Lost grave of daughter of Black abolitionist Olaudah Equiano found by A-level student | Cambridgeshire

An A-level student has found the lost grave of the daughter of Black abolitionist Olaudah Equiano, revealing a story of love and solidarity in 18th-century rural England.

Olaudah Equiano (1745-1797), also known as Gustavus Vassa, escaped slavery to become a famous writer and campaigner in Georgian England. His memoir, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa the African, was a bestseller.

His book tour brought him to Cambridgeshire; here he would marry Susannah Cullen, an Englishwoman from Ely, and have two children. They settled in Soham, supported by a local network that included abolitionist friends, at a time when reactionary “church and king” gangs were targeting reformers.

The couple’s first daughter, Anna Maria Vassa, died when she was three years old, and the exact location of her grave has been lost over time.

But after going to Cambridge’s Magdalene College library to borrow a signed Equiano letter for the Black Atlantic exhibition in 2021, Professor Victoria AveryHe found the long-forgotten, unheralded research of Cathy O’Neill of the Fitzwilliam Museum. While taking his A-level exam in 1977, O’Neill located and photographed the likely location of Anna Maria’s plot in the churchyard of St Andrew’s in the Chesterton area of ​​Cambridge.

This October, while working on an article about Equiano’s Cambridgeshire family Women’s History ReviewAvery, St Andrew’s vicar, Reverend Dr. With the help of Philip Lockley and “perfect” lighting conditions, he was finally able to complete the academic mystery. Avery confirmed that the etched inscription on the stone read “AMV – 1797” and confirmed that it read: Anna Maria’s footstoneThanks to O’Neill’s previous research.

“There was a deep sense of being found at the time of discovery,” Lockley said.

This is part of the growing awareness of the historical link between the Equiano family and that corner of Cambridgeshire. A day to commemorate Anna Maria Vassa and her father’s importance has been held every year in the 700-year-old church since the 1990s. A community project launched in October 2022 in the wake of Black Lives Matter named a bridge after Equiano.

The Church of England welcomed Cambridgeshire’s Equiano connection St Andrew’s, which held a commemoration event this month as a story of “freedom, justice, love and mercy”, now plans to install a stained glass window in memory of Equiano’s family to further engage with the community.

“People connect with it in a way that you wouldn’t know as part of history,” Lockley said. “We’re in an area where new people are coming in all the time, but we’re really interested in hearing about those long roots and connections to Black history, and that’s part of Cambridge’s connections to the slave trade and the campaign against abolition.”

While the location of Anna Maria’s grave remained unclear for centuries, an epitaph on the north wall of St Andrew’s dating back to the time of her death celebrates her and describes her father’s slavery, her marriage to her mother, and local grief over Anna Maria’s death.

His epitaph commemorates him as a “coloured boy… whose father… was cut off from his own land”, who “through various difficulties eventually came to Britain, married a God-ordained English woman”, describing how the “village children” mourned the death of Anna Maria.

Avery believes the epitaph was written by Equiano’s friend, the abolitionist Edward Ind; her younger brother, Thomas Ind, was Anna Maria’s guardian when she died.

Avery said Equiano’s marriage spoke of “courage and true love,” adding: “We know from newspaper articles published at the time of their marriage that the wedding took place with a large gathering of people, likely among them active abolitionists, who wished Olaudah and Susannah well on their wedding day.”

Explaining why the couple settled in Cambridgeshire rather than London, where Equiano rented “excellent” flats, Avery said he believed they were safer in the countryside from the violent reactionary reactions after the French Revolution that were targeting reformers in England at the time.

He said: “For much of their short marriage, Olaudah was constantly on the move, earning an income and engaging in abolitionist activities. I think he realized that Susannah and the children needed to be out of the line of fire.”

“There were groups of like-minded men and women in Cambridge, Ely and Soham who loved it. [abolitionist] She supported him, his marriage, and provided a supportive environment for the young Vassa family. The greatest tragedy was that Susannah died shortly after the birth of their second daughter, while Equiano died about a year later. Anna Maria dies shortly after.

Equiano’s other daughter, Joanna, survived to adulthood and was buried in Stoke Newington. Artist Joy Labinjo, from Stoke Newington, has re-imagined what family looks like for her 18th-century work Family, which now forms part of the Fitzwilliam Museum collection.