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Submitted by ecpierce on May 5, 2008
Category: American History
Words: 1720 | Pages: 7
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Comparing Olaudah Equiano to Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Slavery is, and was at the time, the most troubling aspect of the European project in the New World. The conquest and slaughter of the indigenous people was terrible, but not entirely out of step with the war-mongering values of 16th century Europe. But the importation of kidnapped people to create a permanent sub-class of chattel slaves to live and work among the colonists as livestock – that was ethically problematic for many right from the start. From the beginning of the British Colonies in North America through the US Civil War the “peculiar institution”, as it was known, created a moral dissonance for many whites. This is especially true after the founding of the United States upon a principle of liberty and equality. From the perspective of the enslaved Africans and their descendants in America, the sound of slavery was more cataclysmic than dissonant and its echoes are still heard to this day.
Two books of the era that were influential in changing public opinion about slavery are The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, The African, Written by Himself , published in Britain in 1789 and Uncle Tom’s Cabin , written by a white woman abolitionist named Harriet Beecher Stowe. The first is an account of the author’s life from his capture in Africa to his eventual freedom and travel adventures around the world. The second is a fictional account of the lives of slaves and masters in the pre-war South. Written from different perspectives, at different times, and in different styles, both works employ the concept of home to advance the anti-slavery cause. Though Equiano promotes more of an adventurous manliness than Stowe’s Uncle Tom, both works exalt to some extent the “cult of domesticity” that was ascendant in 19th century America.
In his narrative, Equiano begins in the beginning, with his childhood in Africa. He paints a...
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