<P> In London, Equiano (identifying as Gustavus Vassa during his lifetime) was part of the Sons of Africa, an abolitionist group composed of well - known Africans living in Britain, and he was active among leaders of the anti-slave trade movement in the 1780s . He published his autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789), which depicted the horrors of slavery . It went through nine editions and aided passage of the British Slave Trade Act of 1807, which abolished the African slave trade . </P> <P> As a freedman in London, he supported the British abolitionist movement . Equiano had a stressful life; he had suffered suicidal thoughts before he became a Protestant Christian and found peace in his faith . After settling in London, Equiano married an English woman named Susannah Cullen in 1792 and they had two daughters . He died in 1797 in Middlesex . Equiano's death was recognized in American as well as British newspapers . Plaques commemorating his life have been placed at buildings where he lived in London . Since the late 20th century, when his autobiography was published in a new edition, he has been increasingly studied by a range of scholars, including many from his homeland, Igboland, in the eastern part of Nigeria . Other scholars have suggested Equiano was born in South Carolina, and was renamed Gustavus Vassa by a British trader while en route to England . </P> <P> According to his memoir, Equiano recounted an incident when an attempted kidnapping of children was foiled by adults in his Igbo village, Isseke (Anambra State), in the southeastern part of present - day Nigeria . When he was around the age of eleven, he and his sister were left alone to look after their family premises--as was common when adults went out of the house to work . They were both kidnapped and taken far away from their hometown of Essaka, separated and sold to slave traders . After changing ownership several times, Equiano met his sister again, but they were separated once more, and he was taken across a large river to the coast, where he was held by European slave traders . He was transported with 244 other enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to Barbados in the West Indies . He and a few other slaves were sent further away to the British colony of Virginia . Literary scholar Vincent Carretta argued in his 2005 biography of Equiano that the activist could have been born in colonial South Carolina rather than Africa based on his discovery of a 1759 parish baptismal record that lists Equiano's place of birth as Carolina and a 1773 ship's muster that indicates South Carolina . A number of scholars agree with Carretta, while his conclusion is disputed by other scholars who believe the weight of evidence supports Equiano's account of coming from Africa . </P> <P> In Virginia, Equiano was bought in 1754 by Michael Pascal, a lieutenant in the Royal Navy . Pascal renamed the boy "Gustavus Vassa", after the Swedish noble who had become Gustav I of Sweden, king in the sixteenth century . Equiano had already been renamed twice: he was called Michael while on board the slave ship that brought him to the Americas; and Jacob, by his first owner . This time, Equiano refused and told his new owner that he would prefer to be called Jacob . His refusal, he says, "gained me many a cuff"--and eventually he submitted to the new name . He used this name for the rest of his life, including on all official records . He only used Equiano in his autobiography . </P>

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