44 pages • 1 hour read
Olaudah EquianoThe Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, the African
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1789A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 9-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 9 Summary
Equiano swore never to return to Georgia. His new captain brought the ship to the West Indies without any problems. Equiano was a long time in getting back to Mr. King, however, because the new captain refused to return money he borrowed from Equiano. Equiano needed the money for the trip to England, but racist laws prevented him from pursuing the matter in court because the captain was white. He reluctantly sailed with the captain to the island of St. Kitts, where the captain finally paid him back.
By then, it was late in the season to be sailing, but Equiano found a ship to take him to Montserrat and his old master. His status as a formerly enslaved person was a problem because freed people were legally required to advertise that they were leaving the island (likely to prevent the escape of enslaved people). The intervention of friendly white acquaintances once again saved him. Equiano visited Mr. King to say goodbye and ask for a letter of reference, the text of which Equiano includes in the book. It is short and perfunctory. Equiano then leaves for England, traveling for seven weeks as a seaman.
Once in England, Equiano first went to the Guerin sisters, where he encountered Captain Pascal, the man who stole his prize money and sent him to the West Indies as a slave. Pascal was unrepentant and taunted Equiano by telling him that not even the law can help him gain the prize money back. Equiano needed a job and a trade to survive. The sisters set him up to learn the craft of hairdressing, which Equiano mastered (along with the French horn).
Unable to make much money and eager to see more of the world, Equiano went to sea again in 1786. He served as a steward to Captain John Jolly. Equiano recounts a series of voyages to Turkey, France, Portugal, and Italy. He describes the curiosities and sights he encountered in each place. He even signed on for a voyage to Jamaica, mostly out of curiosity, but the cruelties to slaves in Jamaica were numerous, so much so that he skips over telling more such stories after providing a few examples. Equiano continued to encounter dishonest traders who imposed on him because of his race. He also nearly died when he almost set his berth on fire while writing in his journal. He credits God with preserving him during these voyages.
The culmination of his voyages as a seaman was an expedition to find a northwest passage to India by going over the North Pole. Equiano describes the wonders he witnessed—mountains of ice, walruses, endless days, and Arctic bears. He and his crewmates killed animals to take back as specimens. The expedition was unable to proceed as they got closer to the pole, and the ship became locked in ice. Death seemed to be their future, and Equiano even fell in an icy pond and died as they struggled to figure out how to get free. The overwhelming sense that death could be sudden and that he would go to Hell because of lax morals scared him. He was a chastened man when he finally made it back to England. Still, the expedition was of historic note because it proved that there was no northwest passage to India.
Chapter 10 Summary
Equiano entered a time of tumult in his life after the North Pole expedition. He initially returned to working for Doctor Irving but wearied almost immediately with this life. His near brushes with death and failure to live up to Christian ideals despite his baptism convinced him that his soul was in peril because of his sinfulness. His encounters with dishonest Christians made him despair over the inability of institutional religion to make people’s hearts over. Unable to find examples of people living truly Christlike lives among the many religious sects in England, he decided to ship to Turkey, where the people were at least kind to each other, making them better Christians despite being followers of Islam.
He saw firsthand the hypocrisy of English society when John Annis, an Afro-British and manumitted crewmate, was re-enslaved because the master regretted freeing him. For the first time, Equiano attempted to use the law to intervene. He secured the help of Granville Sharpe, an important abolitionist and lawyer, and had a bailiff serve a writ of habeas corpus (a demand to produce a person who is being held). These efforts failed to free Annis. Annis’s owner took Annis to the West Indian island of St. Kitts. After brutal beatings, Annis died in the man’s custody. This occurrence deepened Equiano’s depression and his sense that the world was out of kilter, so much so that he at one time considered suicide.
At this low point, Equiano finally found some sincere Christians. Unlike many who attended mainline churches, these evangelical Christians read the Bible for themselves, sought personal revelations from God, and embraced a more emotional, unstructured spirituality. They were also generous and kind to strangers. Through key friendships and mentorship, Equiano experienced an ecstatic conversion after having a vision of the mercy of Christ. He shares numerous scriptures highlighting the role of God’s mercy and intervention in bringing him out of Africa and to Christianity in England. Equiano became a full member at Westminster Chapel.
In “Miscellaneous Verses Or, Reflections on the State of My Mind During My First Convictions; Of the Necessity of Believing the Truth, and Experiencing the Inestimable Benefits of Christianity,” Equiano recounts his conversion—sinfulness, conviction of sin, and being saved—in poetic form.
Chapter 11 Summary
Saved at last, Equiano intended to stay in England. Under pressure from his friends, he sailed for Cadiz in March 1775. The ship nearly sank. Equiano took this opportunity to preach to the survivors about God’s mercy. Equiano next went to Malaga and describes for the reader the extraordinary church there as well as the spectacle of bullfighting. As Equiano continued on the voyage, he saw many instances of God’s hand in his life and those he encountered. He frequently shared these thoughts with his companions, hoping to convince them to convert to his form of Christianity. Equiano made it back to England.
Equiano sailed with Irving again, this time to the Mosquito Coast of Central America. He describes the cultural practices and rare sights he found among the Miskito (then called “Mosquito”) people he found there. Once again, he found that non-Christians were more ethical than nominal Christians. During his travels, he attempted to convert several Miskito travelers on his ship, but his efforts failed due to the poor and anti-Christian attitudes of his ship mates. Equiano grew weary of working on Sundays (a violation of his Christian beliefs) and decided it was time to part with Irving. Irving gave him a letter of reference, the text of which Equiano includes in the book.
Equiano booked passage on a ship, but the captain of the ship attempted to kidnap him and sell him back into slavery. Equiano escaped but landed with a captain who forced him to work instead of taking him to Jamaica as promised. Equiano throughout is convinced that he will be enslaved again. Through it all, he relied on his faith to carry him. The captain of this second ship refused to pay Equiano once they arrived in Jamaica, and even the later intervention of Captain Irving wasn’t enough to make him do right by Equiano. Such treatment was commonplace. Equiano finally secured passage to Plymouth, England. It was 1777.
Chapter 12 Summary
Equiano claims the rest of his life was less eventful, so he wraps up his narrative. Tired of his misadventures, he gave up life at sea and returned to working as a servant until 1784. He tried and failed to become a missionary to Africa. He managed a scheme to send poverty-stricken Afro-British people to Sierra Leone, a West African country founded to resettle formerly enslaved people. Due to corruption and poor planning, the project was a failure. Equiano was fired but managed to secure some wages after sending letters to several officials. Equiano also describes his involvement in the abolitionist movement in England and includes several economic and moral arguments to show that it would be more profitable to abolish slavery and create markets for British goods in African countries.
This chapter includes miscellaneous anecdotes about unusual events Equiano encountered over these years (including an anecdote about the skin color of the children of a white-presenting Afro-British woman) and letters (including one to the British monarch) to important officials related to the resettlement scheme and abolition. Equiano wraps up his narrative with an apology for including so many trifles, but he reminds the readers that even trifles may show the hand of God; including any little detail can be no great fault.
Chapters 9-12 Analysis
In the third act of his memoir, Equiano gains more control over his mobility, with some resulting greater freedom. He also leans in to the “interesting” part of his narrative by including his adventures in the North Pole and on the Mosquito Coast. Finally, he recounts how he became a born-again Christian, completing a conversion that began when he first arrived in England. Using conventions of multiple genres, Equiano can fashion for the reader a portrait of Afro-British excellence.
While Equiano’s story is certainly a slave narrative, it is also the story of what it is to be a Black sailor during a moment when most Black people had little control over their mobility, and the literature of life aboard ships was one in which Black people were cargo, their names and stories frequently left out of the record. In these chapters, Equiano intervenes both in the representation of literature about sea travels and literature about Black life by narrating his adventures. His inclusion of his participation in the North Pole expedition shows that he was not only a witness to history but a participant. Such stories are part of what makes the narrative interesting to his readers, beyond the firsthand accounts of slavery.
His narrative of his later travels to the Mosquito Coast, replete with descriptions of the Indigenous people he encounters, foods, and cultural traditions, is also part of the body of travel literature that introduced the Americas to British readers. Such travel texts were the literary arm of British imperialism. They opened up these strange worlds for consumption by such readers until they came to see places like the Mosquito Coast as part of their sphere of British influence and thus not so strange after all. These readers were hungry for novelty, and descriptions of the feast the Miskito offered Equiano and his expedition mates explain why people were eager to read The Interesting Narrative.
Equiano creates more opportunities to connect with his audience by using conventions of the conversion narrative (a narrative in which the reader recounts their conversion to a faith). Even in the adventurous earlier chapters, he signals a shift to his focus on faith as he has more and more near misses during his travels. He frames his decision to give up his life as a sailor and adventurer as a sacrifice he is willing to make in order to surround himself with Christian fellowship. Like many of his readers on both sides of the Atlantic, Equiano was swept up in religious movements that emphasized personal religious experiences, and we see this on full display with his accounts of the suffering and ecstasy of life as a would-be convert.
Finally, Equiano engages in some element of self-justification when it comes to addressing blemishes to his reputation, a move we expect to see in memoirs, but one that becomes particularly important since Equiano was by now associated with the cause of abolition. His description of the debacle around the scheme to settle Sierra Leone is a source of potential attacks on his credibility, but he includes a letter to exonerate himself from such charges. It is clear that this is a painful episode to him and one that highlights the difficulties for free Black people when it came to helping others escape the predicaments of slavery and second-class citizenship.
Equiano’s ability to marshal all these different genres allows him to engage in self-fashioning for an audience that was not accustomed to seeing Black people wield control over their own representation. By tapping into these popular genres, Equiano helps white readers of the time overcome potential incredulity or discomfort with hearing a Black person tell their own story.
