Alexandra Risko
Professor Rumore,
ENG 302

Final Essay

Similar to the coronavirus in terms of casualties, the last time England saw the bubonic plague was in 1665, in an effort to recover financially, they procured many different real estate ventures (conquests) and business deals (taxes and trades). Great Britain became a powerhouse on the eastern hemisphere, and aimed to control all of the western hemisphere as well. A colonial dynasty, Britain would create the East India Trading Company, The Thirteen Colonies, and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Just to name a few. Three novels of that time period that depict these concepts are Oronooko by Aphra Behn, The Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano, and Captain Singleton by Daniel Defoe. Each of these novels illustrates the realism of the time period and captures a look at English colonialism.
 Slavery became big in the 1700s with the creation of the transatlantic slave trade through the middle passage. Crowded ships with hundreds of enslaved people left port at their own government’s monopolies. These ships would be aimed toward North and Central America. In the case of Oroonoko; Aphra Behn sets the colonized landing at a small country near Brazil, named Surinam. The British began a process where instead of enslaving the natives of the colonies, they would bring the African slaves to the colonies instead. Once a highly regarded and intelligent prince, Oronooko finds himself tricked into becoming a slave and ushered out of the ship in shackles to a whole new colonized world.
Written in 1688, Behn set out to model an opinion within her novel. As an abolitionist, she writes the ending where Oroonoko kills his wife and himself to escape slavery, as a symbol that the idea of death is better than the idea of being a slave for the rest of your life. With death, she illustrates, there is escape. Oroonoko escapes slavery in the end by dying. There are several other areas of the novel where she illustrates points the traditional upper class white man as the reader would not understand, such as when Oroonoko is tricked onto the boat. This illustrates the unfairness and legal/moral issues with owning other people; owning slaves. She also illustrates the horrid conditions of the quarters and then the horrid treatment of the slaves at the time. However, because she may have not been able to get over her own white privilege to see it, she was unable to truly mix Oroonoko within the other slaves. She had to make him a prince perhaps illustrating that even that status doesn’t mean a lot in those days when you’re black. Behn writes as if she wants the story to pretend it is fiction, so acts as if it happens in real life however is a made up story. Therefore this makes the action seem more horrible to read because the reader is made to think the story happened in real life, which it actually did in some instances like the examples of slavery but in this case it was trying to be more impactful upon the audience who does not have sympathy already for the slaves. At the end of the line however, Behn does not fully reject slavery or imperialism and she doesn’t have any major points against colonialism. Simply that slavery is horrid, and should be abolished is seen as her final message.
Years later, in 1720, another novel was published illustrating colonialism. Captain Singleton by Daniel Defoe was 300 pages of reflective mercantilism. Here Defoe illustrates the East India Trading Company and the blurred lines between “legit commerce” of British agents and “piracy” which was occurring in the era of pirates. This emphasis of corrupt money is illustrated throughout the novel. Britain had just colonized India,  and had many other colonies around the Indian Ocean as well. Captain Singleton was a character who worked on one of these “legit commerce” ships. Many times he and the crew loot other boats and take what they need in the name of the British empire. This idea that British power and status is based on theft in both the way illustrated by Captain Singleton and his crew but also by stealing others land, resources, and exports they have become the empire they are today. Overall it is not a lengthy detailed message about British piracy. There are small instances illustrating that Britain did not always have control over trade between India and the Arab nations. There is evidence of Indian, Arabian, Turkish, and Chinese trade within the storyline where Singleton is meeting the other boat passing by. This illustrates also that history was also controlled by the British and its not truly known what happened because only the victories are told by the victors. 
Lastly to sum up the era of colonialism for England, Olaudah Equiano wrote in 1789, the Interesting Narrative of Equiano. Wherein, he seemingly narrates earlier life for himself with his life on the slave ship from Ebo, Nigeria in the terrifying middle passage. In some ways he portrays stockholm syndrome by connecting with his captors on the slave ship, however it becomes a truly terrible experience. He hangs on to religion and uses religion to illustrate slavery. After the slavery era of his life, which the contradiction is illustrated in the novel. British soil outlawed slavery but because it was a staple within the colonies it was allowed for another 4o years. Overall the story was used as a truthful autobiography to instill fear of slavery.
The coronavirus has been pretty devastating to the United States economy, however; the stock market which seemingly crashed at the end of March, has been on the rise the last couple weeks. Historians are eager to make connections between this virus and that of the bubonic plague in the 1600s which allowed England to expand into a colonial dynasty with control over the thirteen colonies, east India trading company, and the transatlantic slave trade. Three novels; Oroonoko, Captain Singleton, and Equiano all focusing on these topics were in publishing circulation during the time period setting goals and social. 

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