Equiano: of African Birth

I think Olaudah Equiano was born in Africa, and not in South Carolina as some source documents might indicate. There are two reasons that most influence my interpretation of the conflicting evidence of his baptismal record and Arctic Expedition contract.

The main reason is Equiano’s Christian faith and his life-long struggle to live the precepts of Christianity. In The Interesting Narrative, he often tells tales about honesty. For example, when he gave a sailor a guinea to get him a boat for his escape, but the sailor kept the guinea without ever bringing a boat.¹ He experienced deep anguish at being betrayed by those he trusted and it made a deep impression on him regarding moral honesty, like when Master Pascal abruptly sold him.² Honesty was clearly an important issue for him, and I believe that he would not put himself in the public eye as an author and speaker based on a fabricated tale. The Carey Table does not present a moral reason for Equiano’s stance regarding his birthplace.³ It does make the argument that his main motivation was the abolition of the slave trade, and I would argue that it was to be an evangelist, and his particular calling was as an abolitionist. From that motivation, he would not say anything he thought he could get away with, as it would be against his moral character.

The second reason is the circumstances at the times in Equiano’s life when it was recorded that he was born in South Carolina. In The Interesting Narrative, just before he writes of his baptism, he makes several statements about his admiration of the English and describes himself as “almost an Englishman”. He found them superior to his own kind, and held a “desire to resemble them”.⁴ With this prelude, I do not find it alarming that at the time of his baptism he stated his place of birth as South Carolina. As a colony, it was ‘almost English’, like himself. The Carey argument supporting a Carolina birth, states that he was a terrified and traumatized child who was too afraid to speak anything but the truth.⁵ From reading Equiano’s account, as a teenager enamored of the English culture and anxious to be baptized, he does not sound like a frightened child.

When Equiano applied to sail on the Arctic expedition, it would have been in his favor to represent himself as a Creole sailor. “I was roused by the sound of fame,” is how he describes his motivation at the time.⁶ To be perceived as Creole, rather than an ex-slave, would better represent his vast experience and multi-cultural exposure as an Atlantic sailor.⁷

It is too bad that when Equiano refuted the claims against his African birth that he did not directly communicate the reasons for the discrepancies. His narrative fueled the imaginations of the public and improved inter-cultural understanding at a time when it helped to make a difference.

1.             The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano Written by Himself with Related Documents, ed. Robert J. Allison (Boston: Bedford/St Martins, 2007), 99.

2.             Equiano, 97.

3.             Brycchan Carey, "Where Was Olaudah Equiano Born?" Brycchan Carey, http://www.brycchancarey.com/equiano/nativity.htm (accessed February 1, 2012).

4.             Equiano, 83. 

5.             Brycchan Carey, "Where Was Olaudah Equiano Born?" Brycchan Carey, http://www.brycchancarey.com/equiano/nativity.htm (accessed February 1, 2012).

6.             Equiano, 162.

7.             Ira Berlin, “From Creole to African: Atlantic Creoles and the Origins of African-American Society in Mainland North America”, The William and Mary Quarterly 53, no. 2 (April 1996): 251-288, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2947401 (accessed 20/07/2011).