Frasi di Olaudah Equiano

Olaudah Equiano, noto anche come Gustavus Vassa , è stato uno scrittore e mercante nigeriano del XVIII secolo.

Nato in Nigeria nel villaggio di Essaka in quello che oggi è il sud della Nigeria, visse principalmente nel Regno Unito e nelle colonie britanniche in America. Sostenne il movimento britannico per porre fine alla tratta degli schiavi. Equiano lavorò come autore, marinaio, mercante, parrucchiere e navigatore.

Nel suo racconto Equiano fornisce dettagli sul suo villaggio natale, Essaka, e sulle leggi e i costumi del popolo Igbo . Descrive alcune delle comunità africane conosciute quando fu forzatamente portato verso la costa, il suo viaggio su una nave di schiavi, la brutalità della schiavitù nelle colonie della Indie Occidentali, Virginia, Georgia e la privazione dei diritti civili subita dalle persone liberate di colore in quegli stessi luoghi. Equiano era particolarmente attaccato alla sua fede cristiana che aveva abbracciato nel 1759, all'età di 14 anni, tema ricorrente nella sua autobiografia. Diversi eventi della sua vita lo portarono a mettere in discussione la sua fede, fin quasi a perderla del tutto dopo aver assistito al rapimento di un cuoco nero di nome John Annis da una nave in Inghilterra, poi torturato sull'isola di Saint Kitts. Wikipedia  

✵ 16. Ottobre 1745 – 31. Marzo 1797
Olaudah Equiano photo
Olaudah Equiano: 7   frasi 0   Mi piace

Olaudah Equiano: Frasi in inglese

“I was named Olaudah, which, in our language, signifies vicissitude or fortune also, one favoured, and having a loud voice and well spoken.”

Chap. I
The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African (1789)

“Such a tendency has the slave-trade to debauch men's minds, and harden them to every feeling of humanity! For I will not suppose that the dealers in slaves are born worse than other men—No; it is the fatality of this mistaken avarice, that it corrupts the milk of human kindness and turns it into gall. And, had the pursuits of those men been different, they might have been as generous, as tender-hearted and just, as they are unfeeling, rapacious and cruel. Surely this traffic cannot be good, which spreads like a pestilence, and taints what it touches! which violates that first natural right of mankind, equality and independency, and gives one man a dominion over his fellows which God could never intend! For it raises the owner to a state as far above man as it depresses the slave below it; and, with all the presumption of human pride, sets a distinction between them, immeasurable in extent, and endless in duration! Yet how mistaken is the avarice even of the planters? Are slaves more useful by being thus humbled to the condition of brutes, than they would be if suffered to enjoy the privileges of men? The freedom which diffuses health and prosperity throughout Britain answers you—No. When you make men slaves you deprive them of half their virtue, you set them in your own conduct an example of fraud, rapine, and cruelty, and compel them to live with you in a state of war; and yet you complain that they are not honest or faithful! You stupify them with stripes, and think it necessary to keep them in a state of ignorance; and yet you assert that they are incapable of learning; that their minds are such a barren soil or moor, that culture would be lost on them; and that they come from a climate, where nature, though prodigal of her bounties in a degree unknown to yourselves, has left man alone scant and unfinished, and incapable of enjoying the treasures she has poured out for him!—An assertion at once impious and absurd. Why do you use those instruments of torture? Are they fit to be applied by one rational being to another? And are ye not struck with shame and mortification, to see the partakers of your nature reduced so low? But, above all, are there no dangers attending this mode of treatment? Are you not hourly in dread of an insurrection? […] But by changing your conduct, and treating your slaves as men, every cause of fear would be banished. They would be faithful, honest, intelligent and vigorous; and peace, prosperity, and happiness, would attend you.”

Chap. V
The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African (1789)

“Soon after this the blacks who brought me on board went off, and left me abandoned to despair. I now saw myself deprived of all chance of returning to my native country, or even the least glimpse of hope of gaining the shore, which I now considered as friendly; and I even wished for my former slavery in preference to my present situation, which was filled with horrors of every kind, still heightened by my ignorance of what I was to undergo. I was not long suffered to indulge my grief; I was soon put down under the decks, and there I received such a salutation in my nostrils as I had never experienced in my life: so that, with the loathsomeness of the stench, and crying together, I became so sick and low that I was not able to eat, nor had I the least desire to taste any thing. I now wished for the last friend, death, to relieve me; but soon, to my grief, two of the white men offered me eatables; and, on my refusing to eat, one of them held me fast by the hands, and laid me across I think the windlass, and tied my feet, while the other flogged me severely. I had never experienced any thing of this kind before; and although, not being used to the water, I naturally feared that element the first time I saw it, yet nevertheless, could I have got over the nettings, I would have jumped over the side, but I could not; and, besides, the crew used to watch us very closely who were not chained down to the decks, lest we should leap into the water: and I have seen some of these poor African prisoners most severely cut for attempting to do so, and hourly whipped for not eating. This indeed was often the case with myself.”

Chap. II
The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African (1789)

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