Olaudah Equiano

Major Pierce reached for the biggest comparison he knew, a Swedish liberator king, a Russian empire builder, and a Roman farmer general.

Like Gustavus Vassa, he may be said to be deliverer of his country.

Like Peter the Great, he appears as a politician and a statesman.

And like Cincinnatus, he returned to his farm perfectly contented with being only a plain citizen, after enjoying the highest honors of the Confederacy, and now only seeks the approbation of his countrymen by being virtuous and useful.

Yeah, one of the tragedies or travesties of the entire slave trade is we have so few voices of the actual Africans, just a handful of surviving voices.

People like Ottobah Cugoano, Olaudah Equiano, a handful of Africans who survived, uh, achieved their freedom, and then wrote accounts of what it was like.

But these are just a handful of voices we have of the millions, by most estimates twelve and a half, thirteen million Africans taken across the Atlantic.

During the course of my archival research into the Zorg and trying to piece together exactly what happened on the ship and who was responsible, I came across a parchment in the, in the National Archives here in London, at, in Kew.

But when we came inside of England, I found they had deceived me.

It was on board of this ship I received the name of Gustavus Vassa.

Having often seen my master and a lad named Richard Baker, who was very kind to me, reading in books, I had a desire to do so, that I might find out how all things had a beginning.

For that purpose, I often took a book, talked to it, and then placed it to my ear to hear what it would say.

Thence we were taken to Savannah, so to Martinico and Montserrat, having been absent about six months, and experienced the delivering hand of Providence more than once, when all human means seemed hopeless.

After relating to Mr.

King the loss of the Nancy, and the various hardships we had endured, I again told him my desire to go to England; and although he wished me to remain in his service, he consented, and gave me the following certificate: "The bearer hereof, Gustavus Vassa, was my slave upward of three years; during which time he always behaved himself well, and discharged his duty with honesty and assiduity.

R. King." Obtaining this certificate, I soon parted with my kind master, and arrived in England, when I here received my wages.

And there's a lot of them.

They included Olaudah Equiano, Britton Hammond, Jupiter Hammond, James Albert Ukasaw-Gruniasaw, John Morant, and Boston King.

Phyllis had what was in many ways an unusual upbringing relative to the plight of most other enslaved people in the United States.

Yes, some enslaved people were brought to church, but Phyllis also was allowed to learn to read and write.