Today, October 16, marks the 272nd birthday anniversary of Olaudah Equiano, a Nigerian who played a prominent role in the abolition of slave trade.
She faced obstacles but still forged an extraordinary life and wrote a book that helped to change the world.
As Google doodle is celebrating his posthumous birthday today, below are key facts about him;
1.) Equiano also known as Gustavus Vassa was born in Essaka in the Eboe province of southern Nigeria , on October 16, 1745, although there is debate among historians around his origins.
2.) When he was about 11 years old, he and his sister were kidnapped when their parents were out, and sold to slave traders who eventually shipped him across the Atlantic ocean to Barbados, before being forced to travel yet further to the British colony of Virginia.
3.) He was bought by Royal Navy lieutenant Michael Pascal in 1754, who gave him the name ‘Gustaba Vassa’ after a king of Sweden, which he used the rest of his life. Pascal took him to England, and his slave accompanied him during the Seven Years’ War in France, assisting the ship’s crew during battles.
4.) Vassa learned to read and write while in Britain, and was baptised in Westminster in 1759 before he was eventually sold to Robert King, an American Quaker, who in 1765 promised him that he could buy his freedom for his purchase price (about £6,000 in today’s money).
5.) King improved Equiano’s education, and allowed him to trade for his own profit, as well as his master’s – it took the slave just two years to buy his liberty.
6.) As a free man, he spent several years working at sea, travelling to the Arctic and Central America, and settled into London life.
7.) In the 1780s, Equinao became a prominent figure in the abolitionist movement, becoming close to several key players in the effort to end the slave trade.
8.) Backed financially by these supporters, he wrote a memoir: The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, published in 1789.
9.) He travelled Britain extensively to promote his book and spread awareness of the human realities of lives of slaves. His memoir was one of the catalysts for the Slave Trade Act of 1807, which abolished the trade of African slaves for Britain and its colonies.
10.) He died in 1797 in Middlesex, a year after his wife, Susannah Cullen, who he had married in 1792.
The couple had two daughters after settling in Cambridgeshire, named Anna Maria and Joanna.
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