Therefore, whatever you desire for men to do to you, you shall also do to them; for this is the law and the prophets. Matthew 7:12. It is this verse that Equiano foundation for his opinion is built. In the narrative “The Interesting Life of Olaudah Equiano,” tells a story of an African born man who is captured and sold into slavery. His journey in the slave trade changes his aspects of the way he perceives slavery. He was born in 1745 into the Benin Kingdom where he himself owned many slaves, he perceives the idea of slavery to be social norm, but it all changes when he is captured and sold into the slave trade in Europe. His journey over the next ten years, affected him not only on a physical level, but on both an intellectual and religious
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Equiano’s thoughts of slavery drastically changed when he was captured, he describes the major differences in the treatment of slaves he talks about, how slaves are treated almost like everyone else in his eyes, with equal types of food, clothing, and housing. In this way, both a sense of humanity and a sense of class order affected his early impression of slavery. He indicates many differences between the treatment of slaves from his home state to the treatment of slaves in the new lands in which he is sold. For example, he talks of one African group who he saw as backwards and uncivilized. He says they "ate without washing their hands... and fought with their fists among them- selves" (52). He also makes very unique comparisons between this tribe and his own, he explains "Their women were not so modest as ours, for they ate, and drank, and slept with their men...In some of these places the people ornamented themselves with scars" (52). Later when he sold yet again, he first encounters the white man for the first time and he sees them as evil beings “beasts” of sorts, it is with the white man that Equiano discovers the true horrors of the slave trade. He is crammed below the ship where he lies with the dead and dying African slaves, Equiano's worst suffering came from the "pestilential" smell of rotting corpses (56). When
Equiano’s thoughts of slavery drastically changed when he was captured, he describes the major differences in the treatment of slaves he talks about, how slaves are treated almost like everyone else in his eyes, with equal types of food, clothing, and housing. In this way, both a sense of humanity and a sense of class order affected his early impression of slavery. He indicates many differences between the treatment of slaves from his home state to the treatment of slaves in the new lands in which he is sold. For example, he talks of one African group who he saw as backwards and uncivilized. He says they "ate without washing their hands... and fought with their fists among them- selves" (52). He also makes very unique comparisons between this tribe and his own, he explains "Their women were not so modest as ours, for they ate, and drank, and slept with their men...In some of these places the people ornamented themselves with scars" (52). Later when he sold yet again, he first encounters the white man for the first time and he sees them as evil beings “beasts” of sorts, it is with the white man that Equiano discovers the true horrors of the slave trade. He is crammed below the ship where he lies with the dead and dying African slaves, Equiano's worst suffering came from the "pestilential" smell of rotting corpses (56). When