Essay Four

The concept of “freedom” as described by Equiano, and as understood by his contemporaries, both African and European, is a fragile term to define. Its fragility comes from the relative ambiguity of freedom, itself, as already demonstrated by reactions in France to the issue of slavery and how it related to their own sense of national identity. Freedom for the African slave would mean, obviously, freedom from the direct subjugation of one man by another, freedom from the status of property, to instead assume one of dignity and humanity, and lastly, some independence regarding future lifestyle and or decisions reflecting one’s overall outcome.
Freedom for the slave as seen by the French meant, more than anything, that they technically could not be seen as slaves while in the physical boundaries of France itself, lest the entire national psyche become a gigantic hypocrisy. Freedom for the slave as seen by the British meant, in the early nineteenth century, that slavery would end, a step that was undoubtedly painful for a government that had certainly seen its nation benefit greatly from the financial boon that was the slave trade, regardless of the moral cost. Equiano’s concept of freedom is almost impossible to judge on its own merit simply because of the constraints placed upon it by Europeans who themselves held final say over the status of slaves in their own countries, and if, and for how long slavery would continue as a legal institution. Even the final reckoning of this process of delineating freedoms has continued into modern times, or at least into the late twentieth century in parts of the western world, still longer in others.