During the 19th century, many people inaccurately presumed that the “freed” slaves were happy after their emancipation. In the poem, “We Wear the Mask,” Paul Laurence Dunbar writes, “We wear the mask that that grins and lies, It hides our cheeks, and shades our eyes – This debt we pay to human guile; with torn and bleeding hearts we smile.” Obviously freed slaves desired their freedom, but they had an unfavorable, sometimes bitter and angry attitude toward their status and condition in society, which they often hid behind a “mask”. The slaves had been freed, yet they faced new evils-violence, intimidation, and segregation. As a result, they contained their feelings of anger and pain, which, too, resulted in the disguis

ing of their faces. Next, the slaves felt as though they “had it better” when they were slaves because they always had a place to sleep, and food to eat. In the fable, “Emancipation, a Life Fable”, the animal that had been encaged represents a slave who is being freed. The animal notices the door open, and decides to slowly go see what is outside. Each time he goes, he gets closer and closer to the door, and he sees more Light, which represents freedom. The slaves had always wanted to be free, yet they were afraid. In the end, the animal “…lives, seeking, finding, joying, and suffering.” The slaves are similar to the animal because they always had what was needed, and then they had nothing, which brought them great suffering, but they, like the animal, never wanted to return to the cage.

The stereotype of the savage, uncivilized Indian embraced by many whites led the Native Americans to experience many transgressions and hardships. “How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy or sell them?”, were the words of Chief Seattle in his speech, “How Can You Buy or Sell the Sky”. The Native Americans were treated badly by the w

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