The seminal account of the "Middle Passage" of African blacks to America for enslavement was written by Olaudah Equiano. His claim was to have been an African who survived the journey, and his story was purported to be a first-hand account in 1789.

But new evidence raises a question about the facts of Equiano's life -- and whether the story he told was true. And lest you think this is simply an obscure academic debate, please realize that Equiano's account is the basis for much historical thinking on the Middle Passage. I include Equiano's account when I teach about slavery, and it is either explicitly or implicitly a part of most textbooks used today.

Things began around 15 years ago, when Carretta, a professor of English at Maryland who had long been enamored of Equiano, ever since he started teaching his autobiography to undergrads, hopped a plane to England and started hunting. At Westminster Abbey, he stumbled on the documents that recast Equiano's beginnings in a completely unexpected light.

"No one had ever looked at his naval records," Carretta says, still sounding a little surprised. "He tells us the month and year and place he was baptized.

"I was indeed shocked. I said, 'This does not make sense, this shouldn't be. What do I do with it?' "

Carretta decided to test the waters: He edited a new edition of "The Interesting Narrative" for Penguin in 1995 -- and listed his discovery in a footnote. No one noticed.

So in 1999, feeling a little more adventurous, he printed his findings in a history journal, Slavery and Abolition. People noticed.

Some academics in African American studies saw Carretta's findings as an attempt to discredit Equiano, to depict him as the pawn of white abolitionists.

At an academic conference in 2003, scholars debated whether Equiano's claims of his origins were "most likely rhetorical exercises," according to the Chronicle of Higher Education, which first reported on Carretta's biography.

Carretta sees his findings as a twist in the narrative, one that intrigues but, he argues, in no way diminishes Equiano's authority.

"No one raises these questions about Ben Franklin," says Carretta, whose book is titled "Equiano, the African: Biography of a Self-Made Man."

"No one believes Franklin's biography is absolutely unvarnished, true. Everyone selects, elaborates, enhances, embroiders. We expect that. To not, is to assume that someone is a transparent auto-Dictaphone, and can't shape anything, which is more demeaning.

"My Equiano is a literary genius. Other people's Equiano is more like a literary tape recorder: He says what he says."

Actually, I would argue that this could seriously undermine Equiano's authority. This is not a question of a self-serving varnish on one's autobiography, but instead is a question of complete fictionalization of one's life. Carretta is corrects in labeling him a literary genius -- but the problem is that his account is held up as a work of history. If what we have is a novel rather than a memoir, this important narrative of the Middle Passage loses much of its historical importance.

Posted by: Greg at 03:33 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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