Africans and the Atlantic World in eighteenth-century Ulster

In October 1791, the same month in which the Society of United Irishmen was established, Olaudah Equiano visited Belfast to promote his account of his life, The interesting narrative of the life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavius Vassa, The African: written by himself. While in Belfast, Equiano attended a meeting of the Belfast Charitable Society - a society established in 1752, whose supporters included the prominent merchant Waddell Cunningham.
Taking Equiano's visit as a starting point, this talk will reflect on Ulster's connections with the wider eighteenth-century Atlantic World and explore the fragmentary stories of some other Africans who are known to have come to Ulster at this time.