User:CzarJobKhaya/sandbox/Olaudah Equiano chronology

Equiano’s place in history
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 * c.1745 Olaudah Equiano is born, either in Essaka, Igboland, as he describes it in The Interesting Narrative, or in South Carolina, as he told clerks on two occasions during his early life in England.
 * c.1753 According to his account in The Interesting Narrative, Equiano is kidnapped and taken from his village in Igboland to the coast of Africa.
 * c.1754 According to his account in The Interesting Narrative, Equiano is transported to Barbados in a British slave-ship, and from there taken to Virginia.
 * 1754 Bought by Royal Navy lieutenant Michael Henry Pascal in Virginia.
 * 1754 Given the name Gustavus Vassa after a 16th century Swedish king of the same name.
 * 1754 Brought to England (December).
 * 1755 Spends time in Cornwall and Guernsey. Taken aboard HMS Roebuck in August.
 * 1756–62 As the slave of Michael Pascal, serves in the Royal Navy during the Seven Years' War as a powder monkey.
 * 1757 Pascal reassigned to HMS Royal George (1756), the largest ship in the Navy. Equiano joins him in 1758.
 * 1758 Sees action at the Siege of Louisbourg, Île-Royale (June–July).
 * 1759 Baptized in St Margaret’s Church, Westminster (9 February), and briefly attends school in London.
 * 1759 Sees action in the Mediterranean (July) and at the Battle of Lagos, Portugal (August).
 * 1760 Spends time in the Isle of Wight.
 * 1761 Sees action at the capture of Belle Île, France (April–June) and on the French coast throughout the autumn and winter.
 * 1762 In France, Portsmouth, Guernsey, and London. Learns (or improves) reading, writing, and arithmetic. Suddenly and unexpectedly sold to James Doran on 10 December.
 * 1763 Taken to Montserrat, British Leeward Islands. Sold to Quaker merchant Robert King (May). Begins to work aboard King’s trading vessels (December).
 * 1764–6 Travels widely in the Caribbean and begins trading on his own account. Visits Georgia, South Carolina, and Pennsylvania.
 * 1766 Saves enough money to buy his own freedom (over £40) and is manumitted on 11 July. Continues working for King and successfully brings one of his ships to port after the death of the captain and illness of the mate (November).
 * 1767 Shipwrecked and temporarily stranded in the Bahamas (February). Embarks for England and arrives in London (September). Trains as a hairdresser and takes evening classes in arithmetic.
 * 1768 Briefly works for the inventor Charles Irving (February–May).
 * 1768–70 Returns to sea as a steward (May). On two Mediterranean voyages, he visits France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, and Portugal. Compares the persecution of Greeks by the Turks to the treatment of his own people in the West Indies.
 * 1769 Witnesses an eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
 * 1770 Describes an outbreak of the plague in Smyrna.
 * 1771–2 Takes two voyages to the Caribbean.
 * 1771 Traveled with Capt. William Robertson of the ship Grenada Planter (April). Sailed from London to Madeira to Barbados and the Grenadines. Returned to England.
 * 1771 Sailed with Capt. David Watt of the ship Jamaica from England to Nevis and Jamaica (December).
 * 1772 Returns to work for Charles Irving (August).
 * 1773 With Irving, joins Constantine John Phipps' expedition to find a north-east passage across the Arctic to the Pacific (May–September). Ship was HMS Racehorse (1757). Joined in Sheerness by Admiral Skeffington Lutwidge of the HMS Carcass (1759). Others of note on this voyage were Henry Harvey, Israel Lyons, Philippe d'Auvergne, and a young Horatio Nelson. On his return, begins "seriously to reflect" on his spiritual condition.
 * 1773 Reaches Greenland (28 June).
 * 1774 Attempts, but fails, to save enslaved African John Annis from being illegally forced out of England (April). Joins the Westminster Chapel. On a voyage to Cadiz, experiences a profound conversion to Christianity (6 October).
 * 1775 Joins Charles Irving’s expedition to found a colony on the Miskito Coast (November), and helps to buy slaves.
 * 1776 Meets with the son of the Miskito king, christened George, who would become King (George II Frederic) in 1777.
 * 1776 Leaves Irving’s colony (June) but is for some months illegally detained and defrauded by Jamaican ship captains and owners.
 * 1777–84 Enjoys a more settled existence in London, mostly in service.
 * 1777 Meets the white negro woman, Amelia Harlequin.
 * 1779 Philipsburg Proclamation promises freedom to slaves who defect from American rebels and fight for the Crown.
 * 1779 Applies to the Bishop of London, Robert Lowth, with the backing of Governor of Sierra Leone Matthew MacNamara for a position as an Anglican missionary to West Africa, but the application is declined.
 * 1783 Hears how the British captain of the slave ship Zong killed 133 Africans by throwing them overboard in the Atlantic. He tells Granville Sharp, his friend, about it.
 * 1783 Visits Wales and Shropshire and narrowly escapes injury in a mining accident.
 * 1784–5 Visits the newly independent United States of America.
 * 1784 Sailed as steward on board the ship London, commanded by Martin Hopkin, to New York (Spring).
 * 1785 Visits Philadelphia (March).
 * 1785 On his return, addresses Quakers in London and urges them to strengthen their antislavery activities (October).
 * 1786 Leaves London, making a final transatlantic voyage to Philadelphia (March). Sailed on an American ship called the Harmony, Capt. John Willet.
 * 1786 Returns to London (August).
 * 1786 Appointed as Commissary of Provisions and Stores for the expedition to settle London’s black poor in Sierra Leone (November).
 * 1787 Alerts the government to waste and corruption in the Sierra Leone project, but is dismissed (March). Successfully petitions government for compensation and is awarded £50 in the autumn.
 * 1787 Equiano a founding member of the group Sons of Africa, along with Ottobah Cugoano.
 * 1788 Presents Queen Charlotte with a petition calling for an end to the slave trade (March).
 * 1788 Dolben's Act, first British legislation regulating slave shipping, is passed, with Equiano's support.
 * 1788 Issues a subscription proposal for The Interesting Narrative (November).
 * 1789 Publishes The Interesting Narrative in April with a second edition in December.
 * 1790 Travels through northern England to promote the book, now into its third edition. Dutch translation appears in Rotterdam.
 * 1791 Spends nine months in Ireland. Fourth edition published in Dublin. First (unauthorized) American edition printed in New York.
 * 1792 Marries Susanna Cullen, a white woman and subscriber to Equiano's Narrative, in Soham, Cambridgeshire (7 April). Travels to Scotland. Fifth edition published in Edinburgh. German translation appears in Göttingen.
 * 1793 Travels through West Midlands and South West. Sixth and seventh editions published in London.
 * 1793 Birth of a daughter, Anna Maria.
 * 1794 Travels through East Anglia. Eighth edition published in Norwich. Ninth and final edition published in London. Russian translation appears in Moscow.
 * 1795 Birth of a daughter, Joanna.
 * 1796 Death of Susanna at Soham (16 February). Burial in St Andrew's Churchyard.
 * 1796 Equiano moves back to London.
 * 1797 Equiano dies in London on 31 March leaving £950 in his will. His death was reported in American, as well as British newspapers. Buried at Whitefield's Tabernacle, exact location unknown.


 * 1797 Death of Anna Maria Vassa, aged 4. Burial in St Andrew's Churchyard.
 * 1807 Slave Trade Act ends the slave trade in the British Empire.
 * 1816 Joanna Vassa turns 21; as sole heir, inherits a silver watch and £950 from Equiano's estate.
 * 1821 Marriage of Joanna Vassa to Reverend Henry Bromley at at St James's Church.
 * 1833 Slavery Abolition Act is passed; provides for immediate abolition of slavery in most parts of the British Empire.
 * 1837 Slave Compensation Act passed to compensate former slave owners.
 * 1857 Death of Joanna Vassa, aged 61. Burial in Abney Park Cemetery.
 * 1865 Slavery abolished in the United States.
 * 1878 Death of Joanna's husband, Rev Henry Bromley.
 * 1967 Newly-edited edition of memoirs by Paul Edwards is published, reviving public interest.
 * 1976 Crater on Mercury named after Equiano.
 * 1999 Findings published by Vincent Carretta disputing Equiano's place of birth.
 * 2006 Grave memorial of Joanna Vassa at Abney Park re-erected.
 * 2006 A portrait, thought since 1961 to be a depiction of Equiano, is reassessed and is now said to depict the writer Ignatius Sancho.
 * 2012 Release of a short film, Joanna Vassa, by Jason Young.
 * 2019 Google names a subsea cable connecting Portugal, Nigeria, and South Africa after Equiano. Completed in 2022.
 * 2019 An exoplanet, HD 43197 b, is named Equiano.