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W.

W. Empire pod UK.com. Hello and

me, William Durham Paul.

And today we have an extraordinary story,

one of the most remarkable individuals

to emerge from the whole horrific tale of the Middle Passage

and the Caribbean plantation system.

It's the life of Lauda Equiano,

one of the most famous and most significant black Englishmen of the 18th century, a man of extraordinary

initiative and skill, able to turn his hands to all sorts of things who wrote a famous autobiography.

There's also political work that had real and actual knock on effect with the abolition movement.

Also it should be said there is a brand of rum named after him.

There's the undersea cable named after him that links the

west coast of Africa with Lisbon that follows the route that the first Portuguese

slavers took. A lot of the story that we will be telling comes from his own

narrative even though the story of his early life being snatched from his family and taken across the middle passage to be sold as a slave has been called into question subsequently by some scholars and we'll be going into that later. But I need to tell me about this man. Where was he born? Who was he and why are we interested in him?

Right. Before I get into that that because as you say there are some

recent scholars who are saying actually Lyle, Lyle, pants on fire, equiano, you weren't. You weren't for what you said you were.

You were, you weren't. But just before I I can I do the elevator pitch for who he was because I think you would like him very much so this is a man who having gone through the worst depredations that humanity can throw at another human, right?

...