During a great part of the 17th century in the colonies, blacks were sold in to de facto slavery. Slavery had still not been officially implemented, as many colonists were skeptical of populating their newly settled lands with people who they viewed so negatively. Ronald Takaki writes in his book, A Different Mirror, the first Africans who were brought to Virginia “had probably been captured in wars or raids by enemy tribes before they were sold to the Dutch slaver. Their ordeal must have been similar to the experience of Olaudah Equiano” (Takaki 53).
In another one of his books, A Larger Memory, Takaki includes Equiano’s narrative. The narrative was written by Olaudah Equiano himself, after he was able to buy his own freedom from slavery. His story tells of being taken by force from his home in Africa during the mid-18th century and the grueling voyage by sea to his eventual home in America where he was sold, de jure, in to slavery. His account paints a vivid picture of the abuse he and his fellow captives endured during their voyage and the pestilent environment to which they were subjected. On describing his captors, Equiano wrote that “the white people looked and acted, as [he] thought, in so savage a manor; for [he] had never seen among any people such instances of brutal cruelty…” (40). For Equiano, the trip was strange and horrifying, not to mention his captors seemed to be endowed with magical powers. He described the conditions on the ship as being so hopeless that some chose to jump overboard to their deaths rather than endure the trip which was leading them to their frighteningly unknown fates. At first Equiano feared that the white men were going to eat him; then he learned that they were instead being taken to a far away land where they would work for the white men. Upon hearing this, Euqiano was slightly relieved.
As we become further and further removed from the times of slavery, it becomes too easy to forget the atrocities that so many endured while in slavery’s grips. Reading Equiano’s account of being forced from his home to bondage is a real eye-opener and is an important reminder of our not-so-distant past.
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It is pretty scary to think about children as young as Equiano suffered through the horrors of slavery and the passage to America. I cannot even imagine what it would be like to be cramped in a small area with tons of others and not have room to move or get away from the sickness or the bodily fluids of others. In A Larger Memory, Equaino mentioned, “I received such a salutation in my nostrils as I had never experienced in my life; so that with the loathsomeness of the stench, and crying together, I became sick and low that I was not able to eat, nor had I the least desire to taste any thing” (Takaki 39). If you watch the movie, Amistad, it gives you a visual of what it was actually like to travel the Middle Passage across the Atlantic as an African slave during the slave trade.
There’s also an interesting film about the life of abolitionist Wilberforce who was involved in the movement in England along with Equiano. His narrative was written to engage the passions of English in opposition to slave trade and slavery. His personal experience was recast as a political treatise. He shapes his story in to a powerful tool to use much like Urrea uses the stories of the “walkers” to highlight the problems of the border.