Where Was Olaudah Equiano Born?

(And Why Does It Matter?)

Equiano's autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, published in 1789, is important for many reasons. It is one of the very few texts written in English by a person of African descent during the eighteenth century. It is also one of the first accounts of a journey up from slavery written by one who had personally experienced enslavement. This makes it one of the earliest 'slave narratives'. But is more than merely an account of what it was like to be a slave. In the book, Equiano gives a long and detailed description of life in an African village - the earliest such description in the English language - as well as offering a first-person account of 'the middle passage' - the journey from Africa to America in a slave ship. These were all important parts of a book that appeared in 1789; the year in which the British parliament first seriously debated abolishing the slave trade. (Indeed, we can see The Interesting Narrative as a document of that debate.) Yet they are also significant to this day. Equiano's description of African society is the most important written by an African in the days before European empires severely disrupted African society. And Equiano's description of the middle passage is a reminder of the sufferings of the ancestors of most African American and Black British people alive today. In 1999, however, it was suggested by Vincent Carretta that Equiano may not have been born in Africa but, rather, as a slave in South Carolina. - at that time one of the thirteen British colonies in North America. In addition, Carretta argues that the early parts of Equiano's autobiography, rather than recording first-hand experience, may reflect the oral history of other slaves, combined with information Equiano gleaned from books he had read about Africa. Carretta's evidence, a baptismal record and a muster roll, is compelling. It strongly suggests that the young Equiano told people that his birthplace was South Carolina. Yet this evidence doesn't seem to be quite enough to settle the matter, and historians and critics are divided on the question. On this page, I offer (I hope) both sides of the argument, and leave it to you to make your own mind up. In the column on the left, I have put arguments to suport the view that Equiano was born in Carolina. In the column to the right, I have put arguments to suggest that he was born in Africa.