Equiano's Argument

 I think Equiano is arguing to abolish slavery, but he understands that it will be a process, so he first wants it to become humane because that is easier to argue for with the eventual goal of abolishing it completely. Equiano, in his story, does not necessarily describe the slavery in Africa as bad or argue against it all. He kind of just describes it throughout his story and even kind of praises it as it is incredibly humane with essentially the only difference between a slave and a free person in Africa is that the slave is in a lower social class. Slaves even get paid in Africa. In the British colonies and the ships though, Equiano mainly attacks the inhumanity of the system of slavery. Whether it is about how African children are raped, beat or scammed. Equiano does not necessarily use arguments against simply the idea that a person has a master, or that a person should not be in a lower social class. He also sometimes praises owners like Mr. King for treating him humanly especially compared to other slave owners. 


Equiano also shows that he obviously does not want to be a slave and most of the praise is only because the other slave owners are so bad that it makes him grateful that at least his owner is somewhat humane. Equiano also chooses to not have slaves, even though Mr. King gave him the opportunity to have slaves, which shows he does not like the slave system in general because Equiano would treat them humanly.


Comments

  1. Monique Cov.February 19, 2023 at 12:30 PM

    Hey Paulos, I would completely agree with you that Equiano is trying to argue for the abolition of slavery. People tend to not want to make or follow through with drastic changes in their lives so the fact that Equiano thought about this and chose to take a much more step by step process shows his understanding of people during this time. If he made what the parliament would see as, bold changes to their way of life, then they would be much less likely to listen. But if he approached it with at least a small change to make slavery more humane then they would be more willing to listen and enact those changes.

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