Heritage Trails

Heritage Trail to Equiano exhibition, Birmingham

3rd November 2007

CSEP students and their parents & teachers travelled to Birmingham to see the exhibition dedicated to the life and times of Olaudah Equiano, abolitionist and author of “The Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavas Vassa the African”.

Equiano led an extraordinary life – kidnapped and enslaved at the age of eleven, he served in the British Navy during the Seven Years War (1756-62) and was enslaved in the Caribbean before purchasing his freedom. He travelled the world including the North Pole and the Middle East before settling in England where he became what is today described as a human rights campaigner, trying to prevent Africans living in England from being recaptured and enslaved. His narrative, published in 1789, became the most important book of its time, giving a first hand account of the Middle Passage and telling the story of a man overcoming insurmountable odds.

The exhibition, using old and newly commissioned paintings, interactive media and conventional museum objects told the story of a remarkable man in remarkable times. The visit ended with an Equiano Quiz.

Keywords

• The “Sons and Daughters of Africa”
• Publications of Olaudah Equiano

Suggestions

• The Africans perspective on the transatlantic slave trade.
• Personal experiences of immigrants who came in 1950’s, 1960’s, 1970’s 80’s 90’s

Comments

• Olaudah a Major African Abolitionist.
• His anti-slavery speeches & adventures

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