"A MULTITUDE OF BLACK PEOPLE...CHAINED TOGETHER"
Read Equiano's account (1789) of the Middle Passage:
 http://vi.uh.edu/pages/mintz/6.htm 
Alexander Falconbridge, a surgeon aboard slave ships and later
the governor of a British colony for freed slaves in Sierra Leone,
offers a vivid account of Middle Passage (1788):
 http://vi.uh.edu/pages/mintz/7.htm 
Excerpts from Slave Narratives (ed. Steven Mintz, Univ. of Houston)

The ship finally arrived at Barbados, where buyers purchased most of the slaves. There was no buyer, however, for the young Equiano. 

"DREAD AND TREMBLING"
Equiano's account (1789) of his arrival in the West Indies in 1756:
 http://vi.uh.edu/pages/mintz/8.htm 
Alexander Falconbridge (1788) describes the sale of
enslaved Africans in the West Indies:
 http://vi.uh.edu/pages/mintz/9.htm 
Excerpts from Slave Narratives (ed. Steven Mintz, Univ. of Houston)

Less than two weeks after his arrival, he was shipped off to the English colony of Virginia, where he was purchased and put to work. Less than a month later, he had a new master -- Michael Henry Pascal, a lieutenant in the Royal Navy. Under this master, who owned Equiano for the next seven years, Equiano would move to England, educate himself, and travel the world on ships under Pascal's command.

In 1766, Equiano bought his freedom. He found work in the trade business in the West Indies, then in London. In 1773, he took part in an expedition to try to discover the Northwest Passage, a route through the arctic to the Pacific Ocean.

Back in England, Equiano became an active abolitionist. He lectured against the cruelty of British slaveowners. He spoke out against the English slave trade. He worked to resettle freed slaves.  Olaudah Equiano was a well-known abolitionist by 1789, the year he published his autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, The African.   In its introduction, Equiano states that the main purpose of the book is to  "excite in [the reader's] august assemblies a sense of compassion of the miseries which the Slave-Trade has entailed on my unfortunate countrymen." The book succeeded dramatically in this regard, since it offered a vivid first-hand account of an individual born in Africa and abducted into the slave trade. One of England's abolitionists said that Equiano was of "more use to the Cause than half the People of the country."

Equiano seemed reluctant to tell his story. He claimed that he was a "private and obscure individual" and "neither a saint, a hero, nor a tyrant." One thing he realized, though, was that his life was far from typical. In his autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, The African, he tells the story of his youth in an African village, his kidnapping, his being made a slave in Africa, his horrendous voyage on a slave ship, his bondage in the Americas, his conversion to Christianity, the purchase of his freedom, his experiences on a British man of war, his employment on a plantation and on commercial ships, and his contribution to the abolitionist movement. He hoped his book would "promote the interests of humanity." It more than succeeded.

Ten years after Equiano’s death in 1797, his adopted homeland England abolished the slave trade.

From People & Events: Olaudah Equiano
 http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/1p276.html| 
Resource Bank for Africans in America, Part 1: The Terrible Transformation (1999):  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/1narr4.html 

For a more detailed plot summary of The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, The African, see: 
Samuels, Wilfred D.  "Olaudah Equiano, c. 1745 - March 31, 1797."  Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 50: Afro-American Writers Before the Harlem Renaissance. A Bruccoli Clark Layman Book. Ed. Trudier Harris, Detroit: The Gale Group, 1986. 123-129.  Rpt. Gale Literature Resource Center [Online Subscription Database].  The Gale Group, 2002.

1789 Review of Equiano's Narrative

From the beginning, The Interesting Narrative of the Life . . . , which would experience some fifteen editions, was well received and reviewed in the leading journals of the time.

Reprint of a 1789 Review of The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavas Vassa, the African.  The Monthly Review [London] Vol.  LXXX, 1789, p.  55152.  Rpt.  Gale Database: Literature Resource Center.  Gale Research, 1999.  

“We entertain no doubt of the general authenticity of this very intelligent African's interesting story [The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavas Vassa, the African]; though it is not improbable that some English writer has assisted him in the compilement, or, at least, the correction of his book: for it is sufficiently well written.  The narrative wears an honest face: and we have conceived a good opinion of the man, from the artless manner in which he has detailed the variety of adventures and vicissitudes which have fallen to his lot.  His publication appears very seasonably, at a time when negroe-slavery is the subject of public investigation; and it seems calculated to increase the odium that hath been excited against the West-India planters, on account of the cruelties that some of them are said to have exercised on their slaves; many instances of which are here detailed. 

“The sable author of these volumes appears to be a very sensible man; and he is, surely, not the less worthy of credit from being a convert to Christianity.  He is a Methodist; and has filled many pages, toward the end of his work, with accounts of his dreams, visions, and divine impulses; but all this, supposing him to have been under any delusive influence, only serves to convince us that he is guided by principle; and that he is not one of those poor converts who, having undergone the ceremony of baptism, have remained content with that portion, only, of the Christian Religion: instances of which are said to be almost innumerable in America, and the West-Indies; Gustavus Vassa appears to possess a very different character; and, therefore, we heartily wish success to his publication, which we are glad to see has been encouraged by a very respectable subscription.”

The Modern Importance of Equiano’s Slave Narrative

According to critic Paul Edwards, Equiano’s Narrative is "the most remarkable of the 18th century" books by black writers.  Vernon Loggins agrees: "At the time it was published, in 1789, few books had been produced in America which afford such vivid, concrete, and picaresque narrative." After noting that the slave narrative provides the "spirit and vitality and the angle of vision responsible for the most effective prose writing by Black Americans," Arna Bontemps, in his introduction to Great Slave Narratives (1969), called Equiano's work "the first truly notable book in the genre" of the slave narrative.  Equiano’s narrative establishes an important model as one of the first records to shape the experiences of the black African diaspora during slavery. Like the modern alienated hero in black fiction, Equiano remains above all in his narrative an exile. In his response to life, Equiano epitomizes the black fictional character whose quest is for wholeness and meaning in a world that often does not offer fulfillment.
Source:  Excerpted from “Olaudah Equiano,” Gale Database: Literature Resource Center (Gale Research, 1999).

Catherine Ancholou, English Professor, Awuku College of Education, Nigeria: “Well, for people in Africa, Equiano's narrative is very important because it is the anchor of African studies. In every discipline, you study Equiano. Historians begin with Equiano. Social scientists begin with Equiano. Literary artists and literary scholars begin with Equiano. Equiano makes it impossible for you to forget the issue of slavery and the fact that we have millions and millions of our brothers and sisters who are now no longer part of us, but who have now gone through this experience of slavery, who have now become part of another culture, but who are equally part of us, and who are yearning to connect. Equiano's story, more than any other story, carries that authenticity, that impetus and that imperative to connect, to not forget, to remember, and to take responsibility for the actions of our forefathers.” 

From Resource Bank for Africans in America, Part 1: The Terrible Transformation (1999):
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/1narr4.html 

See also The Interesting Life of Olaudah Equiano
Suzanne Erera, Princeton Univ.:
http://www.princeton.edu/~howarth/304.Projects/Erera/Pages/Main.htm