Olaudah Equiano
sailor who bought his freedom · writer · West Africa · London · 1745?–1797
In his autobiography he wrote that he was born in what is now Nigeria and was kidnapped and sold into slavery at about eleven. He saved money, bought his freedom and campaigned in London against the slave trade.
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1789 · Looking back on his boyhood, sold as a slave and aboard a European ship for the first time
I had often seen my master and Dick employed in reading; and I had a great curiosity to talk to the books, as I thought they did; and so to learn how all things had a beginning: for that purpose I have often taken up a book, and have talked to it, and then put my ears to it, when alone, in hopes it would answer me
The autobiography The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano
1 in 100 Billion · The social network of those who came before us