Comparing Olaudah Equiano to Uncle Tomв's Cabin

Comparing Olaudah Equiano to Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Slavery is, and was at the time, the most troubling aspect of the European project in the New World. The conquest and slaughter of the indigenous people was terrible, but not entirely out of step with the war-mongering values of 16th century Europe. But the importation of kidnapped people to create a permanent sub-class of chattel slaves to live and work among the colonists as livestock – that was ethically problematic for many right from the start. From the beginning of the British Colonies in North America through the US Civil War the “peculiar institution”, as it was known, created a moral dissonance for many whites. This is especially true after the founding of the United States upon a principle of liberty and equality. From the perspective of the enslaved Africans and their descendants in America, the sound of slavery was more cataclysmic than dissonant and its echoes are still heard to this day.

Two books of the era that were influential in changing public opinion about slavery are The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, The African, Written by Himself , published in Britain in 1789 and Uncle Tom’s Cabin , written by a white woman abolitionist named Harriet Beecher Stowe. The first is an account of the author’s life from his capture in Africa to his eventual freedom and travel adventures around the world. The second is a fictional account of the lives of slaves and masters in the pre-war South. Written from different perspectives, at different times, and in different styles, both works employ the concept of home to advance the anti-slavery cause. Though Equiano promotes more of an adventurous manliness than Stowe’s Uncle Tom, both works exalt to some extent the “cult of domesticity” that was ascendant in 19th century America.

In his narrative, Equiano begins in the beginning, with his childhood in Africa. He paints a portrait of simplicity and happiness. He was born to a chief in “a charming vale, named Esseka” in west Africa. (p.20) His was “a nation of dancers, musicians, and poets”. (p.21) He goes on at length describing the domestic and marital rituals of his people. As for the land, it “is uncommonly rich and fruitful, and produces all kinds of vegetables in great abundance”. (p.24) Equiano is making this illustration in order to contradict the conventional wisdom at the time, even among his audience of slavery opponents, that the African was fortunate to be taken from Africa since they were uncivilized barbarians. Also, he recalls a perhaps embellished or entirely invented carefree youth in order to fix an Edenic concept of home in the readers mind. It is from this home “where nature is prodigal of her favours… (and where) wants are few and easily supplied” (p.24) that the young Equiano is cast out.

Although often outside of his control, nevertheless Equiano’s peripatetic journey could be seen as a quest to find a nurturing garden to call home. He seems to be searching for his place, a metaphorical home, in the world of Europeans. On board a ship in the British Isles he recalls that he “soon enjoyed (himself) pretty well, and felt tolerably easy in (his) present situation” (p.50). No sooner had he started to enjoy himself when “one day, for the diversion of those gentlemen, all the boys were called on the quarter-deck…and then made to fight (p.50). Equiano then sees naval battle, goes to London where his masters sisters, “very admirable ladies who took much notice and great care of (him)” (p.51), goes to the hospital and almost loses a leg, and recovers – all this on one page. This praise for the sisters of his owner in whose service he just nearly died, without any bitterness, is representative of the tone of most of this narrative. The equanimity with which young Equiano suffers these slings and arrows is almost as disconcerting as the outrages themselves. Perhaps this is the intended response. His readers would have felt embarrassed by their trivial sufferings. Equiano details the horrors of slavery in the West Indies and blithely recounts his own Tintinesque adventures until he is back in Britain and becomes involved in the project of returning slaves to Africa. By this point Equiano has so thoroughly assimilated that he no longer associates as an African:

“On my return to London in August I was very agreeably surprised to find that the benevolence of government had adopted the plan of some philanthropic individuals to send the Africans from hence to their native quarter; that some vessels were then engaged to carry them to Sierra Leone.” (p.171, emphasis added)

In case the passage is unclear, he is arranging to send former slaves back to Africa from