Posted on 09/28/2005 7:42:15 PM PDT by Gator61
COLLEGE PARK, Md. — Olaudah Equiano wrote with vivid detail of life as human cargo — the foul smells aboard the slave ship that brought him from West Africa to the New World in the 18th century, the anguished cries of women, the despair of those headed to a life of bondage.
The bestselling autobiography he later published is now a key text for scholars studying slavery and its roots in Africa, one of the few first-person accounts by a slave of the brutal cross-Atlantic trip known as the Middle Passage.
But part of Equiano's tale may be more fiction than fact....
"It may lessen the claims to historical veracity," he said. "But it does not lessen its persuasive power."
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
George Orwell where are you when we need you?
I thought maybe he was a mentor of Dan Rather.
Beat me to it..Sounds rather like Rather
Equiano published his life story in London in 1789. At the time, the abolitionist movement was growing, and his story of the horrific voyage on a slave ship was valuable evidence for abolitionists trying to prove the slave trade was inhuman. It eventually went through nine editions and made Equiano a wealthy man.
Jesse Jackson's ancestor?
In her story she complained that FEMA never gave her a 2000 deerskins.
Equiano's work was the basis for all the 19th century slave narratives and was the first to take the Confessional mode of Augustine and Bunyan into social protest. It's an important text
The fact that it is not true does not matter?
Of course it does. But its historical significance and influence on other works remains undiminshed.
George Orwell.......alive and well in the MSM and Dimwit party.
This reminds me of "Roots," another work of fiction presented as fact.
Olaudah Equiano and the Alex Haleys of the world are not held to truth any more than the Clintons.
What matters is the persuasive qualities of the untruths imposed on our Nation and our culture.
Another less-than-factual bio that liberals love is "I, Rigoberta Menchu."
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=1186
Is that another way of saying, "it's not the nature of the evidence but the seriousness of the charge"?
The important thing is that it fits the freakin' agenda. Right?
I guess someone finally discovered that they didn't use Biro pens back then.
Never bother a liberal or civil rights activist with the facts. They get in the way of ideology.
Equiano wasn't just some 'civil rights activist'. He was a devout Christian who impressed just about every educated person of his day and hastned and emboldened the Abolitionist movement. Methodist founder John Wesley asked for Equiano's work to be read to him on his death bed.
Many a historical movement has profited from a handy lie. That does not invalidate the movement, nor does it validate the lie.
This should come as no surprise. Slaves were valuable property. The ship owners had to pay cash money for each slave in the slave markets of Africa. Each one that died was a monetary loss. Yes, there were trade-offs made- do you do a "tight pack"- squeeze as many slaves aboard as possible, with losses from death made up by the extra profit of bringing more slaves over, or a "loose pack" which meant less slaves to sell here but fewer losses in transit. And remember, weak, sickly slaves were worth less at market- possibly even unsaleable. It was in the ship owner's monetary interest to get his cargo to market alive and healthy.
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