Article
Change
Race
5 min read

Equiano: How an ex-captive became the voice of abolition

How did a formerly enslaved person think about their faith, freedom, and vocation? Luke Bretherton explores the politics and theology of Olaudah Equiano, whose story was central to the abolitionist movement and continues to resonate today.

Luke Bretherton is a Professor of Moral and Political Theology and senior fellow of the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.

Equiano
Portrait of Olaudah Equiano from the frontispiece of his biography

The most significant political revolution of the modern era was not that of America, France, Haiti, Russia, or China. It was the longer lasting, deeper rooted, and more pervasive revolution that is “humanitarianism.” Rather than a change in one form of political order, it was a revolution of moral sentiment that affects all political orders. The fruit of this revolution is that the acme of moral action is no longer love for a proximate “brother” but love for a remote “other.”  

A foundational text in this revolution is Olaudah Equiano’s The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. Written by Himself (1789). Equiano, a formerly enslaved person, was a key activist in the movement to abolish slavery. Published on the eve of the Parliamentary enquiry into the slave trade and three months before the French Revolution, his autobiography was hugely popular, running to nine editions and numerous printings during his lifetime.

His autobiography is vital reading because the abolition movement in which he played such a key part is widely understood by historians as foundational to the birth of humanitarianism. It is also seen as providing the template for other, subsequent movements for social justice.

Equiano’s work and its impact needs situating within what is called the Second Great Awakening, a moment of religious fervour on both sides of the Atlantic. Dated as beginning in 1790, the Second Great Awakening represented a huge revival in popular Christianity. Out of it came modern evangelicalism. However, unlike its contemporary expression, the evangelicalism of the late 18th and early 19th century was a key influence on a number of movements for social reform, including the abolition movement.  

In his narrative, he portrays himself as the true Christian and the true human. When he encounters the European slave traders on their slave ships, they are the real savages, and despite what they say, they are not Christians.

At the heart of Equiano’s Narrative are two stories of conversion. The first is his conversion to Christianity. The second is his conversion to abolitionism. These two conversions are interrelated. Through his conversion to Christianity, he discovers an understanding of what it means to be human that leads him to see all forms of slavery as wrong. This judgment against slavery includes not just the industrial scale form of slavery driven by the plantation economy, but also what some see as the more benign forms of his own Eboe society in West Africa. 

Through his conversion narrative he gains possession of himself, his history, and his people as historical subjects able to speak and act for themselves. He becomes a political actor contributing to and a leading figure within a new political form – the social movement – that contested a dominant feature of the political economy – slavery. Crucially, he refuses and refutes the racialized ways in which Africans are negatively portrayed. Rather than a chattel, he is a Christian and a citizen with a story to tell. He is not merely biology to be exploited. He has a biography. And he is one whose testimony stands as evidence in the case against slavery.  In staging this claim he reverses the order of who listens and who speaks – he speaks and English readers listen and take instruction from him. 

In his narrative, he portrays himself as the true Christian and the true human. When he encounters the European slave traders on their slave ships, they are the real savages, and despite what they say, they are not Christians. He also represents himself in the text as a new St Paul. He’s an apostle calling others to discover both Christ and their humanity in their encounter with him through reading his story.  

Equiano’s is a profound and original work that constantly draws on Biblical frames of reference to both denounce the world as it is and announce a new world. The Bible for him is simultaneously a means of demanding recognition and offering critique.  

In the frontispiece of the book he is pictured as holding a Bible which is open at the Book of Acts in the New Testament. Acts chronicles the adventures of the apostles after Christ's death and resurrection. The frontispiece is the key to understanding the story Equiano tells. He is not Odysseus who returns home after many trials and tribulations. Rather, he is St Paul: one who becomes an apostle, taking on a new name and identity in the process. Like St Paul, Equiano suffers whipping, imprisonment (in the hold of a ship), storms, and travels in chains all for the sake of preaching the Gospel. And like St Paul, who ends his journey in Acts in Rome, Equiano’s journey leads him finally to London, the centre of his imperial world.  From there he writes an epistle addressed to the churches who are failing to be faithful to the Gospel.  In doing so, he appeals, like St Paul, to a universal humanity now available in Christ, in whom “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).      

The most significant political revolution of the modern era was not that of America, France, Haiti, Russia, or China. It was the longer lasting, deeper rooted, and more pervasive revolution that is “humanitarianism.”

There are those who read Equiano as simply a stooge for colonialism and capitalism. Yet they fail to convince. Such readings deny any connection to the abolition movement. And rather than being someone who is reclaiming his voice and agency, they turn him into a faceless and voiceless subject of forces beyond his control. 

To dismiss Equiano is to fail to see the truly revolutionary nature of the text he wrote. In his autobiography, Equiano describes the Christian masters who brutally tortured their slaves for the slightest offense, the ubiquitous rape of women, including very young girls, and the theft from slaves who had little or nothing. Alongside and in stark contrast to this brutality, exploitation, and alienation, Equiano narrates an alternative world, one characterized by intimacy and connection. In this world, he becomes friends with women and children, and forms equal partnerships with white men. The vision of freedom he presents does not entail violently taking control of the state (as was the pattern set by the French revolution). That vision of revolution simply changes who is in control of the state and the economy but does not change the basic form and character of relations between people. 

The freedom Equiano portrays is neither structural nor economic. Rather, he bears witness to a revolution of intimacy and sentiment. His life story embodies a changed structure of feeling, one where in place of the rape, whipping, chains, fear, disgust, and disdain that rules relations between blacks and whites there is the possibility of mutuality and respect. Equiano’s autobiography continues to reverberate as it calls us to a conversion of our hearts and mind so that we encounter others––no matter who they are or where they come from––as neither objects to exploit nor enemies to be feared but as neighbours in need of care. Such neighbour love may well be a fragile basis for hope in a world of carnage and desolation still living in the after lives of slavery. Nevertheless, it is as revolutionary now as it was in Equiano’s day. 

Article
Attention
Change
Community
Loneliness
6 min read

Take some risks, invest in your friends

At the other side of risk is a precious thing: the overcoming of distance.

Tom is a physician and completing a theology doctorate. 

Three friends in the street laugh together.
Jed Villejo on Unsplash.

In the year 2000, political scientist Robert D. Putnam published Bowling Alone. Putnam analysed the decline of “social capital” in America, observing that relational networks, community involvement, and civic engagement were all waning. Why “bowling”? Well, for Putnam, the decline of involvement in bowling leagues was representative of his findings. It served as a microcosm of a bigger picture—the broad downtrend in social engagement. 

What of “social capital” in 2025? Everything, it appears, is different. The arrival of the online ecosphere has reframed how “social” is best understood. We are more “connected” than ever. Indeed, the proportion of society attached to a virtual social network, I suspect, outstrips the proportion of society involved in bowling (or other) leagues at their peak. And even in the short history of the world wide web, the nature of social engagement has developed at breakneck speed. A once revolutionary platform for connecting with past pals from school (remember “Friends Reunited”?) now seems prehistoric. We can “connect” in ways that no bowling league could ever have manufactured. Today, the array of relational possibilities is endless. Awaiting your acquaintance are inert artificial friends, with whom—we’re assured—“You can form an actual emotional connection.” Yes, the Replika app offers virtual companions “for anyone who wants a friend with no judgment, drama, or social anxiety involved.” 

What counts as “social” has expanded beyond measure since the year 2000. No doubt Putnam’s book would look different were it released today. But has the tide of social engagement really turned? 

The bond of friendship is precious. And, like many precious things, it is hard-won.  

Does today’s social mindset encourage us to pursue relationships marked by depth, confidence, nearness? The digital realm makes it extremely difficult not to treat connection as a commodity, more a product in the marketplace of life than a good to be pursued for its own worth. It generates a fantasy of risk-free relationships. “If a friendship isn’t working out, leave it; there’s always another one available”—one without “drama”, as the wisdom of Replika would have it. The measure of a good relationship here is not the strength of the bond itself. Such ties are a means to another end. Perhaps how well the relationship serves individual interests or meets personal preferences. And if we swallow this kind of “you do you” pill whole, we shouldn’t be surprised if our basic assumption is that people do not belong together but apart. 

When friendship becomes a commodity, enduring friendship is nothing short of a miracle. We are all too changeable for consumer relationships to last. Our preferences change. Our life-stages change. Once upon a time, lasting non-romantic bonds were perhaps a more given feature of life. When lifelong relationships and local community overlapped far more, the troughs of friendships were less easy to avoid but had to be faced. It wasn’t so easy to dodge “drama” and move on. But if today’s online social realm shapes our expectations of relationships, the long road of friendship becomes—unsurprisingly—uninviting. Seemingly viable alternatives to our present friends are always available. Indeed, if the “you do you” mantra holds, friendship most likely will not. Or at least not of the precious kind. 

Recently, Sheridan Voysey launched the Friendship Lab. Its aim? To make friendships thrive. Voysey, an author and broadcaster, has developed this new resource alongside a team that includes academics in psychology, law, and statistics. The Lab offers both live and on-demand courses to equip individuals and friends with wisdom and skills for fostering reciprocity and deepening connection. The Friendship Lab is Voysey’s answer to a question he asked himself: "Who can you call at 2am when everything has gone wrong?" Hence, its mission: “to see every adult have at least three 2am friends.” 

The Friendship Lab is on to something important. I suspect that something is, at least in part, that friendships require perseverance

In friendship, it takes time to be understood and to understand. We are all so remarkably complex. Our pasts are so multifaceted. There is no straightforward access to another person. No algorithm can achieve it. No personality test can name it. The deep roots of a relationship are established in attention and commitment. They are reinformed through loyalty and perseverance. The resources provided by the Lab point to the fact that friendships form over time. Like a muscle strengthened through repeated use, they are shaped by practices. Developing connection is more like slowly sculpting clay than sharing in a series of transactions.

At the other side of risk is a precious thing: the overcoming of distance. That precious feeling of being at ease. Unguarded and unafraid

This leads to something important: on its own, perseverance is not enough. Something else should be named if friendships are to thrive and last. And it is less common: risk. 

The bond of friendship always involves risk. Friendship is hard-won because it is risky. To let one’s guard down is a step into the unknown, a “drama” that can never be neatly calculated, because we can never know the outcome. And it is a particular kind of risk: the risk of making oneself vulnerable. Of exposing our hopes and fears, our wounds and weaknesses. Or facing these in others. And of course, we are all so aware of what can go wrong. Sometimes putting yourself out there results not in depth but in misunderstanding or, perhaps, rejection. And to be rejected in one’s vulnerability can be humiliating, even devastating. 

But the bond of friendship is established in these daring footsteps of risk. Friendship does not take shape by side-stepping risk but by taking the road through it—a road not free from but marked by missteps and disappointments.  

Yet such steps are not an end in themselves. They lead to a place that addresses a deeper longing—the ache for connection. At the other side of risk is a precious thing: the overcoming of distance. That precious feeling of being at ease. Unguarded and unafraid. The knowledge that you’re in safe hands.  

In an age where seemingly risk-free alternative connections are available, who would dare to take these steps? Some ancient wisdom might be needed here most of all. 

Around 30AD, a man called Jesus of Nazareth walked the road to hard-won friendship like no other. One of his followers described Jesus’ life as one of commitment to his companions “to the end.” Whilst Jesus’ profound teaching and demonstration of love often gets plenty of attention, there is something precious to be mined here. 

Risk and perseverance belonged to Jesus’ life. The risk of misunderstanding and of rejection—both of which he experienced at the hands of those closest to him. He was not immune to these. In fact, what it meant for Jesus to persevere in his commitment to his followers was for him to endure their abandonment of him. They modelled the opposite of friendship. But Jesus’ risk-taking perseverance knew no limit. It led him all the way to death. It persevered through the failure of his friends to reciprocate to the end. This is why it is just so startling that, in rising from the dead, Jesus says to his followers: “no longer do I call you servants… I have called you my friends.” 

If Jesus has walked the ultimate road of befriending us human beings “to the end”, could looking to this source unlock friendship in a new way today? 

There is a woman in the church community I’m part of who was once asked: “why are you part of this church?” Her answer: “I decided to come here.” She is in her eighties and has been part of that community for decades. I envy the simple sense of risk-taking perseverance in her approach. She is not side-stepping the “drama”—the inevitable missteps that belong to life with others. I do not belong to a generation or an age that puts a premium on risk-taking perseverance “to the end” in friendships. But another look at ancient wisdom might give us just the freedom to do so. And if the road to deep connection goes via some kind of “judgement, drama, or social anxiety” then I, for one, am all in. 

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