An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States

land appeared on the horizon—before there was mention of natural
rights in North America. 9
In addition to a common identity, even during enslavement, they
maintained cultural elements. We should assume that Indigenous Africans
did not lose all manner of being Indigenous. Instead of determining what
they lost, we would do well to consider what they kept with them, and how
that persisted. In other words, what types of Indigenous African roots
gained traction in the soil of other Indigenous peoples where they now
tarried? One way that Indigenous Africans continued to resist their
oppression was through writing.
OLAUDAH EQUIANO
There are familiar characters in US Afro-Indigenous history. Perhaps the
first one we think of is Crispus Attucks. As in American horror cinema—
well, it’s a persistent urban legend in Black communities—he was the first
person killed in the American colonists’ fight for “liberty.” But that was
1770. What about the years prior? We can begin with Olaudah Equiano.
There remains great controversy about Equiano’s The Interesting Narrative
of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa the African (1789). In
Vincent Carretta’s biography, Equiano, the African: Biography of a Self-
Made Man (2009), he argues, based upon two sources, that Equiano
falsified his African origins. Carretta believes that Equiano was born in the
Carolinas. 10 We should be careful about easily dismissing Equiano’s or
other enslaved Africans’ birth claims. As historian Manisha Sinha
remarked, “The places of birth of enslaved Africans were often misreported
or assumed from their last known destination by persons doing the
recording. The identity of displaced Africans was highly malleable and
subject to arbitrary categorization by European authorities.” 11 Equiano
provides a window into the horrors of the slave trade. I am using Equiano’s
book to provide a window into his Indigenous roots.
Equiano was the first African in the West to describe the horrors of the
slave trade to a large audience. In addition to telling us about the
importance of slavery, he also allows for us to reconsider his Indigenous
African roots. As Chima J. Korieth asks in the introduction of the edited
volume, Olaudah Equiano and the Igbo World: History, Society, and