Posted: February 14th, 2023

Effect of Religion on Equiano’s life.

Effect of Religion on Equiano’s life.
Introduction.
Olaudah Equiano, also known as Gustavus Vassa after baptism (Mottolese, 1988, p.60), was a former enslaved African man who bought his freedom and wrote an autobiography about his story of slavery. Equiano embraced Christianity at age 14. He got baptized in 1759 in London at St. Margaret’s Church, a Christian. Equiano explains in his narrative that a female slave of his master often told him that he could not go to heaven unless he was baptized, which made him very uneasy. Equiano communicated his anxiety to his godparent, Miss Guerin, who convinced Equiano’s master to baptize him. Miss Guerin was a cousin to Pascal, Equiano’s master. She went ahead to teach him how to read and on the principles of Christianity. Equiano remained a life-long Christian of Methodist rather than Anglican Persuasion. This essay seeks to discuss the effects of religion on Equiano’s life.
Equiano, drawn to the Old Testament’s narrative quality, distinguishes between the Christianity practiced by himself and his Methodist friends to that of white slaveholders. He terms his Christianity as the true Christianity and argues that his African brethren are more honest and legitimate in faith than the Jews. The involvement of White Christians in the slave trade is said to have perverted their faith. Greed, lust, anger, and pride developed in their hearts despite their faith. Equiano relies on God for all things and tries to live a godly life following the ten commandments. The Methodist Church gives Equiano calm because its values, honesty, and faith levels, and humility are necessary to virtuous works.
Equiano heard George Whitefield, the famous preacher of Great Awakening, preaching in Savannah in 1761, just about six years after Miss Guerin taught him the principles of Christianity. In 1775 in Dr. Irving’s company, he traveled to Nicaragua as a Christian missionary (Andrews, 2013, p. 86). Dr. Irving established a plantation on the Mosquito Coast, while Equiano sought to spread Christianity to the Indian population in the area (Apap, 2006, p. 19). In 1776 Equiano left the Mosquito coast for Plymouth, England, where he arrived in January 1777. Equiano was passionate about ending the slave trade (Equiano, 2001, p. 28). He settled in London in the 1780s and joined the abolitionist movement to end the slave trade, particularly among Quakers. Anglicans sought to directly influence parliament by founding a non-denominational group named Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade in 1787.
George Whitefield’s evangelism influenced Equiano that under the Test Act suggests that for anyone to serve as an MP, one must be prepared to receive the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper in compliance with the Church of England rites. Many abolitionists supported and befriended Equiano; they even encouraged him to publish his autobiography. Religious benefactors and abolitionists were at the help of Equiano financially. Support for Equiano’s lectures and book preparation came from Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon (Wakefield, 2020, p. 654).
After securing the role in the British Abolishment Movement, 1778, Equiano appealed the end of slavery in England to Queen Charlotte. Equiano then wedded Susannah Cullen, an English woman, in April 1792 in St. Andrew Church of Cambridge shire. Cullen and Equiano got two daughters who both got baptized at Soham Church. The first daughter, Anna Maria, was born in1793, and the second, Joana born in 1795.

Works Cited

Andrews, Edward E. “A Black Missionary in the Center of the Slave Trade: The Life and Letters of Philip Quaque.” Eighteenth-Century Life 37, no. 3 (2013): 85-87.
Apap, Christopher. “Caught between two opinions Africans, Europeans, and Indians in Olaudah Equiano’s Interesting Narrative.” Comparative American Studies An International Journal 4, no. 1 (2006): 5-24.
Equiano, Olaudah. The interesting narrative of the life of Olaudah Equiano. Broadview Press, 2001.
Mottolese, William. ““Almost an Englishman”: Olaudah Equiano and the colonial gift of language.” Bucknell Review 41, no. 2 (1998): 160.
Wakefield, Hannah. “Olaudah Equiano’s Ecclesial World.” Early American Literature 55, no. 3 (2020): 651-683.