Slavery

Essay by EssaySwap ContributorHigh School, 11th grade February 2008

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Have you ever worked from dawn until dusk in a field without pay or recognition of your work? Many native Africans lived this life everyday as slaves in America. The article "The Door of No Return" and the poem "Liberty and Slavery" both show the hardships of slavery.

"Liberty and Slavery" is written from the viewpoint of a slave. The first stanza says that the slave was deprived of basic freedoms and of "all created bliss". This means that all of the rights, such as freedom of religion and the right to hold property, and not to be held as property, were denied for slaves but given to all other people. He also talks of living each day in a world of "hardship, toil and pain". This means his life was one used for working day in and day out. It was hard and troublesome for him.

The article "The Door of No Return" also discusses slavery. It talks of an island off the coast of the African country Senegal called Goree Island. It was a place where Africans were kept after they were kidnapped from their homes. This prison-like place was a holding spot for them before the slave ships came and took them to their future homes in other countries.

"Liberty and Slavery" talks of the hardships of slavery. "The Door of No Return" addresses the horrible conditions and treatment that the slaves had to live through at Goree Island. These literary works are very similar because they both tell how hard and awful it was to be a slave, although they address it in very different ways. "Liberty and Slavery" says that the slave lived a life of "hardship, toil and pain". The conditions at Goree...