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Vincent Caretta, Equiano the African Biography of a Self Made Man, Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 2005, 417 pp.
Equiano the African Biography of a Self Made Man by Vincent Caretta, professor of English at the University of Maryland, discusses the life of the outstanding black British abolitionist Olaudah Equiano. In this work, Caretta skilfully shows how Equiano, a slave in eighteenth-century United States, gained his freedom, became a citizen of Great Britain and debatably the wealthiest and most influential African at the time. Caretta further describes Equiano' s exploits on his voyages as a sailor to the continents of Europe, Asia and Africa, as well as his impressions of their respective cultures. In this regard the issues of race and slavery, and their impact on Africans throughout the Atlantic World in the late eighteenth century, are well treated. Most importantly, the abolitionist movement within Great Britain, key individuals in the movement, their strategies and their networking, form an integral part of the book.
Equiano the African Biography unfortunately, however, contains numerous unsubstantiated claims and several historical inaccuracies concerning the subject of the work, Equiano, as well as of Africa and the slave trade. For example, Caretta makes the claim that Equiano lied about his place of birth in order to validate his abolitionist message and to gain readership for his book. According to Caretta, Equiano was not born in Essaka, West Africa, as he claimed, but rather in the United States in South Carolina (p. 2). Equiano's baptismal record along with a naval record found in South Carolina (p. 147) was taken as evidence of this claim. These records, for me,...