Olaudah Equiano and the Self-Made Man - From Slavery to Conversion

In his autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Equiano tells his own life-story right from his kidnapping still as a child, all through his numerous struggles and sufferings as a slave, until his liberation from slavery and his conversion. The whole narration of the “self-made” protagonist can be viewed as a journey. A journey physically from Africa to the Americas, but maybe even more importantly, a moral journey of the formal illiterate slave towards the spiritually developed, converted free man. Through his way, Equiano encounters a great number of hardships, dangerous situations and seemingly helpless psychic challenges, the question of affiliation and identity in a new environment, where always he, himself is the one, who has to come up with a solution for his own sake. In my essay, I am focusing on these situations and Equianos road of becoming a “self-made man” .

In the beginning, the young Equiano, being kidnapped by slave traders is desperately sad, feeling himself hopeless and gone in the world, especially after his separation from his sister, who has also been kidnapped. Soon he is sold at a house, where he is kept as a slave. After the unfortunate outcome of an accident with one of the poultry he was ordered to take care of, the young Equiano tells the honest truth about what happened, getting himself this way into trouble. He already shows a kind of character development here, as he would not lie just to avoid the flogging:

The old slave, having soon after missed the chicken, inquired after it; and on my relating the accident (for I told her the truth, because my mother would never suffer me to tell a lie) she flew into a violent passion, threatened that I should suffer for it; and, my master being out, she immediately went and told her mistress what I had done, (Ch. 2).

As he is carried along to the shores to be shipped away, he comes across many languages, which he - for his own sake - learns quickly, instead of just simply drowning into his worsening state and ignoring his surroundings in his sorrow:

The languages of different nations did not totally differ, nor were they so copious as those of the Europeans, particularly the English. They were therefore easily learned; and, while I was journeying thus through Africa, I acquired two or three different tongues, (Ch. 2).

When on the deck of the slave ship, though he gets sometimes very sad, Equiano still shows the sign of his desire to learn, to assimilate as good as possible with the given situation. He constantly studies his new surroundings. Astonished by the technology which he has never seen before, the sight of white men and the sea itself, he cannot help asking questions:

I asked them if these people had no country, but lived in this hollow place (the ship)… 'Then,' said I, 'how comes it in all our country we never heard of them?'... I asked how the vessel could go?... (Ch. 2)

The next significant episode in Equiano’s advance is the time spent with Captain Thomas Farmer on the deck of a passenger carrying vessel. The captain works for Equiano’s master and is getting to like Equiano more and more all the time over his regular drunkard sailors. One day, the captain asks the master for him on the deck and Equiano may go. As he proves himself to be more useful on the deck than any other sailor would, in return he gets ever more privileges. Even the captain confirms his benefits:

I also became so useful to the captain on shipboard, that many times, when he used to ask for me to go with him (…), my master would answer he could not spare me, at which the captain would swear, and would not go the trip; and tell my master I was better to him on board than any three white men he had (…) (Ch. 6).

He soon gets so good at what he is doing – and the captain goes so far in quarreling - that the master gives permission for him to mainly work aboard as a sailor. This is a grand opportunity for Equiano, the slightest chance of him getting some profit and buying his freedom, or at least getting some more and better food, makes him feel overjoyed. It happens through this period of time that Equiano begins to make money from merchandising. Because they visited several foreign lands, he began to buy a very small amount of goods there and tried to sell the items back at Montserrat. It happens to be successful, and Equiano, though bit by bit, is beginning to make his own “fortune”:

I sold the gin for eight bits, and the tumblers for two, so that my capital now amounted in all to a dollar, well husbanded and acquired in the space of a month or six weeks, when I blessed the Lord that I was so rich, (Ch. 6).

For four years he is earning his profit this way. During that time, he also shows signs of brother-like solidarity, which refers to a noble personality, often observed among religious people. It happens on one occasion of such a journey, that his and a fellow slaves fruits that they wanted to sell at the market are taken away by the local white people and only his part gets to be given back. The poor fellow’s bitter loss touches him so much that he selflessly gives a part of his own to him. Beside this act of his, he also buys a Bible at the time.
Religious thoughts are starting to form in Equiano’s mind as he increasingly feels the urge of his freedom. He now connects his freedom in some way with his fate and he believes that the so desired liberation must be predetermined somehow:

I thought whatever fate had determined must ever come to pass; and therefore, if ever it were my lot to be freed nothing could prevent me, although I should at present see no means or hope to obtain my freedom; on the other hand, if it were my fate not to be freed I never should be so, and all my endeavours for that purpose would be fruitless, (Ch. 6).

Still, some awkward happenings around him made him worry, because even such black people, who had a certificate of themselves being born free, were taken away as slaves, their papers not meaning a thing. Equiano than figures that though one may be free, he can never really live secure, or at least not in the West Indies, so what he decides, that once he has the opportunity, he will travel to England. As for that he needs to learn the craft of navigation.
For Equiano to reach his goal and live as a free man, he must do a lot of sacrificing of his own desires. Yet all the spearing seems to benefit well. Because he continues on to obey his master’s and the captain’s orders, being earnest and loyal, refusing to leave them even in situations when he could most likely get to Europe, the captain proves his innocence when he is accused with the attempt of escaping. After this, the relationship between him and the captain changes radically, becoming more like a friendship, rather than a master-and-slave relation. As a matter of fact, the captain himself is already talking about the times when Equiano should be free and advises him, helps him in all the way.

In the 10th chapter, we can see Equiano returning to London from a voyage to the North Pole. As he reconsiders all the dangers and threats that he had encountered and luckily escaped, he starts to look for his inner self, starts to seek God and his own conversion.

I rejoiced greatly; and heartily thanked the Lord for directing me to London, where I was determined to work out my own salvation, and in so doing procure a title to heaven, being the result of a mind blended by ignorance and sin, (Ch. 10).

In this attempt of trying to become a Christian, Equiano is much like Everyman: seeking, being rejected frequently, getting all confused and lost between mixed up feelings, about what is wrong or right, desperately searching for the guiding light of the Lord and the fellows who would accompany him (a religious sect).

During this disagreeable business I was under strong convictions of sin, and thought that my state was worse than any man's; my mind was unaccountably disturbed; I often wished for death, though at the same time convinced I was altogether unprepared for that awful summons. Suffering much by villains in the late cause, and being much concerned about the state of my soul, these things (but particularly the latter) brought me very low; so that I became a burden to myself, and viewed all things around me as emptiness and vanity, which could give no satisfaction to a troubled conscience, (Ch. 10).

Feeling himself still in nature's darkness, Equiano starts a conversation with an old Christian and a clergyman. He soon feels sympathy towards these people and appreciates them very much. He even gets invited to a love-feast. At this feast, he finally feels that he has found what he is looking for:

This filled me with utter consternation, intermingled with admiration. I was so amazed as not to know what to think of the company; my heart was attracted and my affections were enlarged. I wished to be as happy as them, and was persuaded in my mind that they were different from the world 'that lieth in wickedness,' 1 John v. 19. Their language and singing, &c. did well harmonize; I was entirely overcome, and wished to live and die thus.

In the end, Equiano finds his inner peace and feels now ready for his salvation. Equiano’s character is definitely developing, and as a free man now, a man that he “made”, he can now wait calmly wait for Jesus Christ, knowing that his soul will be saved.


Citations:

Egan, Jim. Olaudah Equiano: The Problem of Identity, Brown University. Web.

Lovejoy, Paul E. Equiano, the African: Biography of a Self-Made Man, Journal of Southern History, 2007. Web.