Georgia Historical Society

Equiano's Experience in Georgia

As Georgia’s planter class established new connections in Africa, Savannah hosted a unique world traveler. Olaudah Equiano, the subject of Vincent Carretta’s latest book and his August 2007 GHS lecture, wrote one of the earliest slave-narratives in which he recounted his time on the eighteenth century high seas, his passing from one master to another, his conversion to Christianity, and the purchase of his own freedom in 1766. Although Equiano told tales of friendships found in Savannah, the port city hardly extended a warm hand of welcome.

During Equiano’s 1765 trip to Georgia, his second time to the colony, he suffered a severe beating at the hands of two white men. Equiano had been visiting a group of Savannah’s slaves when his hosts’ master, an inebriated Dr. Perkins, and one of Perkin’s white servants, beat Equiano so severely that local doctors felt he would not survive. Dr. Perkins went unpunished for his behavior, but another physician, Dr. Brady, cared for the wounded Equiano and helped bring about a full recovery. It took four weeks before Equiano could return to his ship where Captain Thomas Farmer and the crew anxiously awaited his return due to Equiano’s master seamanship.

On another trip to Georgia, a visit to enslaved friends once again sparked conflict between Equiano, then a free man, and white Savannah. This time, while visiting his friend Mosa, city watchmen took Equiano into custody citing a city ordinance that prohibited blacks from having a light on past nine o’clock. Because the slaves in the house had a master to vouch for them, only Equiano was taken, despite his declarations of independence. In the morning, two black Savannahians were flogged and Equiano feared the same punishment, and the more he openly questioned the legality of this action, the more it seemed inevitable. Finally, Dr. Brady was called and Equiano went free without harm.


The history of the rise, progress, and accomplishment of the abolition of the African Slave-trade by the British parliament. From the GHS Rare Collection HT 1162 .C52 1808.	The case of the Slaver Echo. From the GHS Rare Collection E446 .B38 1859