Narratives of Slavery

 

I. Authencity of Equiano's account

                A. Some historians have recently disputed Equiano's claim to have been born and enslaved in Africa.

                      1. two pieces of evidence for South Carolina birth

                               a. birth certificate drawn up at his baptism listing S. Carolina, as requested by Equiano

                               b. ship's crew manifest listing him as born in S. Carolina, again reported by Equiano

                      2. when was Equiano lying? For certificate or in later autobiography?

                               a. question of motives: African birth to enhance the pathos of his enslavement story?

                               b. or did he wish to claim South Carolina birth in the 1760s to make him less African, more English?

 

                 B. The evidence of his autobiography strongly suggests that at the time of baptism, he wished to become more European,

                     less African.  South Carolina birth would enhance this Creole status. 

                      1. Heywood article discussed the social advantages Creoles had over native Africans

                      2. Equiano had a strong incentive to claim (falsely) a South Carolina birth

 

II. Summarizing the First Five Chapters of Equiano's Narrative

                1. Africans are like the Jews of Old: like Europeans once were (Implies potential equality of Africans)

                2. African slavery unfortunate, but not as cruel as European slavery.  Horrors of Middle Passage 

                     Africa is productive (potential of African development)

                3. Popularity of Young Equiano with Master and shipmates; swept up in Seven-Years' War

                4. Adventures of war; felt he was "almost an Englishman." Baptized.  Hopes for his freedom, but is betrayed--sent to Caribbean

                5. Experiences the brutalization of both blacks and whites in Caribbean slavery.  Morally and practically foolish

 

Question:  Why do suppose that the Captain Pascal, Equiano's master, suddenly sold him off at the end of Pascal's service in the Navy?

 

Question:  How would you characterize Equiano's treatment in these three settings: England; Naval ships; the West Indies.

 

III. Key ideas in chapter 4

                We discussed the way in which Equiano becomes more identified with English life and people.  The trajectory of his life is from slavery in America towards freedom in England.  But at the moment when he expects freedom --when his ship returns to London-- he is sold by his master to another who will take him back to America and slavery.  He failed, or rather was not permitted, to cross what Drescher, in chapter 3, calls "the line," that is, the barrier between free England and its slave colonies. This critical line, which divides the social and legal realities of the two worlds, plays a key part in the emerging abolition movement in Equiano's time.  In a general sense, abolitionists are those who became aware of this line dividing two contradictory British societies.  Abolitions rejected that line, insisting on one British law and one British morality--namely a society of freedom.

 

III. Key ideas in chapter 5

                A. Harsh treatment of slaves is foolish for owners

                      1. he worked hard for his benevolent master

                      2. hard work of some slaves is not respected or rewarded.  No incentive for faithful diligence

                      3. better fed slaves could do more work

 

                B. white overseers are brutish, with low character

                      1. reduces health and reproduction of slave population

                      2. cruelty costs money--harsh owners have to buy expensive replacement slaves

                      3. despair and suicide

                    

                C. whites are losing their humanity and their souls also

                      1. owners rape slaves, then enslave and brutalize their own children

                      2. reduced in worth to a mere �15 (penalty for killing a slave).

                      3. slave families torn apart by sales of husbands, wives and children

                     

                D. summation on p. 104: "When you make men slaves, you deprive them of half their virtue, you set them, in your own conduct,

                     an example of fraud, rapine, and cruelty, and compel them to live with you in a state of war; and yet you complain that they are

                     not honest or faithful!"

 

Question: In your own words, explain what Equiano means in this passage: "But is not the slave trade entirely at war with the heart of man?  And surely that which is begun by breaking down the barriers of virtue, involves in its continuance destruction to every principle, and buries all sentiments in ruin!"