Facing the title page is an image (the frontispiece) of the author dressed in fine clothes and holding a book. The frontispiece bears this caption: “Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African” (36). Beneath that is Isaiah 12: 2 and 4, a Christian biblical scripture in which the prophet Isaiah proclaims his trust in God and the mandate to take Christianity to all people.

Equiano directly addresses members of the British Parliament and the lords of England, his primary audience, by asking them to forgive any artistic deficiency in the work. His aim is to share the realities of the slave trade by recounting his own story. After the letter is a long list of subscribers, many of them respected people with titles and whose funds supported the publication of the project.

As Chapter 1 opens, Equiano first explains why he is writing the book. He is not writing it out of vanity or because he is one of the great men about whom people are accustomed to reading in memoirs. The events he will recount, no matter how horrifying, are normal for people like him. In fact, he feels blessed that he survived slavery and became a Christian in the West as a result of his capture.