Nigeria

abuja from life camp

"abuja from life camp" by Jeff Attaway is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

The Federal Republic of Nigeria is a country in Western Africa. Nigeria has several different ethnic groups within it, there are Hausa, Fulani, Yoruba, and Igbo. Nigeria became a central place for the transatlantic slave trade and was colonized by Britain in 1861. In 1914 it was made a British colony, but in 1960 Nigeria gained independence, and in 1963 it became a federal republic. 

Nigeria is understood to be the birthplace of Olaudah Equiano. 

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. "Nigeria summary". Encyclopedia Britannica, 21 Sep. 2021, https://www.britannica.com/summary/Nigeria. Accessed 9 May 2025.

 

Parent Map

Writers and the Voices of the Oppressed - Map, LB

Coordinates

Latitude: 9.081999000000
Longitude: 8.675277000000

Timeline of Events Associated with Nigeria

Date Event Manage
1789

Olaudah Equiano Publishes “The Interesting Narrative”: The Abolition Debate

Olaudah Equiano - Project Gutenberg eText 15399 (cropped)

"File:Olaudah Equiano - Project Gutenberg eText 15399 (cropped).png." Wikimedia Commons. 29 Jul 2022, 00:01 UTC. 7 May 2025, 00:56 <https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Olaudah_Equiano_-_Project_Gutenberg_eText_15399_(cropped).png&oldid=678503901>.

Olaudah Equiano's 1789 memoir "The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa the African, Written by Himself" in its religious mysticism, brings light to the experience of an ensalved person in England, and tells the story of how he freed himself. It was particularly important because it was, written by himself, in his perspective. He lived through the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade, and he turned his life into testimony. The book is political and personal and it mixes Enlightenment ideas with vivid scenes of violence and survival, and he made it impossible for British readers to ignore the reality of slavery. Equiano held up a mirror to the empire to show its flaws. 

Greenblatt, Stephen. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 11th ed., vol. D, W.W. Norton & Company, 2024.