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Equiano's Team Project

 The Equiano group did a great job organizing their presentation. 

I learned a lot about the rise of the Benin state in Africa. It was interesting to learn about all of the tactics used to capture slaves, round them up and take them to Benin. One of the popular tactics used was a surprise attack. 

Another interesting thing I learned about from the presentation was the Middle Passage. It's incredible that Equiano was able to successfully face the adversity of the Middle Passage. The presentation described the horrid living conditions: median 6 feet, 4 inches of living space for each person. I can't believe Equiano was able to persist and continue to fight for his liberty. In those circumstances, I would have lost a lot of hope and I don't think I would have been as resilient as Equiano. 

Comments

  1. Monique Cov.February 19, 2023 at 12:23 PM

    Hey James, I think the Equiano's group presentation was really great and very interactive. In regards to the Middle Passage, the group presentation really had me trying to imagine myself in those horrid conditions. Mentally imagining what it must have been like disturbed me, leaving me to imagine the unimaginable way in which slaves even managed to survive these abusive passages. It is a wonder that Equiano was able to continue persisting onwards.

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  2. HeatherLFebruary 19, 2023 at 10:09 PM

    Hey James! I was equally shocked when hearing the numbers about how crowded slave ships were. Even startling to me was that slave ship owners and companies would lie in their reports about how much space each slave had. It's like even they knew the conditions were unlivable, and were trying to conceal it from both the public and probably themselves.

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  3. Jalen PaigeFebruary 19, 2023 at 10:23 PM

    Hey, James. I also thought it was impressive that Equiano survived the hardships of the Middle Passage. I think that because it is an older text, Equiano is a lot more emotionally reserved and concise with his writing, and that often makes it feel less intense and tragic than it likely was. I am curious why Equiano chose not to lean in heavily on emotion, if that was the crux of his argument for abolition? Maybe he wanted a more moderate approach that would appeal to upperclass English people? It is interesting to see how he downplays certain traumas for this reason.

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  4. Noah English 11H BlogFebruary 20, 2023 at 5:35 PM

    The project really helped to bring empirical context to how extensive and degrading Equiano's living conditions were. Since we're just reading a novel, we each create our own image of what Equiano's experiences look like. We all envision it a little differently, but this project helped to describe the conditions in a more concrete way which really helped me to understand how bad they were.

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