![]() ![]() In 1789 he published his autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, the African, which told of his early life in Africa and his experiences of slavery. Olaudah Equiano eventually settled in London where he became involved in the movement to abolish slavery. He toured Britain, revealing the harsh realities of transatlantic slavery that many British people did not know about. During this time, he learned to read and write and, eventually, earned enough money to buy his freedom. Later, he was sold to a naval officer who, against Olaudah’s will, renamed him Gustavas Vassa. On eventually arriving in what is now Barbados he was sold to a plantation owner and forced to work as a slave. At the age of 11 he was kidnapped along with his sister, marched in chains to the coast and shipped across the Atlantic along with hundreds of other fellow Africans in inhumane conditions in the hold of the ship. ![]() Olaudah Equiano (c.1745 – 1797) was born in what is now known as Southern Nigeria. ![]() Its legacies are still felt across the world today. It allowed African men, women and children to be stolen from their homeland, bought and sold as property, and used to produce sugar, coffee, cotton and other goods for huge profit in the European and North American markets. Transatlantic slavery was a brutal system which lasted 300 years. ![]()
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