When I think of the term travel, or traveling, the first thoughts that come to my mind are vacationing, leisure, and relaxation. In my experiences, most of the traveling I have done has been for my own personal satisfaction or individual betterment. However, in the slave narratives of Olaudah Equiano and Mary Prince, the term traveling takes on quite a different role. In these literary works, the term traveling is used as a means to illuminate the transformation of characters from free peoples to chattel. In each of the narratives, travel is not voluntary. Instead it is forced upon the characters, by an underlying force or situation. In these works, travel is therefore defined not merely as a way of describing movement, but instead as a lens through which the reader is able to witness the subjugation of human beings into property.
In the “Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano”, travel is used as a means for showing the reader the harsh realities of the slave trade and in doing so reaffirming that slaves were not considered people but instead commodities to be used for the benefit of their owners. At the young age of ten, Equiano and his sister are stolen away from their home. Once kidnapped from his African village, Equiano is drug through the African interior changing hands between masters along the way.
Shortly after he is captured, Equiano experiences separation from his sister. This event is important to the development of the narrative as it reveals much about Equiano’s changing character. “She was torn from me, and immediately carried away, while I was left in a state of distraction not to be described” (48). Here, Equiano is clearly trying to show his audience the awful treatment slaves were subjected to. He wants the reader to witness the brutal truths of the slave trade, and try to indentify with what he had to overcome and withstand. Although surely in a state of complete and utter hysteria, Equiano shows us that he......