Historical Compare and Contrast

Author’s Note: This is a compare and contrast essay that is comparing the fictional happenings in Jump Ship to Freedom to the real time period of the American Revolution.

           

Historical fiction novels are based on historical events that really took place in history but the author changed the happenings of that event by creating a fictional character. Jump Ship to Freedom is an example of a historical fiction novel. The main character, Daniel, is an escaped slave hiding from his master in the New York harbor in 1776. This book is very realistic compared to this time.  The only thing that really stands out is the way they talk -- the author had to put some words in that we use today to flavor up the speech of the characters. The book has little fiction as it relates to the events that happen.

First of all, the main character, Daniel, is an escaped slave boy who is trying to buy his freedom for his mother and himself. He escapes from his master’s ship searching for his freedom, like many of the slaves of that time. He accumulated enough soldiers’ notes which he got from his father to get his freedom. Many slaves during that time period did not have money and, if they did, it was likely not enough to buy freedom.  Many of them fought in the Revolutionary War and were awarded freedom for risking their lives. Slaves in that time didn’t like the working conditions and the cruelty, so they often escaped.  Instead of buying their freedom, they ran for their freedom to land that was not owned by the wealthy white men.

In the same way, the book used the writing of the American Constitution as another historical happening. Daniel was a part of the writing; he had come along with an old dying Quaker who would carry with him the important note to make the Constitution finalized. Daniel came with him to hide from his master.  When the old Quaker died, he relied on Daniel to deliver the note to the writers of the constitution. Daniel did eventually meet the founding fathers and delivered the note, and that really did happen with the writing of the constitution back in 1776.  However, Daniel wasn’t the one to deliver the note. Also, the American Constitution was a real thing and it did settle the slavery disagreement.  In the book it was the thing to get Daniel out of slavery.

On the other hand, many of the slave boys in 1776 were thought of as stupid because of their low schooling compared to the white boys. Daniel was really smart compared to the slave boys; he was even smarter than the white boys which only happened in this book to give it a more modern sense than the dull stereotypes of the 1700’s. Even the way Daniel talked was different to the slave boys; he had talked like he was schooled every day, which didn’t happen often to white boys let alone black boys. The authors had to put some changes in because the flavor that they spoke with back then would be hard to comprehend. The author even put a note in the book explaining his reason to make Daniel so advanced compared to the other boys, so we could get a sense of what it was like to be a slave in the 1700’s.

In conclusion, the events in this book are very real. While they might not be exactly how they happened, for the most part they give a sense of what it was like in the 1700’s as a slave. It also gives a sense of how the slaves were treated.  One mess up or mistake and the owner could send them half way across the world to be even more miserable. This book gave me a good idea of the conditions and the treatment of slaves in the 1700’s.  From reading this book, I now know that it is not what we think.  It was even worse.