Symbol: The Ship
The ship on which the narrator of the poem is a passenger aboard is one of the most powerful symbols in the poem. The ship is a symbol of colonialism and the slave trade which brutalized and destroyed the lives of countless people.
Symbol: High Seas
The high seas are a powerful symbol of the misery that Africans had to experience as they were transported against their will to the New World, where they would be sold as slaves. Throughout history, merchants transported the people they kidnapped across the Atlantic Ocean to the New World.
Symbol: Officers
The unnamed "officers" that are mentioned at the start of the poem is symbolic of the white colonizers and slavers who brutalized Africans in their home country and treated them like sub-humans by selling them into slavery.
Metaphor: "Declaration"
"Declaration" is a metaphor for the experiences of Africans who were sold into slavery by white people and, as the poem says, "taken captive on the high seas." Through the narrator's experience on the high seas, the author compares the narrator's experiences to the experiences of many other people.
Allegory: The evils of slavery
"Declaration" is an allegory which warns about the evils of slavery and those who perpetrate it. The poem illuminates the harsh conditions many slaves dealt with on the ships to the New World and shows what kidnapping and slavery does to people.
