Construction of Identity: Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa?

Historically Speaking · January/February 2006 Construction of Identity: Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa? Paul E. Lovejoy Vincent Carretta claims that recently discovered documents concerning the baptism of Gustavus Vassa and his subsequent employment in the British navy "cast doubt" on the early life of the person usually recognized as Olaudah Equiano, author of The Interesting Narrative ofthe Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. Written by Himself1 The two documents in question are his baptismal record at St. Margaret's Church in London and the muster records from the Arctic expedition of Sir John Phipps (later Lord Mulgrave) in 1773, both ofwhich attest to his birth in South Carolina. Carretta casts his web of doubt even broader, suggesting that Vassa/Equiano was born in 1747, not 1745 as claimed in The Interesting Narrative, and certainly not in 1742, as I argue in an article appearing in Slavery and Abolition.2 For Carretta, the author of 7"Ae Interesting Narrative was a "self-made" man, adopting a public image as Olaudah Equiano, who had been born in Africa, when in fact he was known as Gustavus Vassa and had been born in South Carolina. For Carretta, "self-made" has a double meaning, including both his success in achieving his emancipation and becoming famous and the fictionalization of his childhood to achieve this end. According to Carretta, the recent discoveries suggest that "the author of The Interesting Narrative may have invented rather than reclaimed an African identity," and if this is the case, then it follows that "he invented his African childhood and his much quoted account of the Middle Passage on a slave ship." In short, documentation for a South Carolina birthplace and problems in Vassa's own chronology of his youth raise sufficient grounds to express "reasonable doubt" about Vassa's claim to an African birth. Indeed, Carretta considers that "the burden ofproof . . . is now on those who believe that The Interesting Narrative is a historically accurate piece of nonfiction." My response, therefore, is in part a reaction to Carretta's challenge that "anyone who still contends that Equiano's account ofthe early years ofhis life is authentic is obligated to account for the powerful conflicting evidence." The methodological issues here relate to how historians engage oral tradition, memory, and other non-written sources with the written record. If Equiano was an eyewitness to events and practices in Africa, that's one thing. If his account is a composite of stories and information gathered from others, it's another matter. Despite some qualifications, Carretta essentially claims that the first part of The InterestingNarrative is a fictionalized account of life in Africa and the horrors of the Middle Passage, whereas I think that there is sufficient internal evidence to conclude that the account is essentially authentic, although certainly informed by later reflection, Vassa's acquired knowledge ofAfrica, and memories of others whom he knew to have come from the Bight of Biafra. The reflections and memories used in autobiography are always filtered, but despite this caveat, I would conclude that Vassa was born in Africa and not in South Carolina. The controversy arises from the interpretation ofVassa's life before the summer of 1754, and here my reconstruction varies considerably from Carretta's. Perhaps we are pursuing historical understanding in different ways. Carretta pushes the evidence that casts doubts on what Vassa says. While Carretta appears to have uncovered evidence that Vassa was a fraud and that he knowingly lied, I ask: What if he was telling the truth? Then how do we account for evidence that conflicts with what he said? Moreover, when would he have invented his narrative, what evidence is there that helps to explain the construction of the narrative, and why would he deliberately have altered his natal home? How did he sustain the deception, if he constructed an African birth but in fact was born in South Carolina? The fact that he worked for Dr. Charles Irving on the Arctic expedition in 1773, and later was involved with Irving in the abortive plantation scheme on the Mosquito Shore in 1776, has not been examined carefully. On the Arctic expedition, Vassa registered his birthplace as...