21 Nov 2017

SOLD AS A SLAVE.

SOLD AS A SLAVE by OLAUDAH EQUIANO.  
He has never even heard of a white man, or of Europeans, or of the sea, when one night a small African boy is kidnapped from his village, tied up and put into a sack. From there he finds himself in the hold of a slave ship bound for the West Indies, chained to hundreds of others, longing for death. But Olaudah Equiano does not die. One day he will journey to freedom.
- Back Cover Blurb
(May contain what some contain spoilers, scroll over text to hi-light the full synopsis if you so wish. TT)

The part of Africa, known by the name of Guinea, to which the trade for slaves is carried on, extends along the coast above 3400 miles, from Senegal to Angola, and includes a variety of kingdoms.
- First Sentence, Chapter 1: No Beasts of Husbandry


 I no longer looked upon them as spirits but as men superior to us; and therefore I had the stronger desire to resemble them; to imbibe their spirit, and imitate their manners; I therefore embraced very occasion of improvement, and every new thing that I observed I treasured up in my memory.
- Memorable Moment, Page 64

SOURCE ... A set of books given to me by a friend, thanks Jim.

READ FOR ... The 20th of 24 books read for the Mount TBR 2017 Reading Challenge.

MY THOUGHTS ... Part of a Penguin series of books that takes an extract from various larger works. Sold As A Slave is taken from his autobiography, The Interesting Slave, which is considered by some to be one of the greatest documents on the nature of slavery. Odd to me given that we are warned in the introduction that the first portion of the book, the first of its 20 or so 111 pages, is in fact pure fabrication. 

Anyway ...

What I'd describe as a list of occurrences  .... perhaps the price to be paid for reading extracts from a book rather than the book in full ... to me there was no real flow to the narrative

A harrowing read no matter how many times you read such accounts but for me personally there wasn't anything new in the way of the horrors of the slave trade - might I suggest this as an ideal primary source to begin reading about such events. However what is different is that rather than set in America this chronicles the life of a slave who ended up in England and, in parts, details life aboard a naval ship.

6 comments:

WordsPoeticallyWorth said...

Greetings Tracy. Thanks for the review. Blessings to you.

Thank you. Love love, Andrew. Bye.

Kelly said...

This is not one for me. I know it was a reality, but I just don't like reading about it.

I find it interesting how rarely we see anything about the slave trade in Brazil. If I'm not mistaken, it began there before it did in the US and lasted several decades longer.

Tragic that anyone feels they can "own" another human being and sad that it still exists today, in some places.

Brian Joseph said...

Though accounts like this have become relatively common, I think sometimes books like this are worth reading. With that, it is odd that part of the account was made up. That might prevent me from reading a book.

Anonymous said...

Tracy,
This would definitely be
a truly harrowing book.
I would hesitate about
reading it because of what
you said about the portion
of the book which was fabricated.
But thank you for your excellent
review.
Raven

DMS said...

This sounds like an interesting read- and anytime I read about slavery it is always hard. I can imagine reading this in the form you mentioned would be a little trickier. Thanks for sharing!
~Jess

Suko said...

Thanks for your honest review, Tracy. I wonder why the first part of the book is fabrication.
Have a wonderful weekend.