The article analyses how Olaudah Equiano's imaginary modeling of a black subject position challenges established notions of the Enlightenment. It is argued that Equiano consciously appropriates Enlighten-ment ideals to claim a sense of national belonging and citizenship. In doing so, however, he pushes Western ideals towards their limits and confronts them with their own alterity, i.e. with the contradictions of the >black reason< (Mbembe).