Certificate of Good Behavior Symbol Analysis

Although Equiano’s narrative is mostly written from his own perspective, he also reproduces citations from other people to justify and cement his own authority. One way Equiano calls on the authority of others is through the transcription of the certificates of good behavior he received from Mr. King and from Dr. Irving. These certificates are highly important in Equiano’s own life, because they are letters of recommendation that allow him to attain good employment elsewhere. As a black man, even eventually a free one, Equiano has seen how little others trust him and how fragile his freedom is. Through testimony from others, he knows he can hope to combat the stereotypes of black people as being deceitful, lazy, or inferior to whites. By transcribing these certificates verbatim in his own narrative, Equiano hopes to convince his readers of his trustworthiness, not just as a sailor, but as a human being recounting the story of his life.

In a world in which the testimony of whites is worth far more than that of blacks, Equiano is strategic in bolstering his own narrative with the words of others whom he knows have a better chance of being taken seriously. These certificates thus represent a confirmation of Equiano’s status as a successful commercial subject, and they also lend him credibility in his argument about the evils of slavery, an argument for which he hopes to marshal all evidence possible in order to drive his case home. At the same time, the fact that Equiano feels the need to include the certificates to bolster his own case signifies just how much society is stacked against black people: despite his accomplishments in overcoming an escaping his enslavement by whites, he still needs the good word of whites to make the world take him seriously.