Solomon Northup - 12 Years a Slave
12 Years a Slave covers five primary periods in Solomon Northup’s life: 1. Free Man In Chapters I and II, Northup tells of his life as a free black man living in upstate New York. Born in July 1808, he was the son of an emancipated slave. He grew up working on a farm at his father’s side, and also was educated to a degree of competence in reading and writing. Additionally, he learned to play the violin, a skill that would be both a blessing and curse to him in coming years. At age 21, he married Anne Hampton, and they settled down to raise a family. Solomon worked in many trades, including farming, lumberjacking, and performing on the violin, while Anne earned money as a cook. They had three children. In 1841, Solomon met two white men who offered him lucrative work with a circus—if he would travel with them to Washington, D.C. Unsuspecting, he joined them in their travels and in Washington, D.C., after a day of unusual revelry and drinking, became terribly ill. On his way to see a doctor, he passed out. When he woke up, Solomon Northup was alone, chained in darkness. 2. Captive This second period of 12 Years a Slave, told in Chapters III–VI, relates how Solomon finds himself a prisoner in the slave pen of James H. Burch, a brutal slave trader in Washington, D.C. When Solomon protests his captivity and asserts his right to freedom, Burch responds by beating him into submission and threatening to kill him if he ever mentions his freedom again. At length, Solomon is allowed to join the other slaves being held by Burch, and he discovers just how hopeless his situation is. Surrounded by slaves and a few other kidnap victims, he is transported downriver, eventually landing in New Orleans, Louisiana. Solomon and the rest of “Burch’s gang” are transferred into the slave pen of Burch’s associate, Theophilus Freeman. Freeman changes Solomon’s name to “Platt,” thereby erasing any connection to his past. Solomon is put up for sale, but his sale is delayed when he contracts smallpox, which nearly kills him. After he finally recovers, he is sold, along with a slave girl named Eliza, to a man named William Ford. 3. Slave Next begins the third leg of Solomon Northup’s journey, told in Chapters VII–XI. Solomon is now a full-fledged slave named “Platt,” working on the plantation and lumber mill of William Ford, deep in the heart of Louisiana. Ford is a kindly master, devout in his Christian faith, and given to generosity toward his slaves. Solomon finds it almost a pleasure to be in Ford’s service and even figures out a way for Ford to save considerable time and money by transporting lumber via waterway instead of by land. Solomon is well-liked by Ford in return. However, a series of financial missteps result in Ford selling Platt to a cruel carpenter named John M. Tibeats. Tibeats soon becomes Platt’s worst enemy, constantly threatening and berating him. While working on a project, Tibeats becomes so enraged that he attempts to whip Platt. Platt is the stronger of the two, though, and he turns the tables on his new master, whipping him instead. Hell-bent on revenge, Tibeats twice attempts to murder Platt. Only the intervention of William Ford and his overseer, Mr. Chapin, saves the slave’s life. Unable to kill him, yet bearing murderous hatred toward him, Tibeats sells Platt to the notorious “nigger breaker,” Edwin Epps. 4. Slave Under Edwin Epps The fourth phase of Solomon Northup’s 12 Years a Slave, told in Chapters XII–XX, focuses on the ten years he lived under the tyranny of Edwin Epps on two different plantations in Bayou Boeuf, along the banks of the Red River in Louisiana. Epps is indeed a cruel master. A whip is his constant companion, and he uses it almost daily on his slaves. Solomon describes his life under Epps in detail, relating stories of abuse, humiliation, and deprivation among all the slaves. Patsey, a slave girl, gets the worst of Epps’ treatment: She is repeatedly raped by him and also whipped by him at the insistence of his jealous wife. At the worst point, she visits a friend at a nearby plantation simply to get a bar of soap because Epps’ wife won’t allow her to have any. When Patsey returns, Epps is furious, thinking her guilty of a sexual encounter. Platt is forced to whip a naked, helpless Patsey while she screams for mercy. The years pass by, and Solomon almost loses hope. Then he meets a carpenter named Bass, an abolitionist from Canada who is hired to work on a building project for Epps. Bass learns of Solomon’s story and decides to help. He sends letters to Solomon’s friends in the North, asking them to come and rescue the slave from his captivity. 5. Free Man Again The final section of 12 Years of Slave, Chapters XXI and XXII (and Appendix), tells of Solomon’s escape from captivity. Thanks to the faithfulness of Bass, Solomon’s friends in the North are alerted to his location and come to set him free. Henry B. Northup, a white man who is a relative of the person who once owned Solomon’s father, gathers legal support and travels to Louisiana to find the slave. After some searching, he finds “Platt” and, with the help of a local sheriff, emancipates him from the clutches of Edwin Epps. They travel back to New York, stopping for a time in Washington, D.C., to pursue legal charges against James H. Burch for his role in the kidnapping of Solomon Northup. In the end, though, Burch is acquitted because of false witnesses and racist bias in the courtroom. After that, Solomon is finally reunited with his family in Saratoga Springs, New York, where he finds that his daughter has married and he is now a grandfather. His grandson has been named in his honor: Solomon Northup Staunton. The three most important aspects of 12 Years a Slave 12 Years a Slave presents a startlingly accurate and verifiable account of the common slave experience in the United States in the antebellum (pre-Civil War) South. From start to finish, basic facts about the time, the places, the people, and the practices of the day are incorporated, sometimes in excessive detail, into Northup’s story. He speaks with authority on all subjects of his enslavement, naming names and pointing out landmarks along the way. In doing so, he dares skeptics to refute his story, knowing that public records and common knowledge would defend it. For example, when Northup accuses a wicked slave trader of keeping him captive in Washington, D.C., he not only names that slaver, he names the slaver’s accomplice, identifies exactly where the slave pen is hidden, and describes the physical structure of the slave pen in detail. The result? During the trial that took place after Northup had been freed, that slave trader couldn’t deny having kept Northup as his captive in that now-exposed slave pen. Additionally, the accuracy of and factual detail in 12 Years a Slave have kept this book prominent as a reliable historical reference on slavery for more than 150 years since it first debuted. 12 Years a Slave serves as a timeless indictment of the practice of “chattel bondage,” or human slavery. Northup’s detailing the abuses he endured—and those he was forced to inflict—provides a warning to all generations of the moral costs that slavery exacts from everyone involved. The slave himself or herself is degraded, made to suffer awful torments, and cruelly robbed of physical, emotional, and spiritual riches. Still, the slave is not the only one who suffers. By participating in slavery, the master is morally degraded and emotionally desensitized. His religion is made hypocrisy. His family legacy is robbed of basic human graces like love, justice, and integrity. In this respect, Northup’s 12 Years a Slave is notable for giving human faces to the evil that was once common practice, and for sounding a constant warning of the awful consequences of chattel bondage. 12 Years a Slave is a testimony to the power of the human spirit and the enduring determination of hope. Solomon Northup is deceived, kidnapped, abused, removed from family, deprived of identity, and beaten into a long, weary, unjustified submission. Yet he is never broken. Even in his worst days of sorrow lived under the cruelties of Edwin Epps, he never gives up hope that one day he will be free. He never loses faith in his friends, constantly assured that if he can only get word to the North then they will indeed come to his rescue. And they do. In the end, Solomon Northup’s heartbreaking journey uplifts because in his testimony is evidence that faith and hope can endure—and triumph. |