The Interesting Narrative of the life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. Written by Himself (1789) is well-written, though of less value as literature than as history. Equiano himself declares that he has “no wish to adorn the plainness of truth” in his account (Ch. XII). The historical information transmitted by slave autobiographies such as Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845), Solomon Northup’s Twelve Years a Slave (1853), Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861), and Booker T. Washington’s Up from Slavery (1901) cannot be disputed. Equiano was early in the tradition, but he was not the first to compose such a memoir: A Narrative of the Most Remarkable Particulars in the Life of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, an African Prince had appeared in 1772 and the Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho in 1782. Equiano's story work remains a critical resource in understanding racial attitudes during his era and even today. When Equiano wrote, slavery, though central to the American economy, was already controversial. Debated in the Continental Congresses, the issue was put off in the interest of unity; banned in four states when the Interesting Narrative was published, it continued unrestricted in others for another three-quarters of a century. As a victim and a contemporary analyst, Equiano’s insights throw dramatic light on several aspects of the barbaric practice.
1
Equiano places the
origins of racism squarely on economic motives, saying that he does not suppose
that those who mistreat Africans “are born worse than other men, they are
“debauched” and “harden” themselves through “avarice” which “corrupts the milk
of human kindness, and turns it into gall” (Ch. V). Indeed, before the establishment of the slave
trade and the immense profits it brought both shippers and plantation owners,
Europeans typically regarded Africans as inhabitants of distant kingdoms rather
like their own. Shakespeare’s Othello is
clearly noble and Iago’s racist jibes are untrue, symptoms of envy and malice. Ne
Vunda, ambassador of the Kingdom of Kongo to the Vatican during the sixteenth
century, was honored with burial in Santa Maria Maggiore. During the same period, Juan Latino, born a
slave of Ethiopian origin, became professor of Latin at the university in
Granada and the mixed-race Alessandro de' Medici, Duke of Florence, called “il
Moro,” became the first Duke of Florence. The greed that magnified racism in the
interest of economic interest is evident in the multiple times whites swindle
Equiano even after he has attained free status.
2
Race is further
demonstrated to be incidental rather than essential to the practice of slavery
by the fact that Equiano’s own Ibo father kept slaves and that he was owned by
a series of Africans before being sold to whites. Debit could bring any individual into slavery
in ancient Babylon and, though
foreigners and war captives were enslaved in ancient Greece and Rome, criminals
were as well, without regard for ethnic origins. At a time when Britain represented the very
margin of the known world, Bede relates an anecdote about Pope Gregory I
(540-604 C. E.) commenting that the English youths offered for sale looked more
to him like angels than Angles. The word
“slave” itself is derived from Slav because of the early medieval practice of
capturing slaves in Eastern Europe.
Finally, even during the times of New World chattel slavery, the many
native American and Black slaveholders proved that racial identity was not in
fact essential in distinguishing slave from free status. Rather than the source of white supremacist
ideology, the myth of African inferiority is a rationalization to justify a
patently immoral yet profitable system.
3
Equiano specifically focuses on the injustices he suffers because of his African
origins, scanting most other topics apart (from his religious enthusiasm), so the
reader may well be surprised when, in the last chapter, in the second clause of
a sentence, after noting his attendance in the House of Commons for its debate
on ending the slave trade, he suddenly inserts, as though incidentally, “and
was married on the 7th of April to Miss Cullen, daughter of James
and Ann Cullen, late of Ely.” This is
the sole mention of his wife.
The marriage was
announced in a variety of publications, including the General Evening Post,
the Gentleman’s Magazine and the Literary and Biographical Magazine,
and British Review. Several of these
accounts note the groom’s prominence, the lavish table, and the large company
of guests, while none records anyone’s objection to the match. There had, in fact, never been laws against
interracial marriages in the U. K. or in Europe. This unanimity only became international in the
twentieth century with the United
Nations' inclusion of the right to marry "without any limitation due to
race, nationality or religion" in the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights.
Americans who are
surprised at the eighteenth-century acceptance of Equiano’s marriage are
influenced by the United States status as an outlier, accompanied only by the
likes of Nazi Germany and apartheid South Africa in prohibiting what in America
came to be called miscegenation, a word designed to sound like an abnormality. (The term was invented by pro-proslavery
advocate David G, Croly in an 1863 pamphlet and has been little used in other
countries.) Because of the unique place
of slavery in the American economy, such unions were long banned by law,
beginning with a statute passed by the Maryland General Assembly in 1691. Even at that time a certain Zephaniah
Kingsley published an essay praising intermarriage, as a cause of healthier and
more beautiful children, and better citizens.
Not until 1967 did the Supreme Court strike down such laws.
The peculiar
American horror at sexual contact between Africans and Europeans, though belied
by the commonplace rape of slaves and later by Black prostitution, is evident in
the history of lynching. The most common
excuse for mob violence was disrespect for a white woman and the victims often
suffered sexual mutilation. Equiano was being prudent when he chose to live in the United Kingdom.
3
Once Equiiano was
converted to Christianity, he regarded himself as an adherent of the Church of
England. Yet he continued to be
tormented by doubts, not about theology but about his own chances for salvation
until he experienced a renewed commitment to the faith under the guidance of a
Dissenter, very likely a Methodist, who guided him to a rebirth, relieving his
fears. While the efforts of the Society
of Friends for social justice are well-known, in eighteenth-century Britain
Methodists were also prominent in the struggle.
Wesley himself was deeply involved, corresponding with Wilberforce and writing
in his Thoughts upon Slavery (1774) that slavery was an “execrable
villainy.” In the United States, though,
the issue caused the defection of supporters of slavery who, more than a
generation after Equiano’s death, formed the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. More generally, the evangelical movement,
including low church Anglicans, was likely to insist on the equality of all
souls in God’s eyes, and, more broadly yet, religious groups as a whole have
formed a significant element in many progressive coalitions, including
nineteenth-century American abolitionism and the twentieth century civil rights
movement.
4
Although, as
noted, Equiano claimed no literary value for his book, his articulate mastery
of proper English doubtless served as strong prima facie evidence for
his equality with Europeans. Just as
Frederick Douglass’ rhetorical powers impressed his audiences, apart from what
he had to say, any reader of the Interesting Narrative must respect its
author’s intelligence simply because of his skill at using language. Although he certainly had to educate himself
first in the English language and then in the conventions of European rhetoric,
oratorical skills were highly regarded in oral African societies. Readers of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall
Apart which depicts pre-colonial Ibo society (as well as The Arrow of
God, a novel set in more contemporary times) will be familiar with the high
prestige attached to verbal ability among the people of Equiano’s tribe. I personally recall that, when I taught in
what us now Delta State, Nigeria, that teachers’ meetings could occupy an
entire day (to the detriment of instruction) as speakers rose to make
elaborate, polite, and flowery statements as though they were in the Oxford Union
or the House of Commons even on issues over which they had no control,
seemingly for the pleasure of the rich language and the admiration of their
colleagues. When I complained about the protracted
orations to the headmaster, he (a Yoruba man educated at the University of
Kent) commented, “I think you Europeans have a different sense of time. Why be always in a hurry?”
No comments:
Post a Comment