Jill Knierim
The Horrors of a Slave Ship
History 1301-Villarreal
Due Date: 3/8/13

The article, The Horrors of a Slave Ship, is first person point of view account of the capturing of Olaudah Equiano. He tells the story of how he was captured from his home while his parents were away to be used as a slave. The article starts off with Olaudah and his sister being captured while their parents were away. They were taken into the woods, tied up, and forced to travel bound without food. After many days of traveling, Olaudah and his sister were separated. From that point he was passed around and finally landed in the hands of his first owner. His first owner was a smith and Olaudah worked in his shop. He was there for about a month …show more content…

He tells all about the pain he felt when he was first separated from his sister, then the joy he felt when they were reunited, then the pain of being separated once again. He tells of how it was even harder to be taken from each other the second time. I cannot even imagine being taken from my home and from my family.
I personally find it interesting that the worst part of being a slave presented in the article was being transported on the ship. I never imagined that being taken from Africa to Barbados would be the worst part of his time as a slave presented in the article. Personally, I never really think about slavery being in Africa, just people being taken from Africa to the New World to act as slaves so I found it interesting to learn about. I also wasn’t expecting the treatment of Olaudah to be as good as it was with some of his masters. When I think of slavery I think of the treatment of slaves in the New World that we are mostly taught about so this really opened my