Mary Rowlandson and Olaudah Equiano

Mary Rowlandson and Olaudah Equiano were two very different people that became historical figures. Who would have guessed that each would have been put in similar situations?

Olaudah Equiano was sold by people of his own race, loaded onto a cargo ship like common cattle and chained beside many other people in similar plights. They couldn’t all speak the same language, they would often get sick or die, and were treated cruelly by the white settlers. The cargo hold which he was loaded into was filled with a terrible stench, which assaulted him immediately. One of his biggest comforts while on board was finding a small group of his own countrymen whom spoke his language; they explained to him that the white men did not plan to kill him, only take him to a new land to be a slave. He was comforted in knowing they expected nothing worse from him than work. They would be beaten for not eating and other things such as impertinence and disobedience; at times they feared justifiably for their lives. He was trapped in a place of fear and hardship without escape.

Mary Rowlandson was also trapped without escape. She, her family, and her sister’s family were all occupying her house together when it was attacked by Indians. The Indians took guns and hemp oil from Mary’s own barn and surrounded the house. They cast the oil on the house and set fire to it, then began firing on the house with the guns, and shooting at any person that tried to escape. It was a horrific sight as the panicked people frantically chose which fate to resign to. Some fled, darting from the house. The adults each took charge of several children but even so most of the children (including Mary’s baby child) and all of the adults aside from Mary were shot. Mary herself was taken prisoner by the Indians and experienced a similar feeling of captivity to Olaudah as the Indians kept her hostage.

Mary Rowlandson and Olaudah Equiano had something else in common; they both wrote accounts of their experiences. Although this might seem inconsequential, in those days it was what made the difference in making historical figures of these otherwise ordinary people. Mary was simply a hardworking wife and mother; and Olaudah an everyday slave. Through their use of imagery, and accounts of their encounters you can feel the fear, tension and anger they felt in their times of captivity. You can smell the stench of the cargo hold as Equiano is brought in, and feel the horror of Mary as she watches the Indians carelessly massacring her children and relatives. These accounts were mainly covered over at the time, as many settlers tried to display colorful and exciting accounts of the new land to attract settlers from England. It wasn’t until times like those for the abolitionist and feminist movements that these stories became sought after and devoured by the leaders of these movements.

Mary Rowlandson and Olaudah Equiano were two very different people who made a difference with their accounts of the wretched experiences they endured. Although they had innumerable differences, in this single experience they came to be comparable through similar endurance.