Equiano is an interesting character. He is very much about showing people what slavery was like and challenging their beliefs that they are "high and mighty" and "Christians."
I can see how some historians have come to think that he wasn't actually born in Africa and just wrote where he came from as a way to try to make his story a representative of the whole slave story. I can see this because he says that his country's customs were carefully implanted in him, which can give that illusion.
Once we get past the very beginning of his story, however, I believe it is too detailed to have been written as just a symbol for the collective slave narrative. I believe this was his actual life story with maybe a few points slightly exaggerated to make a point.
Either way, though, his story should've been a rude awakening for the white people of the Americas and of Europe who kept slaves.
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