Draft

  In the texts from the Interesting Narrative of the life of Olaudah Equino and the letter of Benjamin Banneker to Thomas Jefferson, and The Mary Anderson Interview I’ve noticed 3 different emotions and feelings from two slaves and one free black man during the slavery era. In my essay I plan on showing to the best of my ability the different emotions these three different people were feeling at those times.

               In the text from the Interesting Narrative of the life Olaudah Equino the story gave me a sad, depressed, and lonely feeling. In this story the reader is taken from the child hood of a young African boy to the adduction of this child for slavery. This story gives the reader a blow by blow detailed account of the adduction and all of the misfortunes this child endures.  Olaudah and his sister where adducted from their home while their parents were gone. Bounded and carried throughout the woods screams for help echoed through out the woods but to no avail, those tears and screams fell on death ears. When night fell the abductors would halt for refreshments and sleep. Olaudah and his sister would then be unbound but weren’t able to eat because the abductors wanted them weak. The only relief that they were afford was some sleep, which allayed their misfortune for a short time. At this point in the story I get the feeling of loneliness and depression.

 As the story goes on Olaudah and his sister are sold from master to master. He was sold and shipped again where he met other Africans from all over Africa who spoke different from him. He talks about the mistreatment of the slaves from the beatings to every way possible his human rights were violated. An example of his Human Rights being violated would be from Olaudah’s own words which were” when these people knew we were brother and sister they indulged us to be together; and the man, to the man I suppose we belonged, lay with us, he in the middle, while she and I held one another across his breast all night; and thus for awhile we forgot our misfortunes in the joy of being together”. Even after a night like that the next morning would serve as a reality check when he and his sister would be separated again this time forever. This left Olaudah worst than he ever felt in his life. This reading gave me a first hand look into how much pain the slaves went through that wasn’t obvious before.

      In conclusion, Benjamin Banneker’s letter to Thomas Jefferson is a free black man in the slavery era writing about the moral injustices his people face as a whole and in attempt for change he writes this letter to Thomas Jefferson who at that time was The United States Secretary of State. This letter was a plea for justice for African Americans. Benjamin Banneker was a free African American an astronomer, mathematician, and author of the almanac. He was a self educated man as well as a religious person. In this letter he writes from a religious point of view trying to gain some kind of symphony from Thomas Jefferson. A quote from this letter that really caught my attention is “That your sentiments are  concurrent with mine, which are, that one universal father hath given being to us all; and that hath not only made us all of one flesh but that he hath also, without partiality afforded us all the same sensations and endowed us all with the same facilities; and that however variable we may be in society or religion, however diversified in situation or color, we are all of the same relation to him. I like this quote because he pointed out to Thomas Jefferson that to the universal father we are all his children and no matter what our social status we are all equal in his eyes. This letter was brilliant in my eyes on how he used the universal father and religion get his point across. To me this letter is a letter of frustration, hurt, and restlessness from the injustices his raced faced in those times.