Recent scholarship has raised doubts about whether or not abolitionist Olaudah Equiano, who was known in his own lifetime as Gustavus Vassa, was born in Africa. While baptismal and naval documents indicate that he was born in South Carolina, it is argued here that his autobiographical account is nonetheless accurate, although allowing for reflection and information that was learned later in life. Information on facial markings (ichi) and other cultural features that are recounted in Vassa’s account indicate that he had first hand experience of his Igbo homeland and that he was about the age he thought he was at the time of his forced departure from the Bight of Biafra on a slave ship in 1754.
My life and fortune have been extremely chequered, and my adventures various. Even
those I have related are considerably abridged. If any incident in this little work should
appear uninteresting and trifling to most readers, I can only say, as my excuse for mentioning it, that almost every event of my life made an impression on my mind, and
influenced my conduct. I early accustomed myself to look at the hand of God in
the minutest occurrence, and to learn from it a lesson of morality and religion; and
in this light every circumstance I have related was to me of importance.
