Olaudah Equiano was an outstanding 18th-century African of Igbo descent. He wrote and published a memoir that documented his life in Africa before enslavement, his life as a slave, his life in freedom, and his life as a writer and abolitionist. By his account, he was born in in Essaka (Isseke) in what is known as the Anambra State in southeastern Nigeria. Olaudah’s life took a tragic.