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This picture is from the frontispiece of ‘The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African’ - published in 1789. The book is a fascinating account of the life of a slave - eventually freed.
Equiano spent much of the 1790s campaigning against slavery, and also managed to turn his book into a financial success. The 1790s brought personal changes too, and on 7 April 1792 he married an Englishwoman, Susanna Cullen, at Soham in Cambridgeshire. Olaudah and Susanna had two daughters, one of whom survived to inherit a substantial estate of £950 from her father (equivalent to about £100,000 today).
Equiano died in March 1797, a full ten years before the slave trade was abolished in British ships, forty years before slavery was abolished in British colonies, and 68 years before slavery was ended in the United States.
Although Equiano did not live to see these events, his narrative played an important part in bringing them about.
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