authenticity and autobiography: gustavus vassa, alias olaudah equiano, the african documents

Authenticity and Autobiography:Gustavus Vassa, alias Olaudah Equiano,

the African

DOCUMENTS

Paul E. Lovejoy

March 25, 2011

Gustavus Vassa

c. 1742-1797

Frontispiece, The Interesting Narrative,First edition, 1789

8th edition, 1794

Marriage CertificateGustavus Vassa and Susannah Cullen

7 April 1792

Soham Community History Museum

Will of Gustavus Vassa, 1797

Public Record Office, London, Prob 10/3372

St. Margaret’s Church, Westminster

Baptismal Register. February 7-11, 1759. St Margaret’s Church, London

Haymarket, London

Source: Constantine John Phipps, A Voyage towards the North Pole, Undertaken by His Majesty’s Command (London: J. Nourse, 1774)

Admiralty Records, Muster Books, ADM 36/7490

Muster Book, Race Horse, 1773

ichi facial

markings

Northcote W. Thomas, Anthropological Report on the Ibo-Speaking People of Nigeria (London: Harrison and Sons, 1913), Plate XVII

Cornelius O. Adepegba, “A Survey of Nigerian Body Markings and their Relationship to other Nigerian Arts” (Ph.D. thesis, Indiana University, 1976)

Source: Constantine John Phipps, A Voyage towards the North Pole, Undertaken by His Majesty’s Command (London: J. Nourse, 1774)

Apparatus for Distillation of SeawaterCharles Irving, Arctic Expedition, 1773

Source: Philip D. Curtin, Two Jamaicas: The Role of Ideas in a Tropical Colony, 1830-1865(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1955)

Kingston

Mosquito ShoreSource: National Library, Kingston, Jamaica