Paul Edwards, provides a vivid portrait of Ibo village life during the mid-1700s. Marriages were arranged, recalls Equiano, and most men took no more than two wives. When neigh- boring tribes raided Ibo villages for slaves, Ibo women fought alongside their men. Equiano remarks 'that the prisoners taken his tribe and kept as slaves fared better than those sold to Europeans; some of the Ibos' slaves had slaves of their own.
Equiano's autobiography stands alone among authentic early Nige- rian documents,...