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Why do scholars debate whether Olaudah Equiano was born in Africa or North America?

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Phillis Wheatley's first book of poetry — African American literature Frontispiece and title page of *Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral* (1773) by Phillis Wheatley, the first Black woman to become a poet of note in the United States. The portrait on which the frontispiece's engraving is based is often attributed to Scipio Moorhead, an Black artist and writer who, like Wheatley, was enslaved and living in Boston.

Scholars debate the birthplace of Olaudah Equiano primarily due to a discrepancy between his autobiography and historical documentation discovered at the turn of the 21st century.1

In his 1789 work, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Equiano describes being born in an Igbo village in present-day Nigeria and enduring the Middle Passage as a child. However, scholar Vincent Carretta identified a 1759 baptismal record from London that lists Equiano as "Gustavus Vassa a Black born in Carolina 12 years old".12

This discovery has led to ongoing academic debate regarding whether Equiano’s vivid descriptions of African life and the slave trade were based on personal memory or derived from his reading and research. While some scholars question the authenticity of his origins, others argue that the text should be viewed through the lens of autobiography as a genre, which often maintains a complex relationship with the author's memory and knowledge. There is currently no scholarly consensus on the matter.12