Chapter XI Equiano & Columbus

 In Chapter XI, Equiano uses Christopher Columbus’s tactic of scaring Native people when he refers to Christopher Columbus’s biography.  In this part of the narrative, Equiano was interacting with Mosquito Indians and applied this tactic to them.  When I first read this part of the narrative, I was a bit confused about why Equiano would want to use the same strategy of fear that Columbus, a white man, used.  After reading over this passage one more time, I still am not sure of what to make of this passage in Equiano’s narrative, but this is what I have come up with: 

Equiano threatened the Native people by using religion, and the Native people got scared from him, so they made peace.  By doing this, Equiano copies Christopher Columbus’s strategy of fear, and by copying Columbus’s actions, I think that Equiano reverses the roles in the sense that Equiano is acting like the white oppressor now.  In a way, I think that Equiano does this to show the Europeans the fault in their argument that the people of Africa are inferior and that white people are superior because now Equiano, an African man, is holding “power” over a group of people (the Native people).  

On another note, I also think that the interactions between Equiano and the Native people are different than the interactions between white people and African slaves.  For example, I felt that Equiano did not condemn the culture or customs of the Native people while usually white people condemned the culture of the people of Africa.