IDNO

D.50941.

Description

Engraving of a portrait of Olaudah Equiano (c. 1745 – March 31, 1797) also known as Gustavus Vassa, a prominent African involved in the British movement towards the abolition of the slave trade. [JD 30/11/2011]

Place

W Africa; Europe British Isles; Caribbean Americas; Nigeria; United Kingdom; Barbados; Essaka [Benin Empire]

Cultural Affliation

Eboe

Named Person

Olaudah Equiano (also known as Gustavus Vassa)

Photographer

Daniel Orme, after W. Denton [Artist]

Collector / Expedition

Date

March 1789

Collection Name

Source

Benton, Montague B.

Format

Photomechanical Book Illustration

Primary Documentation

Other Information

This drawing was found in an envelope now marked C220/ which came from the wooden drawer I.

Source: Entered in the 1903 - 1908 Book Accession Register 2, p.54 is the following entry: "1905.97 An Engraving (6.5" x 4") of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, The African. 1789. G. Montague Benton. Aug. 14th 1905." [JD 25/09/2020]

Publication: Image published as frontispiece in 'The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African' (c. 1789, London). [JD 30/11/2011]

Named Person: Olaudah Equiano (c. 1745 – 31 March 1797) was "born in what is now Nigeria and sold into slavery aged 11. After spells in Barbados and Virginia he spent eight years travelling the world as slave to a British Royal Navy officer, who renamed him Gustavus Vassa. His final master, an English merchant in Montserrat, let him buy his freedom for £40 – almost a year’s salary for a teacher, but Equiano made it in three years of trading on the side. 
Equiano worked as an explorer and merchant for 20 years, and eventually settled in England, the country where he had converted to Christianity in 1759. With the encouragement of the Abolitionists, who campaigned against the slave trade, he published these memoirs in 1789. 
This book – one of the first in Europe by a Black African writer – was an enormous success, selling out immediately... Equiano travelled widely to promote the book, and became wealthy from its royalties. 
The ability of this cultured and intelligent man to relate first-hand the horrors of slavery helped sway public opinion, and by 1807 Britain had formally abolished the trade. Equiano did not live to see it; he died in 1797, leaving his English wife and two daughters.
In 2007, the first edition of Equiano's book was carried in procession at a special service in Westminster Abbey, London, to commemorate the bicentenary of Britain’s Abolition of the Slave Trade Act." [Source: https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/the-life-of-olaudah-equinao, JD 25/09/2020]