Wheatley acted as a voice for her fellow slaves by showing Americans that, contrary to popular belief, Africans were not content with being taken from their homeland and reduced to slavery. This created the foundation for the awareness necessary for the eventual abolition of slavery. About a century later, Tocqueville argued that slavery must end with emancipation lest this occur through the violence of a slave revolt. He showed awareness of the injustice of the condition of slaves and the growing popularity of the abolitionist movement. It documented the progress Americans had made toward emancipating slaves nearly a century after Wheatley. Although the freeing of the slaves would end in a violently bloody civil war, both Wheatley and Tocqueville show that the end of slavery was imminent and that another step toward equality in America would be taken.