Olaudah Equiano

Olaudah Equiano (c. 1745 – 31 March 1797), known for most of his life as Gustavus Vassa, was a writer who, drawing on his experiences as an enslaved African in the Americas, became a celebrated figure within the abolitionist movement in Great Britain and Ireland. According to his memoir, he was kidnapped from his home in West Africa (a village in what is now southern Nigeria) and shipped first to Barbados and then to Virginia. There he was bought by a Royal Navy officer whom he accompanied, during the Seven Years' War, as a valet. He was sold twice more in the Caribbean before, having been permitted to trade on his own account, purchasing his freedom in 1766.

As a freedman in London, Equiano embraced the British abolitionist movement, in the 1780s becoming one of its Sons of Africa, Africans living in Britain active as speakers on the abolitionist circuit. His 1789 autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, went through nine editions in his lifetime, and is credited with helping shift opinion in favour of the British Slave Trade Act 1807, under which the Royal Navy was committed to the suppression of the Atlantic slave trade. As a member of the London Corresponding Society, he was also associated with the cause of democratic reform.

The Interesting Narrative was rediscovered by scholars in the late 20th century and remains a widely-cited primary source.