Olaudah Equiano was taken by force at the age of eleven from his West African village of Benin. He was then put on a ship to travel through the rough "Middle Passage" of the Atlantic Ocean to become a slave in the West Indies.
             In the West Indies (Barbados) he was put up for sale to work in the sugar plantations. Then in 1766, he was sold to a Virginian farmer to be a slave there. He was a slave in North America for ten years, and then he was allowed to buy his freedom. He left North American and went to Great Britain. In Great Britain he worked as a barber and became an abolish nest. He spoke out against slavery and in 1789 wrote a book about his life called "The Interesting Narrative of the life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African", written by himself. This was thought to be the first book written by a former slave.
             In 1745, Equiano was born in Benin, which in now Virginia, he was a member of the farming village of Iseeke, they were in the IBO tribe. Equiano wrote in his autobiography that he was brought up to be a farmer and a great warrior. He was the youngest child and his mother would dress him up to look like a great warrior. Before the people of his tribe were kidnapped for slavery, he described a simple life of farm labor and playing with the other tribe kids. Then one day while he was playing, he saw from a tree the white men come and take people away including himself . He was bound and gagged and given no food for days. He soon arrived on the coast of Africa where he was beginning his horrible journey to Barbados through the difficult Middle Passage of the Atlantic Ocean.
             In his book, Olaudah describes his voyage on the Atlantic Ocean. He tells that he was tossed onto the ship to make sure he was a durable slave. He was frightened by the white men because they were so different from his tribe people. He thought the white men would eat him but the other sla
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