There is one profession that does not appear in the records but that is known to have been practiced by Africans; it is that of the lingua, an exclusive role played by people who knew the different languages spoken on Africa's coasts. In this, and in other occupations, enslaved or freed Africans and their descendants did not, however, find a means of social or professional mobility. Projecting the intention to achieve social mobility may be anachronistic, however, as the societies in which these men lived were characterized by forms of social mobility that were highly limited. However, autonomy, mobility and movement, which gave rise to possibilities for escape or for a new life away from their master's gaze (in the case of enslaved people) or from the people they had interacted with while enslaved (in the case of freed people) were all attainable through involvement in seafaring. Schwartz reflected on this while studying mobility by means of imperial and colonial borders as a form of escaping religious persecution in the times of the Inquisition (2009); involvement in maritime labour offered strong possibilities for exercising autonomy or liberty, in the case of enslaved and freed people of African origin.