# Endnotes explained — The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano

> Chapter companion for The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano by Olaudah Equiano.

## What happens

The endnotes provide citations, clarifications, and supplementary anecdotes referenced throughout the narrative, including accounts of poisoning, a drowning, a false bill of sale, and a ghostly apparition, as well as references to abolitionist friends and published works.

## Themes in this chapter

### Slavery and Oppression

Endnotes include accounts of poisoned slaves, false bills of sale for white men sold as slaves, and the cruel treatment of a black servant.

### Abolition and Advocacy

References to Granville Sharp, Thomas Clarkson, James Ramsay, and the poem 'The Dying Negro' highlight the abolitionist network and literary activism.

## Character check-ins

### Captain James Doran

Mentioned as captain of the Charming Sally in an anecdote about a poisoned girl at Montserrat.

### Mr. Mondle

Recounts seeing a ward (spirit) of a man who later drowned at Bayonne.

## Key lines

> A black, who, a few days before had ran away from his master, and got himself christened, with intent to marry a white woman his fellow-servant, being taken and sent on board a ship in the Thames, took an opportunity of shooting himself through the head.

An enslaved man who escaped, was baptized, and planned to marry a white coworker was recaptured and placed on a ship, where he shot himself.

_This incident inspired the poem 'The Dying Negro' (1773)._

> Thus was I sacrificed to the envy and resentment of this woman for knowing that the lady whom she had succeeded in my master's good graces designed to take me into her service; which, had I once got on shore, she would not have been able to prevent.

I was victimized by a woman's jealousy because she knew her rival intended to employ me, which she could not stop if I reached land.

_Explains the motive behind the captain's cruel treatment of Equiano._

## Links

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