Revealing the truth about slavery
Miranda Reinke

Everyone knows slavery is load and what happened all those years, but people don’t always think thank about an interval slave, and what happened during their life. In the book, Narrative of Frederick Douglass and the movie, Boots they are talking about individual’s life as a slave, but no ones life is the same. Therefore two slaves, Kunta Kinte from the movie and Frederick Douglass from the book have many things that make them different from each other. Like how the two slaves grew up and what different skills they’ve learned throughout their lives to survive. Although they have their differences they are similar and the fact that both Kunta Kinte and Douglass tried but failed to run away. These two men are bound like brothers and the movie and book shows how every slave was punished and wanted to escape their horrible environment. The book and the movie also show how different peoples life are as well. The similarities and differences of these two slaves are very important because how Douglass grew up made him the man he became after he was free, and Kunta’s childhood made him realize that he wanted to be free no matter what.
Frederick Douglass and Kunta Kinte both had a really different childhood. Kunta Kinte was born in Africa, he knew what freedom felt like but Frederick was born as a slave, he didn’t know what freedom was like. When Kunta Kinte was taken from his village he was about thirteen years old, he had just returned to his village because he was being trained to be a man or mandinka warrior. Before he was a slave he had problems of his own, he had a life, plans and his plans didn’t involve slavery. As for Douglass he didn’t live with his parents, only his grandmother. At the age of six, he was moved to a plantation, and then when he was eight, he moved to the city, where he made it his goal to be free. As a child, Douglass was given the chance to read when he started, he realized his situation as a slave, therefore he said “Freedom now appeared to disappear, no more forever”, ever since he started to read the idea of freedom it wouldn’t leave his thoughts. Kunta Kinte’s childhood was like an average kids life, he was able to be a kid with his mother and father. He could play which is unlike Douglasses’ no parents and no playtime. Every kid gets chores, for example in the movie, Kunta Kinte had to watch his goats, that was the chore that his parents gave him. As for Douglass his chores or orders were easier because he was much younger than Kunta. One of these tasks that Douglass was given was to watch over his master’s kids. The two boys truly had different childhoods, one born free, the other born into slavery. One had parents to teach him and to love him, the other didn’t know this emotion or the comfort of this parents, also one boy had a childhood where he was able to play and had chores like normal’s kids did, however Douglass was ordered to do something and wasn’t able to play as much as a child should at the age of eight. I believe their childhoods really separate them from being alike.
Throughout Frederick Douglass’s and Kunta Kinte’s life learned different skills to keep themselves alive. Frederick Douglass learned how to read when he was very young and this helped him when he was adult because when he was ready, he wrote a pass from him and his friend so he could run away. On page fifty-one he said “ I wrote several protections, one for each of us.” Douglass being able to read and write helped him escape and be free. He was also able to learn how to be a calker of ships. This skill let him have more freedom than any other slaves. He paid his master nine dollars a week, so he was able to work, to stay out late and sometimes sleepover at a friends house. Kunta Kinte on the other hand learned to speak English and also how to work on a plantation, where he learned many skills such as farming cotton or tobacco. Learning English and how to farm a plantation saves his life because if he didn’t learn these two skills he would have been beaten to death. Due to his master’s thought, he was unmanageable. Later on during his life he also learned to drive, which made him a more valuable slave to his master. Furthermore, both slaves gained different skills and knowledge that helped them with their unique situations.
These two slaves are bound like brothers because both understand the feeling of wanting to get out of slavery and to run away. Both men wanted to be free. Douglass said “I should prefer death to hopeless bondage”. He was willing to die to be free because being a slave was worse than death, Kunta Kinte felt he was the same way eh could stand knowing he was once free, how he is owned by another man. The slaves couldn’t escape by themselves without help. So Frederick Douglass had the help from his slave friends and Kunta Kinte had help from his friend the Fiddler. Also both slaves planned to share the freedom of running away.
Frederick planned to escape with his friends to freedom. Kunta Kinte was going to run. This shows how they both wanted other slaves to be happy, but unfortunately Frederick and Kunta fail to escape at least once. The two slaves both found a way to get away from their master and not get caught. I believe that since both slaves kept trying to run away and didn’t give up in what the thought was right which makes them very much alike.
The book and the movie show not all slaves gave up and expected their fate of being unhappy, that some slaves like Frederick Douglass and Kunta Kinte will take their bad situations and learn skills that would help them run away. Also the two medias show how different a man becomes just because of how he was raised. These factors are very important because when they grew up. The movie and book are similar because the character’s lives were similar. Why I think the character’s lives are the same therefore the book and the movie are the same because Frederick and Kunta both got punished, both tried to run away then failed and both got married, these examples are major parts of both medias, so since the main points are the same I believe the book and the movie are the same. They both show a slaves life and the events that took place during the slaves lives, but if I had to pick which of the two medias showed a more accurate portrayal of slavery. I would choose the book. The reason I would think the book shows more accurate information about slavery is because first it was written by a slave and someone who knew what really happened during his life and other slaves’ lives wrote it. Also, unlike the movie it’s true to what happened. Why I think the movie didn’t show really accurate information is because it showed white men catching slaves when that wasn’t the case. Therefore, the would be a better source if you wanted to learn more about a real slaves life and what it was really like.