During this semester, we discussed the topic of slavery in America. Steve McQueen’s film 12 Years a Slave, produced by Regency Enterprises and distributed by Fox Searchlight, released on November 8th, 2013, was an amazing film based on the true story of Soloman Northup, a free African-American man who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in the south prior to the Civil War era. This story captures the harsh realities of slave life with little hope for freedom. during one of the darkest periods of our country. The two historical themes that best encompasses the history in 12 Years a Slave I believe are Race & History and the Effects of Education on History. There are specific reasons that these themes are the most relevant to the story which will be explained. The film shows that before being sold into slavery, Northup was a relatively successful musician living with his family in Saratoga, New York. While his family was out of town, Northup met two men who told him that they were scouts looking for talent to work for a traveling circus. Being that Northup was a working fiddler, obviously he was interested in the proposition. After traveling to Washington and a night of drinking and dining, Northup woke up the next morning to find himself chained up in a holding cell. Right away the film foreshadows a story of incredible struggle and hardship. The truth is, these kidnappings and attempted kidnappings more frequently than we know. “Fugitive slave laws allowed African
Solomon Northup, in his autobiography 12 Years A Slave, uses religious language to depict the horrendous nature of institutional slavery and slaveholders. In specific, the primary use of religious language in Northup’s autobiography is to express his and many other slaves’ sufferings and subjugation, to present the biblical justification adopted by slaveholders to mistreat their slaves, and to convey the significance of religion to him and the African American slaves; therefore, religious language is not a tool utilised to dramatise or supplement substance in his story. It is the true voice of Northup that arises from his faith and belief in Christianity as well as other African American slaves.
12 Years a Slave is a historical drama, directed by Steve McQueen, which was released in 2014. The film won best picture at the 87th Academy Awards, and budgeted over 187 million dollars worldwide at the box office. The brutally violent film is about a slave named Solomon Northup, and all his struggles through being a slave. It starts with Northup thinking that he was offered a job, but instead is brought into slavery. Perhaps the most despicable character shown throughout the film is Edwin Epps. He not only beats his slaves, but is also shown frequently raping Patsey, who is also a slave. One of the characters in the film, Samuel
Harris, Leslie M. In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626-1863.
Solomon Northup was a free African American man from Minerva, New York. In the novel Twelve Years a Salve, Northup composed a narrative about his life as a free man, and also his life as a slave. In the year of 1814 Northup was kidnapped and taken deep South, to the rugged life of slavery. After 12 years of being thrown into the slavery against his will, he rightfully regained his freedom in January of 1853 all because he came in contact with an abolitionist from Canada, who sent letters to his family about his situation.
What is law? The dictionary defines it as a system of rules that a community recognizes as regulating the actions of its members and may be enforced by the imposition of penalties. Are they supposed to be perfect? No. But quoting civil rights activist Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, “an unjust law is no law at all”, proves that there is more to the legal system than just regulating it. The civil rights movement played a huge role in American culture. It opened the public’s perceptions on how there are some elementary social rights and equality rights that needed to be encountered in order for justice to be truthful. Through analysis of present day motion pictures that stem from American history such as “12 Years A Slave” and “Fruitvale
In Western culture we are born with the right of autonomy. It is believed that this right can never be taken away from us. We are born into this privilege of liberty and are given opportunities to grow and make our own choices without being oppressed or discouraged for them. We are free, or so we think we are. In the book Slave My True Story by Mende Nazer and Damien Lewis (2003), Mende a 12 year old girl, is stripped of her happiness, childhood and most of all, her freedom.
Blassingame, John W. The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South. New York: Oxford University Press, 1972.
Solomon Northup was an African American, born a free man, who lived in Saratoga Springs, New York with his wife Anne Hampton and their three children. Northup was a skilled violinist and farmer who was seeking employment in the spring of 1841; one night he met two men at a saloon, who both identified themselves to be affiliated with a circus, and they convinced him to accompany them on a journey to New York to perform with his superb violin skills on their traveling music show. They persuaded him by offering a very generous wage of “one dollar for each day’s services, and three dollars in addition for every night [he] played at their performances” (2). Originally he was only going to New York but he was persuaded to travel further to Washington D.C. – a state where slavery was legal. On route to Washington D.C. he was drugged by the two men (identified as Breach and Hamilton) who subsequently sold him into slavery at an auction in New Orleans. This was common for many “free” African Americans; predominantly males for their ability to be harder working in the fields. Often times the “Negros” would be kidnapped or lured away from their home with offers too good to be true and upon their capture they would be drugged, beaten and bonded to be sold into slavery; much like Solomon Northup. A great majority of the time their case would be hopeless if they tried to prove they were “free men” and they would be beaten for even mentioning the word “free”.
Solomon Northup was born a free man in Minerva, New York, in 1808. Little is known about his mother, whom his narrative does not identify by name. His father, Mintus, was originally enslaved to the Northup family from Rhode Island, but he was freed after the family moved to New York. As a young man, Northup helped his father with farming chores and worked as a raftsman on the waterways of upstate New York. He married Anne Hampton, a woman of mixed (black, white, and Native American) ancestry, on Christmas Day, 1829. They had three children together. During the 1830s, Northup became locally renowned as an excellent fiddle-player. In 1841, two men offered Northup generous wages to join a traveling musical show, but soon after he accepted,
The South has long been associated with the atrocities of slavery, segregation, and racial violence. The institution of slavery is one of the most atrocious identities of the South. White slave owners did not want to lose their superiority and had to find a way to keep their slaves in subordination. Slaveholders believed that by obstructing the slave population from gaining an education, especially in the method of reading and writing, they could keep their slaves and avoid rebellions that could lead to slaves gaining their freedom. White southerners during the antebellum period feared slave uprisings and chose to withhold education from their slaves in an attempt to maintain the southern identity of white superiority.
Melton McLaurin wrote the book Celia: A Slave in an attempt to inform others about the sufferings and injustices that many slaves endured over the course of time that slavery prevailed. Celia was a slave who was bought in 1850 by a man named Robert Newsom, who began raping her before she even reached her new home in Calloway County, Missouri. After repeatedly being raped against her will, Celia was compelled to retaliate against her master, Robert Newsom and ended up murdering him in the process. This incident occurred during a time that many states strongly enforced their supportive stances on slavery. Throughout Celia’s trial, several moral dilemmas were prominent during this time period, including: the sexual exploitation of slaves, the “crimes” that were committed throughout this story, and how little women’s influence was during the time of this historical account.
The film 12 Years a Slave, an adaptation of the 1853 autobiography by a slave named Solomon Northup, depicts his everyday life after his rights and freedoms are ripped away. Through the unpleasant slave auction scenes to the sickening slave punishments, 12 Years a Slave is a heartbreaking story that unfortunately conveys the harsh truth on the issues surrounding slavery. Consequently, during the film there are many themes and events that trigger different thoughts and reactions varying between viewers, and importantly a better understanding of Solomon Northup’s story and slavery itself.
In the book 12 Years A Slave written from a primary source by Solomon Northup based on a true story describes the triumphant journey Solomon Northup goes through as he never lost hope of regaining his freedom and resisted the dehumanization of enslavement in many ways. Solomon was born a free black man in New York in 1808 while his father, Mintus was born a slave and gained his freedom as their master passed away also inheriting their masters last name "Northup". Growing Solomon worked on a farm with his dad and soon after his dad died in 1829 he soon married a women named Anne Hampton in which they soon moved to Saratoga Springs, New York and had three children of their own. They were living like any other free person was and soon Solomon was working in many industries and Anne established herself as a cook and in the 1830 's Solomon had a reputation of being a well played violinist. In 1841 Solomon had became unemployed and was looking for an occupation, he ran into Merrill Brown and Abram Hamilton in who then offers him a job in a circus playing the violin. As they arrive in Washington D.C. which is slave territory, he begins to become sick and passes out which was planned by Merrill and Abram to poison and kidnap him in the slave territory and sell him in which he soon wakes up in chains in a slave pen. Solomon 's first master was James H. Burch who he was sold by the two men who had
Prior to the publication of any slave narrative, African Americans had been represented by early historians’ interpretations of their race, culture, and situation along with contemporary authors’ fictionalized depictions. Their persona was often “characterized as infantile, incompetent, and...incapable of achievement” (Hunter-Willis 11) while the actions of slaveholders were justified with the arguments that slavery would maintain a cheap labor force and a guarantee that their suffering did not differ to the toils of the rest of the “struggling world” (Hunter-Willis 12). The emergence of the slave narratives created a new voice that discredited all former allegations of inferiority and produced a new perception of resilience and ingenuity.
Whites have long argued that slavery was good for slaves because it civilized them and that slaves were content to be held in bondage. But such is not the case, at least not according to those who were actually held in bondage. The accounts of slavery are greatly known by emancipated or run away slaves. One recorded account of slavery is by Solomon B. Northup’s autobiography, Twelve Years a Slave which was published in 1853.