Review Of Twelve Years A Slave- Dover Edition ( 2000 ) Essay

The peaceful and gentle music that comes from the Violin is captivating and remarkable. The violin is complex yet amazing, a person who becomes a violinist acquires many skill sets throughout his lifetime. The greatest skill that can be learned through the playing of the violin is perseverance. The perseverance skill is learned by practicing on the violin for long hours at a time in order to improve. In the novel Twelve Years a Slave, Solomon Northup was a violinist, living in Hebron New York, he was born a free man, but was wrongfully captured into slavery. Northrup was tricked by two white men pretending to be interested in his music, he was convinced to go to Washington D.C, there he was drugged and sold into slavery. Northup was enslaved

Solomon Northup was born free, in Minerva, New York in 1808. Northup became known in his community as an exceptional fiddle player. When two men approached Northup and offered him good wages to go to Washington DC, to play in a travelling music show, he quickly accepted. Solomon Northup was drugged, kidnapped, captured, and sold into slavery. He served for many masters; some were violent and cruel while others treated him humanely. Solomon Northup experienced shear torture, cruelty, and the loss of his dignity, throughout his many years as a slave. After many years, he came in contact with an abolitionist, who sent letters to Northup’s family to notify them of his life and status. He was soon rescued from Louisiana and freed as a slave.

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.

Northup sets out to convince readers that his account of slavery is the truth. The detailed accounts that Solomon took to recreate his slave experience proves to be effective. Solomons story takes the aspect of being a free man, to enslavement in the South. Northup uses great parallelism in his narrative, often

Blassingame, John W. The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South. New York: Oxford University Press, 1972.

During the 1840s, America saw increasingly attractive settlements forming between the North and the South. The government tried to keep the industrial north and the agricultural south happy, but eventually the issue of slavery became too big to handle, no matter how many treaties or compromises were formed. Slavery was a huge issue that unraveled throughout many years of American history and was one of the biggest contributors leading up to the Civil War (notes, Fall 2015). Many books have been written over the years about slavery and the brutality of the life that many people endured. In “A Slave No More”, David Blight tells the story about two men, John M. Washington (1838-1918) and Wallace Turnage (1846-1916), struggling during American slavery. Their escape to freedom happened during America’s bloodiest war among many political conflicts, which had been splitting the country apart for many decades. As Blight (2007) describes, “Throughout the Civil War, in thousands of different circumstances, under changing policies and redefinitions of their status, and in the face of social chaos…four million slaves helped to decide what time it would be in American History” (p. 5). Whether it was freedom from a master or overseer, freedom from living as both property and the object of another person’s will, or even freedom to make their own decisions and control their own life, slaves wanted a sense of independence. According to Blight (2007), “The war and the presence of Union armies

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”.

Through Solomon Northup’s story, viewers learn that socioeconomic status is no exception from racial realities. Solomon Northup was an educated, refined free black in the 1840s. His only mistake was thinking that being born free meant he was safe from the demonstration of white supremacy in America. Especially during this time, it didn't matter that he was educated, musically talented, and a family man, a person of color was threatened in a white, capitalist society and through the heartbreaking story of Solomon Northup, 12 Years a Slave shows this sad time in American

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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

In his true-life narrative "Twelve Years a Slave," Solomon Northup is a free man who is deceived into a situation that brings about his capture and ultimate misfortune to become a slave in the south. Solomon is a husband and father. Northup writes:

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.

Solomon Northup was born a freeman in New York in 1808 (3). His father, who had been a slave until his owner death had granted him his freedom in his, wills (5). In 1829, Northup married Anne Hampton and worked as a laborer in Hartford (6). However, Solomon was captured after being tricked by slave traders to work

During a time of cruel punishment and harsh conditions of life as a slave in the 19th century South, there was a book that shed a light on the life of a slave unparalleled in past as well as in modern literature. That book was entitled Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup. Northup was born a freeman that was obtained from his father after being freed by the Northup family due to loyal service. Growing up in the free state of New York, Solomon was allowed an education that was rare because of the sad disposition of the majority of his race. Solomon gained much knowledge of industry and hard work from his father. As a free man of color, he enjoyed various jobs and hobbies from timber raft building to playing

Throughout my research, I was able to learn more about the life of Solomon Northup and the people that surrounded him. This includes what happened to him even after his return home. Researching the film adaptation