Final answer:
The experiences of captured Africans brought to North America on slave ships were fundamentally different from the experiences of the Pilgrims or Cabeza de Vaca's men.
Step-by-step explanation:
The experiences of captured Africans brought to North America on slave ships were fundamentally different from the experiences of the Pilgrims or Cabeza de Vaca's men.
While the Pilgrims and Cabeza de Vaca's men came voluntarily to North America, the captured Africans were forcibly taken from their homes and brought to the New World as slaves. They endured the horrific Middle Passage, a transatlantic journey that took one to two months and resulted in the death of many thousands.
Upon arrival in America, enslaved Africans were subjected to a lifetime of brutal labor, primarily in tobacco and sugar cultivation. They were denied control over their lives and faced physical, mental, and sexual violence as a means of asserting dominance and maintaining control. The experiences of the Pilgrims and Cabeza de Vaca's men, while difficult, do not compare to the systematic and dehumanizing oppression endured by enslaved Africans.