Olaudah Equiano(c. 1745 – 31 March 1797) also known as Gustavus Vassa, was a prominent African involved in the British movement for the abolition of the slave trade. He was enslaved as a young man, purchased his freedom, and worked as an author, merchant, and explorer in South America, the Caribbean, the Arctic, the American colonies, and the United Kingdom. His autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, depicts the horrors of slavery and influenced the enactment of the Slave Trade Act of 1807.
According to his own account, Olaudah Equiano was born in 1745 in the region inhabited by the Igbo people in what is now Nigeria. He lived with five brothers and a sister; he was the youngest son with one younger sister. At the age of eleven, he and his sister were kidnapped to be taken to America as slaves. At this time, he endured the Middle Passage to the New World, where he was forced to work as a slave. Some writers, however, claim Equiano was born in colonial South Carolina, not in Africa.
When their parents were out, Equiano and his sister were kidnapped and sold to native slaveholders.