Who are we looking for, who are we looking for?
It's Equiano we're looking for.
Has he gone to the stream? Let him come back.
Has he gone to the farm? Let him return.
It's Equiano we're looking for.
- Kwa chant about the
disappearance of an
African boy, Equiano
What the people of Olaudah Equiano properly never have found out, is that their son, brother and friend was never going to return to his tribe or family. He had become a victim of the growing slave trade between Africa and the New World. Among the few cruel stories which are related to his experience as a slave, the experience of the middle passage is one of the worst he is telling us about in his autobiography.
“This wretched situation was again aggravated by the galling of the chains, now became insupportable, and the filth of the necessary tubs (latrines), into which children often fell, and were almost suffocated. The shrieks of the women, and the groans of the dying, rendered the whole scene of horror almost inconceivable.
In this situation I expected every hour to share the fate of my companions, some of whom were almost daily brought upon deck at the point of death, which I began to hope would soon put an end to my miseries.”
Up to this point Equiano was still thinking that there might be a possibility to go home. But the experience of the scenes described above changes his ideas. The horror of the Middle Passage makes him wishing for a fast death to find a final relief. This is just one example of the very cruelty of the middle passage and it is the point were Equiano is sure that he will never see his people or his country again.
Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, p. 56.
Resistance to the middle passage.
Information about the middle passage
Resistance to the middle passage
Links about he middle passage
