Day 248: A True Hero

Here is something I wrote for school.  The story I based it on is found here.  It points out the bravery of one man in the face of brutal slavery and hypocrisy in Christians. 

      After reading Equiano's autobiography a bit, I got a great sense of the type of man he was, a bit of how his culture was, and how brutal the slave business was.  I felt bad for him because it seems like everything went wrong for him.  He had his sister ripped away from him, twice.  Just when he thought he had a nice mistress, he was sold again.  Despite wanting to die several times and his sufferings growing increasingly worse, Equiano was strong enough to survive.  I admire his bravery, and reading what happened to him later, he was able to adapt to another culture so much so that he became smart enough to buy his own freedom and live out on his own in a foreign land.  It shows his persistance and adaptibilty.  His book's excellent writing attests to his fluency in the English language and general intelligence.  
     I'm amazed to think that after all the abuse and suffering he has endured as being a slave, he seems to hold no resentment towards the white man's culture or any of his masters.  He has every right to be, but instead he simply tells his story honestly, detailing every pain and sadness he felt and ocassionally breaking out into a plea to slave traders to stop.  The last passage at the end of chapter two was especially moving to me.  It begins, " O, ye nominal Christians! might not an African ask you, learned you this from your God, who says unto you, Do unto all men as you would men should do unto you?"  How can anyone not listen to such an innocent and honest cry for justice and reason?  It shows the two-faced men living during that time period.  How could men profess they were Christians and then treat other human beings in such deplorable ways?  Of course, not all people were Christians during that time period.
     One other fact about him that I felt interesting is that he mentions in the first chapter that he was a son of a chief or elder.  It must have been quite degrading for him to go from such a high position in his society and tribe to being a slave in other tribes and eventually another country.