Two selections from this unit that can be thought of as protest literature is Olaudah Equiano's “Aboard a Slave Ship” and Thomas Paine’s Common Sense. Equiano was a slave for a long time and was able to buy himself out of slavery. He explains what it was like being a slave and his opinion about the conditions being horrific. He was starved, mistreated, and had a horrible life as a slave. An example of the brutal living conditions, Equiano writes in “Aboard a Slave Ship” three slaves jump into the sea because they would rather die than endue the living conditions onboard the ship. In “Aboard a Slave Ship,” Equiano was able to create a historical record and protest the treatment of slaves. He writes so the readers can be moved by his story and
