Enlightenment & Revolutions
Olaudah Equiano
1745–1797 · Abolition
He bought his own freedom, then argued nobody should have to.
Kidnapped as a child and sold into Atlantic slavery, Equiano purchased his freedom, became a sailor and wrote an autobiography that carried readers through the middle passage and into the mind of the enslaved. He campaigned in Britain for abolition, arguing from natural right that a being made for no one's use cannot be owned, and his book sold widely enough to make the argument impossible to avoid.
Why it matters for freedom
He bought his own freedom and then took the abolitionist case to the people who had bought and sold him.
Who they stood against
the slave trade and the British public that called itself humane while profiting from it