Olaudah Equiano

Olaudah Equiano (c. 1745–1797) was born, by his own account, in what is now southern Nigeria, kidnapped into slavery around age eleven, and sold through Barbados to Virginia, where a Royal Navy lieutenant bought him and renamed him Gustavus Vassa. He spent over a decade at sea, including service during the Seven Years' War, before buying his freedom in 1766 for £40 and settling in England. His autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789), sold through nine editions in his lifetime and helped build support for the abolition of the British slave trade; he also served briefly as a commissary for the Sierra Leone resettlement scheme. He married Susannah Cullen in 1792 and died in London in 1797.