Olaudah Equiano

Olaudah Equiano was born to a noble family in the African kingdom of Benin in approximately 1745. While still a boy, he was kidnapped, enslaved, and taken to the West Indies. For the next eleven years he traveled from the Americas to Europe and through the Caribbean. After being freed in 1767, he moved to London, became an active abolitionist, and helped freed slaves settle in the African colony of Sierra Leone. In 1789 he published his bestselling autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, which served as the model for many later writers, including Frederick Douglass. He died in England in 1797, survived by his wife, Susanna Cullen, and their two daughters.