from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1745-1797)

1. *Considered the first great black autobiography from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1745-1797) • First African writer to reach a sizable American audience • Member of Ibo people in West Africa (Nigeria) • Eleven years old when kidnapped by African raiders • Separated from his sister • Traded numerous times • Put on slave ship as cargo to Barbados in the Caribbean (sugar • plantations) • Describes horrors of Middle Passage in narrative • Sold to military officer; given name “Gustavus Vassa” • Sold to Quaker merchant • Equiano purchased his freedom in 1766, after almost ten years of slavery • Worked as a sailor; settled in England and worked as a free servant, • musician and barber • Active in antislavery movement

2. Autobiography– a firsthand account of the writer’s own life. from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1745-1797) What do you learn about Olaudah Equiano’s family here? Does any of the information surprise you? “My father, besides many slaves, had a numerous family of which seven lived to grow up, including myself and a sister, who was the only daughter.”

3. Describe how Equiano and his sister were kidnapped. from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1745-1797) “…the children assembled…to play… and commonly some of us used to get up a tree to look for any assailant or kidnapper… for they sometimes took those opportunities … to attack and carry off as many as they could seize.”

4. How was Equiano treated by his captors and owners while he was a slave in West Africa? from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1745-1797) • Bound him, put him in a sack when he tried to yell • Offered him food…forced him to eat • Worked the bellows for his master • Carried by owners • Reunited with sister and allowed to hold her hand before • she was abruptly sold. “…indeed I must acknowledge, in honor of those sable destroyers of human rights, that I never met with any ill-treatment or saw any offered to their slaves except tying them…”

5. “…indeed I must acknowledge, in honor of those sable destroyers of human rights, that I never met with any ill-treatment or saw any offered to their slaves except tying them…” from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1745-1797)

6. How was Equiano treated by his captors and owners while he was a slave in West Africa? from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1745-1797) • Tinmah = a town in the most beautiful country in Africa • Mistress with son of similar age and size • Ate and drank before his owners=honor as eldest male • With them about two months; anticipated adoption “…and all their treatment made me forget that I was a slave.” • Awakened and sold to white men “The change I now experienced was as painful as it was sudden and unexpected…I had never before beheld … such instances of hardship and cruelty continually…”

7. Why was Equiano “handled and tossed up” by the crew after being taken on board? from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1745-1797) Why was Equiano afraid of the crew? “I was now persuaded that I had gotten into a world of bad spirits and that they were going to kill me. Their complexions too differing so much from ours,…the language they spoke (which was very different from any I had ever heard)…united to confirm me in this belief.”

8. from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1745-1797)

9. from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1745-1797)

10. from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1745-1797)

11. How did some Africans onboard the ship try to escape life in bondage? How might they be punished? from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1745-1797) Why do you think they made this choice? Describe the conditions during the Middle Passage. “…the stench of the hold…pestilential…” “…each had scarcely room to turn himself, almost suffocated us.” “…galling of chains…filth of the necessary tubs…” “…groans of the dying…” “rather than give any of them to us to eat…they tossed the remaining fish into the sea…” What do you think you would have done? Why?

12. from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1745-1797) Inferences – an educated guess based on what you already know and what you learn from reading a text.

13. Why did the ship’s crew keep Equiano on deck most of the time? from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1745-1797) What inferences did you make about Equiano’s beliefs about slavery and its relationship to the teachings of Christianity? Why might Equiano describe the flogging of a crew member?

14. from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1745-1797) What is the basic contradiction between the crew’s main goal and their treatment of the captives? What do you think accounts for depth of human cruelty described in parts of this autobiography?

15. Phillis Wheatley: A Revolutionary Woman(1753-1784) • Slave • Published first poem at thirteen • Poetry was praised by George Washington and Thomas Jefferson • Stolen from West African home at age seven or eight • Purchased by Wheatley’s of Boston • Educated her as well as any free person • Freed in 1773 • Married John Peters in 1778

16. Phillis Wheatley: A Revolutionary Woman(1753-1784) • Learned English in sixteen months • Mastered poetic forms and conventions of her time • Latinate vocabulary • Inversion • Elevated diction • First African American poet

17. from “To the Right Honorable William, Earl of Dartmouth, His Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for North America, etc.” (page 61) Phillis Wheatley: A Revolutionary Woman(1753-1784) • Inversion • End rhyme • Exact rhyme • Approximate rhyme (near or slant rhyme) • Couplets • Summarize the main idea of the poem

18. Why are Mr. Adae and others gathered in Coney Island on June 14? Honoring African Heritage • They gather “for a ceremony known as the Tribute to the Ancestors of the Middle Passage celebration… the ocean view represented a symbolic connection to their African ancestors’ voyages here.”

19. How many people are estimated to have died on this journey? Honoring African Heritage • “For four hundred years, millions of Africans were enslaved and transported across the Atlantic. Experts estimate tat one third died on their journeys.” • “…over thirty million people buried…” in the ocean according to Zala Chandler, professor at Medgar Evers College and event organizer.

20. Why does Mr. Adae say it is important for them to pay tribute to their ancestors? Honoring African Heritage • They gather “to regain a sense of pride.”