Adonis Diaries

“The passionate story of my life”: Who is Olaudah Equiano (1745-97). (Feb. 11, 2010)

Olaudah Equiano (1745-97) was a slave; he describes how he was shipped to be sold.  Equiano published his book in 1789 at the age of 44 while a free man and settled in London.  He was kidnapped in Nigeria and sold to the British American colonies; he travelled with his “master” across the American continent, worked as sailor before set free. Equiano became very influential in the abolitionism movement.

“The first sight when I reached the shore was the sea that I was seeing for the first time. A slave ship was shoring up.  A few sailors grabbed me and threw me in the air to check my good health. I quickly felt that I am in the hands of evil spirits.  I had the strong impression that I am to be eaten alive. The sailors had long hair, red faces, and talked in strange languages. Black slaves were in chains and the demeanor expressed anxiety, suffering, and total discouragement.

I lost consciousness and then the black people who brought me in to be sold for salary offered me an alcoholic drink that plunged me in great torpor. I was led beneath the ship deck and the stench made me sick: I could no longer eat or drink and refused what I was offered.  Consequently, sailors tied my legs and they whipped me crazy.  Since I never drank water I could not drink any water extended to me.  My life of slavery in the village was no where as cruel as my current situation.  A few slaves tried to jump overboard and they were punished harshly.”

Negro trades were undertaken in most of Africa. In central Africa, slave trades were done within the African tribes.  In western Africa slaves were first shipped to south USA (the ports of Charleston and New Orleans), to Central America (Havana), Venezuela, and Brazil (Bahia and Rio de Janeiro) and then shipped again to Europe to the ports of Lisbon, Cordoba, Liverpool, La Rochelle, Nantes, Le Havre, and Amsterdam. The main ports of shipments in western Africa were done in Goree (Senegal), Ouidah (Ivory Coast), Sao Tome, Benguela (current Luanda).

Slave trades from eastern Africa were done by Moslem tribes in the ports of Zanzibar, Mogadishu, Cairo, Tripoli (Libya), Alger, and Marrakech on their way to Jedda (Saudi Arabia), Muscat (Oman), and then toward the Middle East and Turkey.