Does the slave in "The Slave's Dream" ultimately achieve freedom? How?

The slave does indeed achieve freedom, but sadly it's only through death. It says something about the horrors of slavery that death comes as such a blessed release from a life of endless toil and degradation. Some measure of freedom was achieved by the slave in his dreams, when he was back in his Africa, wandering freely among the beauties of nature. There, in his ancient ancestral homelands, he was somebody, a king among kings, a figure of wide renown.

But that was all just a dream; in reality he remained subject to the brutal lash of the slave-driver's whip. The contrast between the life that the slave could have led and the existence—it's not really much of a life—that he's now literally forced to lead couldn't be greater. Slavery has reduced him from a human being to a thing, an object to be exploited for the white man's gain.

In such an environment, true freedom for the slave is impossible. It only comes to him in the hour of his death, when, at long last, he can escape the confines of his captivity. In death, the dream becomes a reality, and now the slave's spirit is free to go wherever it wants.