Post 5: Equiano, INTERESTING NARRATIVE

Beatrice Adenigbagbe

English 460

Professor Nelson

05 April 2020

Post 5: Cognitive Dissonance and Manipulation Tactics

One aspect of Equiano’s narrative that caught my attention was his critique of the treatment of enslaved African throughout the different islands that he visited. Equiano vividly describes to us the brutality of slavery on Black bodies, such as when he makes mention of witnessing an African woman in her master’s kitchen with an iron muzzle on her head, which functioned in such a way as to stop her from eating or speaking. Equiano makes mention of many other instances of cruelty and ties these abuses with slave owner complaints of their slaves being defective in character. Equiano aptly states, “When you make men slaves you deprive them of half their virtue, you set them in your own conduct an example of fraud, rapine, and cruelty, and compel them to live with you in a state of war; and yet you complain that they are not honest or faithful” (Equiano 80). Here, Equiano questions the logic of ripping a group of people away from their homelands and enslaving them, a while treating them like subhuman creatures, and then expecting those same people to behave in a way that is opposite of the treatment that they are given. Then, when those people, the enslaved, react in a way that is only normal given their predicament, they are portrayed to be the ones in the wrong. They are the “brutes” or “savages.” This is quite literally gaslighting to an extreme level and Equiano calls that out. Equiano goes on to emphasize this point when he states, “You stupefy them with stripes, and think it necessary to keep them in a state of ignorance; and yet you assert that they are incapable of learning; that their minds are such a barren soil or moor, that culture would be lost on them; and that they come from a climate, where nature, though prodigal of her bounties in a degree unknown to yourselves, has left man alone scant and unfinished, and incapable of enjoying the treasures she has poured out for him!— An assertion at once impious and absurd” (Equiano 80-81). Equiano’s tone here is, understandably, one of frustration, because he sees right through the psychological manipulation employed by slave owners and he is cognizant of how this manipulation allows them to continue their inhumane, money making practice while holding onto the claim that it is a practice that, “civilizes” the enslaved. This critique helps us better understand how much of what goes into keeping systems of oppression going is the ability of the oppressors to practice cognitive dissonance when it suits their agenda.

Works Cited:

Equiano, Olaudah, and Paul Edwards. Equiano's Travels : His Autobiography : The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, the African. 2nd impression ed., Heinemann, 1969.