Summary of Carretta

Sheldon Dumas

Dr. Young

American Literature 223

7 October 2011

Summary of Carretta: Questioning the Identity of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African

In Vincent Carretta's essay, Questioning the Identity of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. He discusses the life of Olaudah Equiano and questions his credibility. He questions whether if what Equiano says is accurate compared to research that Carretta has investigated on the topic. Carretta does not want to prove anything; he only wants to make the readers think about the story from the point of view other than Equiano. In the essay Carretta questions Equiano's place of birth, his date of birth, and whether or not Equiano was a collection of other slave tales that have been told throughout the years.

In the essay, Carretta questions Equiano's place of birth. Carretta says that, "New evidence suggests that the author of The Interesting Narrative may have gone well beyond simply suppressing or manipulating some facts: he may have fashioned rather than recounted his African beginnings, in the process of hiding his birth in South Carolina"(Carretta 226). This confuses the readers because they would not know what to believe, and Carretta is basically saying that Equiano was not of African descent but actually was born in America. Carretta also supports this evidence by finding records of Equiano being baptized in Carolina. "The parish register of St. Margaret's church, Westminster, records the baptism on 9 February 1759 of "Gustavus Vassa" a Black born in Carolina 12 years old," indicating a birth date of 1746 or 1747" (Carretta 231). This indicates that Equiano was baptized as Gustavus Vassa at age 12 but only proves that he was baptized; there is not enough information to support these records. Again, from Carretta's arguments he is not trying to prove that Equiano is lying about his place of birth but only "questioning" if what he says was actually true.

Along with questioning Equiano's place of birth, he also questions his date of birth. Carretta states that, "Assuming that the birth date of 1745 he gives in the Narrative is accurate, Vassa must have been younger than he claims when he left Africa, younger still he was born in 1746 or 1747, as the ages recorded at his baptism and on his Arctic voyage suggest" (Carretta 233). Carretta is explaining that the dates that Equiano gives does not match up with the approximations he found from his research. However, Carretta does give Equiano the benefit of the doubt about his dates. Carretta says that, "The discrepancy between the ages and dates Vassa records in his Narrative and the external documentary evidence may simply be due to a