Global History

Summary and Directions for Week 5 Primary Source Selection

European expansion in the Atlantic that began with Portuguese voyages along the African coast in the 1440s and Columbus’s discovery of the Americas in 1492 had by 1750 created a new Atlantic zone of human contact and communication that embraced four continents and one ocean. To work the mines and plantations of the New World, Europeans used Amerindian labor, but increasingly, especially for lowland plantations, they used African slaves. African and European migration so displaced Amerindian populations that on some Caribbean islands by 1750, native peoples had been completely replaced by Africans. The new Atlantic ecological system was not a uniform zone, however. Coastal regions in western Europe and towns on the eastern seaboard of the Americas prospered, while American interiors and African populations in Africa stagnated or declined. The Atlantic Ocean became a vast lake that united port cities and plantations with sailing ships that carried African slaves to the Caribbean, Caribbean sugar and rum to North American and European industrial ports, and guns, pots, and liquor to the African “slave coast.” Thus, the Atlantic world was integrated with the Old World.

Olaudah Equiano, Interesting Narrative: “Middle Passage” (1789)

See attached pdf file on Moodle

The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa the African, written by himself was published in 1789. The memoir tells the story of a young Equiano sold into slavery in Africa and transported to the Americas where he won his freedom and became a spokesperson for the abolition of slavery in the Atlantic world. Recent research suggests that the Equiano may have actually been born a slave in South Carolina and that his tale of earlier African slavery may be a composite of the stories of others meant to help sell more copies of the book and serve the abolitionist cause. If the book is less autobiographical than once believed, it is no less interesting, and still conveys a wealth of history about African experiences of slavery.

Reading and Discussion Questions:

How does Equiano describe the “Middle Passage?”

Why do you think Equiano included this chapter in his narrative? What do you think he hoped his audience might come to understand from reading this chapter?