A slave in three continents

Olaudah Equiano was a black man born in 1745 in the area which is today Nigeria. His father was a tribe chief so he grew up with slaves, but they were treated nicely. One morning slave traders came and stole him and sold him. He was with a very friendly family then, and he thought they wanted to adopt him, but suddenly he was sold to a slave sailor and he was put in a slave ship and this ship sailed via the middle passage to America. Many blacks died during this journey. In the USA he was sold to a lieutenant of the British navy and this man gave him a new name and taught him how to be a sailor. He also fought for Britain in a war. After that he was sold to a Caribbean merchant, but Olaudah tasted the freedom and didn’t want to be a slave anymore. So he traded glass and so on and with this method he saved more than 40 pounds which was a lot of money for this time, and this was enough to make him free. As a free man he worked as a sailor on a white man's ship. One day this white man wanted to sell him, but he refused and so he wasn’t sold. After that he went to England and became a great speaker against slavery. He wrote his autobiography in 1789 and died in 1797.