Comparing Equaino's Travels 'And The Amistad'

Throughout history, slavery has been a vital asset to many cultures including Egypt, Rome, Greece, Portugal, and parts of Africa. Slaves were used as laborers; they were the reason sugar, tobacco, and cotton were such prominent products during the time period. Although slavery was common in ancient cultures, the most well known slave trade is the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. Spanning for over four hundred years, the Trans-Atlantic slave trade robbed approximately thirteen million African people of a normal life with their families and communities. However, due to a lack of record keeping, the number of Africans affected by the Trans-Atlantic slave trade will be lost in history forever. Africans were completely stripped of their humanity
Because of this, the stories about the characters in “Equaino’s Travels” and “The Amistad” are unique stories as both stories end with the slaves becoming free men. Although becoming a free man was a long and tedious process, the average slave did not always gain his freedom. While on the plantation slaves could gain freedom in three ways: running away, being emancipated by their owner or buying their freedom. For the most part, running away was extremely risky and many slaves were recaptured and returned to their owner. Trying to buy one’s freedom was also complicated as the only way to earn money while working on a plantation was to have a side job and because of this it would take decades for slaves to save enough to free themselves. During Equaino’s several journeys across the sea, he began selling glasses for a higher price than he bought them for: “I bought with these two bits four more of these glasses, which I sold for four bits in return”, in hopes of being able to save enough money to buy his freedom (Equaino, 71). After being sold to several different slave owners, Equaino feared he would not be able to become a free man as not all of his owners believed he should be free. However, similar to many slaves who also tried to buy their freedom, after several long, harsh years of working, Equaino had finally saved up enough money to buy his freedom. Although Equaino’s story about buying his freedom can be related to other slaves who acquired their freedom, the story of Cinque’s freedom is like no other. As many textbooks state, during the voyage to the Americas, several revolts occurred. The revolts were never successful though, and for this reason, the revolt of the Amistad is an extraordinary exception to the typical freeing of slaves; however, the process and the amount of time these slaves waited to be free