Slave Journeys

The difference between the journeys of a free settler, convict and a slave are terribly different. This essay will show how they were treated differently in all aspects, how they lived on board, how they were fed and the reasons on why they left. But apart from all the differences, there were some similarities between the three, and this essay will feature that too.

To start off, let’s talk about the slave’s journey. The Europeans went all the way to Africa to get a whole bunch of African slaves, but the way they got them was horrible. The methods that they used were through either kidnapping them or tricking the Africans into wanting to board their ship. Tricking them was an easy task, they were promised a better life. If you lived in their …show more content…
Convicts had no choice but to leave because the jails back in Europe started to overflow with too many criminals ranging from adults to children as young as 9. A convict’s boat was not packed, they had room to move around, they could have gone up to the deck for fresh air and exercise and were given more food than the slaves. Sounds better right? Not really, the toilet was still a bucket and convicts got punished for no reason at times, especially women. Unlike the slave’s boat there were more guards on board than convicts, but the thing is that the convicts on board did the most minor crimes, like steal bread from a local bakery, so the amount of guards on board was not needed, and because of the guards the boat was getting more fuller and …show more content…
Some similarities between slaves and convicts would be during the trip to the ‘New World’, where people died through sickness or unnecessary punishments, as well as the fact that they had no human rights at all, and they were treated worse than animals. Although the convict’s journeys were similar to a slave’s journey, it did have some similarities to a free setter’s trip. Convicts and free settlers had a lot more room than slaves and were fed more often and both free settlers and married convicts or convicts that finished serving their time as a criminal were entitled to land and could build houses. But there is one thing that all of them have in common -- the way they were feeling, moving to a different country knowing nothing about it is scary, trust me I know how it feels like, the moment they stepped out of the boat, they did not know what would be thrown against them, they could’ve been feeling excited, worried and scared. Human emotions is what they all have in common. Moving to a new place also means a start of something