The Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano

Character Guide

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Olaudah Equiano (Gustavus Vassa, Jacob, Michael)

The narrator, born in the Eboe province of the Benin kingdom in Africa, kidnapped into slavery as a child and eventually transported across the Middle Passage; the entire narrative is told from his first-person perspective.

Equiano's sister

Kidnapped alongside young Olaudah, she is briefly reunited with him before they are separated again, an event that deeply grieves him.

Equiano's father

An 'Embrenche,' or marked elder and judge, in their African village, respected for settling disputes and punishing crimes according to local custom.

Michael Henry Pascal

A lieutenant in the Royal Navy and merchant ship captain who purchases young Equiano in Virginia, renames him Gustavus Vassa, and takes him to England.

Richard Baker

A young American-born shipmate a few years older than Equiano who befriends him warmly aboard ship, teaching him and offering companionship despite Equiano's enslaved status.

Robert King

A Quaker merchant in Montserrat who purchases Equiano and employs him in trading ventures across the Caribbean, allowing him some opportunity to earn money of his own.

Dr. Irving

A doctor Equiano works for and travels with in Central America, treated with mutual respect and later parted from with genuine emotion.

Emanuel Sankey

An enslaved man in Montserrat who attempts to escape by hiding aboard a London ship but is discovered and returned to brutal punishment.

Governor Macnamara

A colonial governor Equiano serves in London, who takes an interest in his religious devotion and proposes sending him as a missionary to Africa.

Glossary

Embrenche

A title of high distinction among Equiano's people, marked by a ceremonial scar cut across the forehead, held by judges and senators like his father.

Oye-Eboe

Term used by Equiano's people for traveling traders ('red men living at a distance') who brought firearms, gunpowder, and goods, and sometimes trafficked in kidnapped people.

Middle Passage

The brutal transatlantic voyage transporting enslaved Africans to the Americas, described by Equiano through the stench, sickness, and death he witnessed as a child aboard a slave ship.

Manumission

The formal legal act of freeing an enslaved person; Equiano purchases and receives his own manumission document from his enslaver Robert King in 1766.

Snow

A type of small merchant sailing ship, one of the vessels Equiano served and was transported aboard.

Talking book

Equiano's description of watching literate white people 'read' and his childhood belief that books could literally speak, later identified by scholars as a recurring trope in early Black Atlantic literature.

Iron muzzle

A torturous metal device locked over an enslaved person's mouth to prevent eating, drinking, or speaking, described by Equiano as a common instrument of punishment in the West Indies.

Cowrie/white shells

Small white shells used as a form of currency in parts of Africa, which Equiano notes were used to purchase him during his forced journey to the coast.

Guinea (region)

The West African coastal region, over 3,400 miles long, from which the transatlantic slave trade drew captives, including Equiano's native kingdom of Benin.

Creole (negro)

In this narrative, a term for an enslaved or free Black person born in the Americas or West Indies, as distinguished from those born in Africa.

Thirty-nine articles

The doctrinal statements defining the Church of England, which Equiano cites to explain his religious affiliation as a Protestant.

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