He was the youngest child of an embrenche, or chieftain, of the Ibo people, and he was his mother's pride and joy. Sometime in 1756, when he was 11 years old, Olaudah was kidnapped by rival tribesmen and sold to European slavers. I expected every hour to share the fate of my companions, some of whom were almost daily brought upon deck at the point of death, and I began to hope that death would soon put an end to my miseries. Shipped to Barbados, sold at auction and renamed Gustavus Vassa by his first master, he eventually earned the money to buy his freedom. He sailed the world with the British Navy and later became a leader in the English antislavery movement of the 1780s.
African slavery is fundamental to the history of the Americas.
It began earlier, lasted longer and played a larger role in shaping modern societies than most Americans realize. The conquistadors brought African bondsmen to the island of Hispaniola as early as 1505, and slavery was not finally abolished, in Brazil, until 1888. Between 1505 and 1870, when the last vestiges of the Atlantic slave trade were finally suppressed, at least 10 million Africans were shipped to the Americas in chains. Prior to 1820, the number of Africans crossing the ocean outstripped the combined total of all European immigrants by a ratio of 5 to 1. But it was no anomaly, and its legacies are with us still.