James Stout

Yeah.

He gets kind of within this horrible situation one of the better jobs you can get where he's working as a house slave.

So he's able to kind of – he's not laboring in the field.

He's able to recover his strength more effectively, right, because it's less physically nightmarish work.

And he gets better enough, and he just proves to be very intelligent too.

So he's got a lot of value to him, and he's sold again to the captain of a British merchant vessel named Henry Pascal –

it's pascal who gives him his european name gustavus vasa and sometimes you'll see him and he would go by vasa periodically throughout his life as well as uh equiano right but yeah pascal gives him this name and takes him to england and for a while things seem to be going really well he's taught about christianity he makes like a friend with a local boy who's about his age like a white boy um

And they're actually very good friends.

The kid dies like two years later.

But like he's adamant that like, no, this kid was like really – we were very close.

He helps him learn English.

And because he's so smart, Equiano attracts wealthy British patrons.

These like two, I think, older ladies pay for him to go to school.

And so he's obviously kind of thinking, I've lucked out.

I might just kind of get out of the whole slavery thing and be like English, right?

Like maybe that's my future.

Because Pascal seems to be treating him well.

He's got these local ladies who are like paying for, you know, he seems to have fallen into a good situation.

And then...

out of nowhere, Pascal takes him back to sea, right?