatively benign conditions of slavery in his native region of Africa, wherein slaves lived much like any other people, even sometimes owning slaves of their own (pp. 39-40). Upon being initially enslaved, his main hardships were those of separation from his family and Athe mortifying circumstance of not daring to eat with the free-born children@ (pp. 48-9). (Equiano seems to forget that he was also free-born.) This changed when he fell into European hands, and endured the horrendous conditions of a trans-Atlantic slave ship and the unexpected cruelty of these exotic men (pp. 58-9).
This proved a mere interlude, however, for most of Equiano=s slavery was spent in the hands of relatively kind masters. Although Lt. Michael Pascal and Robert King, his two principal owners, obviously violated his rights routinely, and sometimes his trust as well (as when Pascal unexpectedly confiscated his wartime earnings and sold him off, pp. 93-4), they were not sadistic toward him, and he recalls them in his narrative with some fondness. His experience with the particular brutality of slavery in the West Indies came mainly at second hand, through witnessing the suffering of other slaves. Ironically, he seems to have found the life of a free African in the West Indies to be as bad as slavery, Aand in some respects even worse,@ due to the total lack of legal rights and protection afforded to Africans, and the routine harassments and thefts they suffered as a result. AIn this situation,@ he writes, Ais it surprising that slaves, when mildly treated, should prefer even the misery of slavery to such a mockery of freedom?@ (p. 122)
Equiano=s position seems to be less anti-slavery than anti-cruelty. He decries the trade in slaves, seeing it as both a contributor to and a consequence of the brutal treatment of slaves. His argument is that forcing slaves to live in subhuman conditions and working them to death necessitates the constant importation of new slaves, perpetuating the abduction of innocents and the lengthy, overcrowded sea voyages which kill thousands. He cites examples of humane slave-owners who treat their possessions Awith lenity and proper care, by which their lives are prolonged, and their masters are profited@ (pp. 105-6). Rather than arguing that slavery is fundamentally wrong, he is instead condemning the abuse of the institution, an abuse which he sees not only as inhumane but as economically unsound. During his own enslavement, as long as he was treated well he accepted the validity of his masters= claim to his person. He did desire freedom, but believed that Ait should be by honest means@ (p. 125), specifically by earning enough money to meet the price assigned to his life.
What Equiano does actively condemn is racial bigotry. He admits what he calls Athe apparent inferiority@ of Africans, but argues that this results from their Asituation,@ their lack of exposure to European learning and culture. ALet the polished and haughty European recollect that his ancestors were once, like the Africans, uncivilized,@ he writes, Aand even barbarous@ (p. 45). He proposes that treating Africa as a partner in commerce rather than a source of work animals would bring more profit, for civilization would bring population growth and prosperity to the Africans, who would thus evolve into a rich consumer base for Europe (pp. 232-5). Clearly he accepts the primacy of European and British culture, but also believes that Africans are just as fit to participate in that culture as are its originators. This vision of England elevating the rest of humanity to its level of civilization intriguingly foreshadows the philosophy which Britain would later use to justify its Empire. And like those later imperialists, Equiano does not appear to see universal rights and freedom as a necessary condition for that ideal.
Still, sometimes Equiano=s rhetoric seems to slip past the limits of his own professed philosophy. He condemns cruelty and hate rather than enslavement per se, and for the most part seems to feel that slavery is acceptable as long as it is humane. But sometimes he goes farther, speaking for instance of Abreaking the yoke of slavery@ (p. 225). He states at one point that the slave trade Aviolates that first natural right of mankind, equality and independency, and gives one man a dominion over his fellows which God could never intend!@ (p. 111) These words reject the validity of any human=s claim of ownership over another, yet Equiano does not quite seem to realize what he is saying, to follow where his own words lead and openly condemn enslavement in any form. Perhaps he is shaping his argument to his audience, aware that too radical a position would alienate potential support. Or perhaps having lived his entire life in cultures where slavery was normative left Equiano with a blind spot. Perhaps he sensed in his heart that the institution was wrong, but was unable to recognize this intellectually because slavery was too much a part of his lifelong cultural assumptions. Equiano believed himself, by the time he wrote his Narrative, to have gained the freedom of both his body and his soul. But there were some impediments he apparently never managed to escape. Habit and preconception can be the most difficult shackles of all to break, for too often we fail to recognize that they are even there.
Bibliography
Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative and Other Writings, ed. Vincent Carretta. New York: Penguin Books, 1995.