The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African

During the four hundred years of the transatlantic slave trade, some 15 million Africans were forced to endure the passage to the Western Hemisphere, and a large percentage of them died in the journey. Olaudah Equiano was kidnapped as a child from his home what is now Nigeria by slave traders in the early 1700s. He was shipped to the island of Barbados and later sold into slavery in Virginia where he was renamed Gustavus Vassa. Unlike most of his contemporaries, Equiano was taught to read and write, and he was able to earn money of his own while working for an American merchant. In 1766, he used his savings to purchase his freedom and eventually settled in Great Britain.