Equiano worked to ensure his work would be read by the masses, creating nine editions by 1794, in order to achieve this goal. Although Equiano did not live to see it, his work was seminal in mobilizing the abolitionist sentiment that secured the end of the slave trade in England in 1807.
Equiano’s gripping memoir begins with a description of the culture he held onto while enslaved and his initial capture/enslavement. Through Equiano’s recollection in the first chapter, it is clear enslaved peoples were able to retain their cultures even though, as Equiano states, their destinies were stolen. The first chapter details the “manners and customs of [the] country,” and the pleasant, hopeful tone is juxtaposed by the horror of slavery explained in the second chapter. This change in tone is foreshadowed in the last paragraph of chapter one when Equiano asks the readers “does not slavery itself depress the mind, and