My Life

Book excerpt: Equiano was captured as a 10-year-old boy by slave hunters, transported to the coast and sold to slave traders. He survived a harrowing crossing and ended up in Barbados. The boy passed from hand to hand and after a short time came to Virginia to a plantation owner, who in turn sold him to an English naval officer named Henry Pascal. As a personal servant, he participated in the Seven Years' War in America from 1757 to 1762. In 1762 he was resold to a plantation owner and returned to the West Indies. Here he was able to buy his own freedom, but remained with his former slave owner, the Quaker Robert King. In 1773, he participated in an exploratory voyage to the Arctic. Convinced of the Christian idea, he became a Methodist. Gröls Classics - English Edition