Question 1: During slavery African Americans were seen as nothing special and different. However, Joe was indeed different but in a special way, he was fluent in French and English and very smart. Therefore, because he was so smart, he used these skills to escape. He was able to escape five times which proves to us how smart he was to be able to do it every time. Thus, he was known as a breakout artist because he was able to escape five times using his smart skills.