Today marks the 272nd birthday of OlaudahEquiano (16 October 1745 – 31 March 1797), one of the greatest figures in the 18th century. A pioneering abolitionist, his memoir The Interesting Life of Olaudah Equiano went through nine editions in his lifetime! It is one of the earliest known examples of published writing by an African writer to be widely read in England. By 1792, it was a best seller: it has been published in Russia, Germany, Holland, and the United States. It was the first influential slave narrative of what became a large literary genre.

He was known in his lifetime as Gustavus Vassa, was a freed slave from present day Nigeria, a prominent Igbo from present day Nigeria. Igbo in London, he supported the British movement to end the slave the slave trade. He helped in the creation of the Slave Trade Act 1807 which ended the African trade for Britain and its colonies.

In his account, Equiano gives details about his hometown Etsako and the laws and customs of the Eboe people. After being captured as a boy, he described communities he passed through as a captive on his way to the coast. His biography details his voyage on a slave ship, and the brutality of slavery in the colonies of West Indies, Virginia, and Georgia


Equiano's will provided for projects he considered important. In case of his surviving daughter's death before reaching theage of majority (21), he bequeathed half his wealth to the Sierra Leone Company for continued assistance to West Africans, and half to the London Missionary Society, which promoted education overseas. This organization had formed in November 1796 at the Spa Fields Chapel of the Countess of Huntingdon in north London. By the early 19th century, The Missionary Society had become well known worldwide as non-denominational; many of its members were Congregational.


Source : partly from Wikipedia







.

This ancient Bini man - is been celebrated today.