Final answer:
Olaudah Equiano and an African merchant may have described the experience of enslavement and the slave trade differently, reflecting the tragic human cost and the mercantile perspective respectively. Equiano's writings reveal the inhumanity of the slave trade and its destructive impact on African communities.
Step-by-step explanation:
Olaudah Equiano's experience as a child, when he and his sister were kidnapped and sold into slavery by European slave traders, shines a light on the grim realities of the transatlantic slave trade. In his society within what is now Nigeria, enslavement could happen through wars, expeditions, and even betrayal by relatives. African merchants involved in the trade may have rationalized their actions as a part of existing inter-tribal conflicts and commerce, while Equiano would describe these transactions as dehumanizing and filled with treachery and despair. The introduction of Europeans into the African slave trade intensified these practices, as they were willing to pay large sums for captives, leading to an increase in the numbers of Africans being enslaved by fellow Africans.
The impact on African communities was devastating, with families broken apart and a pervasive fear of abduction. As an abolitionist later in life, Equiano used his writings, such as The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, to illustrate the horrors of slavery and the slave trade, advocating against the inhumane treatment and the impact it had on African societies. His accounts were used to inform and sway public opinion, contributing to the abolitionist movement and ultimately aiding in the end of the British slave trade in 1807.