The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African, Written by Himself.

Olaudah Equiano 1745-1789 was born in the village of Essaka in what is today known as eastern Nigeria. Kidnapped at the age of ten, with his sister from their home, he was taken to the West Indies and sold twice before being purchase by an Officer in the British Navy, who renamed him Gustavus Vassa (after a sixteenth century Swedish king). After serving his master in the Royal Navy, during the Seven Year War, Equiano bought his freedom in 1766 and went on many different trading voyages in North America, the Mediterranean, the West Indies, and the North Pole. He became involved in the British abolition movement with William Wilberforce. He wrote and published his autobiography in 1789, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African, Written by Himself. The book was very popular and opened the eyes of many people's to the realities of the slave trade. Equiano died before he saw the fruit of his labors in the Slave Trade Act of 1807 and the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833.