Week 5: Equiano’s Audience and Abolition

    It is true that Olaudah Equiano often argued for slavery to be more humane, but I do believe that ultimately, he aimed to abolish slavery. It’s important to recognize what the audience is for this autobiography. As the opening letter “My Lords and Gentlemen” that we read in class displays, Equiano treats this narrative as almost a conversation with the reader, of which would mostly be white, English citizens. He prefaces his words many times so as to not offend anybody, knowing full well that he would otherwise likely be immediately disregarded for his race as he has been throughout his entire life. Additionally, some of the slave owners and people he runs into treat him nicely compared to most slave owners, even growing attached to some of them. While slavery is bad regardless of the context, Equiano seeing and hearing of these cruel slave owners while having a situation that is usually somewhat better moves him to call for slavery to be more humane. 

    It is also possible that he has doubts that slavery would realistically end any time soon, especially from anything he had to say. In that case, the best he could ask for without being shunned is better treatment, as that would at least not involve slave owners to make economic sacrifices for the slaves. There are numerous points throughout the text where Equiano heavily condemns the concept of slavery and likens it to a despair beyond anything he could comprehend. An example is when he is speaking to the captain and his master, in which he states that “I would die before I would be imposed on as other negroes were, and that to me life had lost its relish when liberty is gone” (Equiano 135). He doesn’t even consider being harshly enslaved to be alive, so it is clear that if he had any say, he would completely lobby against slavery in any form, not just better treatment.

Comments

  1. Griffin JonesFebruary 13, 2023 at 10:45 PM

    Hey Andrew, I agree with your points about Equiano's goals. I do think that the ultimate goal is for slavery to be abolished, and I think that his pointing out what humane slavery looks like is not necessarily an argument for it. I think maybe that the reason he points it out is in order to dispel the argument about Africans also having enslaved people as he points out the stark contrast in the way the enslaved people are treated. I also think that he is showing that he is living proof that if enslaved people are treated with some of the respect that he was, that it is clear to see that they are equal as human beings and are just as capable as white people when given the opportunities.

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  2. Paulos HabtewoldFebruary 22, 2023 at 12:22 AM

    Hi Andrew, I also think that his ultimate goal was to abolish slavery and that he knew it would not end very soon so he wanted to first make it more humane. I really liked how you brought in the quote from the story, but something I think is important to reference is that while he would rather be dead than harshly enslaved, he is fine with being enslaved, as long as it isn't harshly, so his first step would be to make slavery livable, before eventually getting rid of it completely.

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