Compare And Contrast Cabeza De Vaca And Olaudah Equiano

811 Words4 Pages

Informational Essay Numerous men packed together to set off on a new adventure. Some survived but some did not. Two men who survived are Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, and Olaudah Equiano. Both men wrote stories of their long and hard adventures such as, “La Relacion” and “The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano”. Even though the two stories can be found similar, they are also filled with many differences as well. The two stories have certain things in common, the passages came from two majorly different points of views. With one point of view from a slave and another from an explorer.
One key similarity of the two stories is that both men feared they would be eaten and sacrificed. Cabeza de Vaca heard that the Indians sacrificed …show more content…

Cabeza de Vaca was an explorer, and Equiano was a slave. Cabeza de Vaca came from a family of conquistadors. He set off to claim new land for spain. Equiano was born in the Ibo tribe but soon after was sold into slavery. He was forced to make the miserable journey to the Americas, known as the Middle Passage. The background of Cabeza de Vaca’s story states, “In the 1500s, Spanish conquistadors took to the seas to claim new land for Spain. Seeking gold and silver, they explored unfamiliar territory and encountered Native American cultures they did not understand” (Cabeza de Vaca 70). In the text it shows what their intentions were on this trip as conquistadors. On the other hand, Equiano was a slave. In the background of Equiano's story it says, “When Olaudah Equiano was 11 year old, he and his sister were kidnapped while the adults in his village were working in the fields. After being forced to travel for several days, Equiano and his sister were separated. For the next six or seven months, Equiano was sold several times to African masters in different countries. He was eventually taken to the west coast of Africa and carried aboard a slave ship bound for the West Indies” (Equiano 84). This text proves that Equiano in fact was forced to take thus journey as a slave and was seperated from all of his family. Both of these men took a similar journey to the new world, but they see it very

Open Document