Equiano describes the horrendous stench on the slave ship, which immediately made him so sick that he wished for death. Later, he writes of the extreme brutality of conditions on board, particularly the frequent and savage floggings. One man, he says, was so brutally beaten that he died, whereupon his body was unceremoniously thrown overboard. Equiano was not alone in wishing for death because of the harsh conditions. A little later, three men jumped overboard of their own volition. Equiano writes:

However two of the wretches were drowned, but they got the other, and afterwards flogged him unmercifully for thus attempting to prefer death to slavery. In this manner we continued to undergo more hardships than I can now relate, hardships which are inseparable from this accursed trade. Many a time we were near suffocation from the want of fresh air, which we were often without for whole days together.

Equiano found himself in this terrible position because he was kidnapped along with his sister while his parents were away from home. After being sold and resold several times, he found himself in the hands of slave traders who were transporting Africans to Barbados. He was later sent on to Virginia.

Equiano's account of his and his sister's original kidnapping is rather matter-of-fact and related largely without acrimony. Kidnapping seems to have been such a commonplace activity that he was not at all surprised when it happened to him. Immediately after being separated from his sister, which he does describe as a great sorrow, he relates with renewed equanimity:

At length, after many days travelling, during which I had often changed masters, I got into the hands of a chieftain, in a very pleasant country. This man had two wives and some children, and they all used me extremely well, and did all they could to comfort me; particularly the first wife, who was something like my mother.