Olaudah Equiano

A native of what is now Nigeria, Olaudah Equiano was born about 1745. At the age of ten, he and his sister were captured by thieves in search of marketable property—ablebodied children. He then experienced what later writers called the "Middle Passage," the horrific journey across the Atlantic Ocean, in which African captives were chained belowdecks for weeks before reaching their destination in the slave markets of North America.

After being granted his freedom in 1766, Equiano traveled all over the world, from North America to the Mediterranean to the Arctic Ocean. He took part in planning the first expedition of freed slaves to resettle in Africa in 1787. He also spoke throughout the colonies and in Great Britain for an end to slavery. He set down his experiences in his autobiography, which was first published in 1789—one of the earliest...