Solomon Northup

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.

Through the same brutal process as the original middle passage slave trade, slaves were forcibly kidnapped and tortured in order to be brought to the U.S., or traded within the U.S. as well. Slaves originally were kidnapped and stolen from their tribes or towns in Africa and put onto boats in large number in order to be shipped across the Atlantic ocean to the America. Document B mentions that “a lot of slave speculators in Cheste to buy some slaves for some folks in Alabama...I

Farm work was probably one of the harder jobs for a slave. It wasn’t that the work was difficult, but they would have to stay out in the sun all day, picking the cotton, or sugar cane. As the plantations got bigger and bigger they needed more slaves to do the work. This meant more slaves went through the wretched slave trade. By 1860, there were 4 million slaves in the U.S, some 60% of whom worked in cotton (pbs.org). These field slaves would have cuts on their hands from the dried bristles; their back would ache being bent down all day. This was a very tedious task, but not a hard one. Sometimes the only thing that got these slaves through the day was song, rhythm, and dance.

Because the European plantation owners could not obtain workers among the Native Americans, they then turned to the African slaves instead (Nunn, Qian). This initiated the transatlantic slave trade (Nunn, Qian). From the sixteenth to nineteenth century, more than twelve million African slaves were forcefully shipped to the Americas (Nunn, Qian). This is the biggest involuntary movement of people in the human history (Nunn, Qian). These imported slaves were forced to work on plantations all to to produce tobacco, cotton, coffee, sugar, and other

Frederick Douglass' narrative reveals a lot about the work of the slaves. Some few slaves worked in the master's house, some more worked in the master's production huts around the farm, but most of them worked in the field under the watch of an overseer with a whip ready in hand. The slaves would be punished, sometimes very severely, if they weren't working early in the morning. They could also be punished if they didn't work fast enough or well enough. After a long day of work, they would have to go to their huts and do their own cooking and washing. They could only sleep a few hours a night after doing all the work they had to do. When they were finished with their work they would fall down on their beds and "sleep till they [were] summoned to the field by the driver's horn." (48) Looking at the slaves as property, the master wanted to use them as much as he could to get his money's value. He didn't think of them as human beings who had needs, but as machines

It was said by Douglass that “The rule is, no matter how coarse the food, only let there be enough of it.”(Douglass, 62). On Colonel Lloyd’s plantation, where Douglass was labored, they were given a monthly allowance of food, and if a slave ran out before the next allowance day, they were not given any more. Children’s allowances were given to their mother or the elder that was taking care of them. Since they were not doing hard manual labor, they were given only a small amount of clothing once a year that would barely last the whole year through. Because of this, many children would be found naked running around the plantations until new clothing was given to them. Along with the minute amount of food and clothing given to the slaves, they were denied beds and slept on the cold ground without any warmth; not even a simple blanket. Although the slaves had no beds, Douglass wrote “They find less difficulty from the want of beds, than from the want of sleep…” (Douglass, 27). With this statement Douglass tried to get across the idea that since the slaves were kept up throughout the day, working long, excruciating hours, they did not complain about that lack of beds, for they were too tired to care where they slept. They were simply worried about attaining the little amount of sleep that they were allowed to

In the book, Chains by Laurie halse Anderson, it asserts, “I was the dogsbody in charge of keeping the oven stocked with wood and the ashes cleared out, fetching forgotten ingredients from the market and beating eggs ten at a time.” (Isabel 233).This task was usually much easier to the task compared to the one’s slaves do on plantations.These tasks however were a little bit similar to the tasks on a small farm. Next, the slaves in plantations weren’t given proper places to sleep or even have much food or clothing. One example from Chains would be, “The men in the first cell were mostly sleeping, dying or dead. None of them had the strength to do more than stare at me in the weak lantern light.” (Isabel 293). A city slave would usually be given a place to sleep, a little bit of food, and clothing. Sometimes on plantations they would barely give their slaves a place to sleep, very little food and sometimes didn’t even give them clothing. The final reason that city slave life is the highest quality of life is because the treatment was better than on a plantation. According to Chains, “Craaack! Lightning struck from a blue sky. Madam slapped my face so hard it almost threw me to the ground.” (Isabel 33). Although this may sound pretty mean plantations would treat their slaves by either whipping them to death or hanging them. Instead of getting slapped, slaves on

Most slaves lived in one-room cabins. The cabins were made of logs and were not well built. As a result, some roofs could not stop rain or snow. When the rain and snow came in, the dirt floor of the cabin turned into mud. Slaves didn’t have any furniture. They slept on a pile of rags or straw. Some were given a blanket; many were not. Eating food sometimes not suitable for an animal to eat. Slaves received only enough food to keep them alive. Most plantation owners gave a ration of food at the beginning of the week. It consisted of corn, fat, and possibly a bit of bacon, Slaves might also receive bread, flour, some vegetables, and some buttermilk. Because this diet was low in vitamins and minerals, many slaves became ill. Some could grow their own vegetables or do some fishing on Sundays. Many died from illness or from the combination of malnutrition and intense

The second half of Northup's narrative is chiefly devoted to describing life on a cotton plantation. He provides detailed descriptions of the processes of planting, cultivating, and picking cotton (pp. 163-168), character sketches of his fellow slaves (pp. 185-190), and gradations of punishment for various offenses (pp. 179-180). As he was periodically hired out to sugar plantations as well, Northup describes the methods of planting, harvesting, and processing the cane in similar detail (pp. 208-213). Though his account reveals the misery and despair of field slaves, like many other slave narratives, it also reflects the wry humor with which Northup endured his situation. For example, in describing the meager rations allotted for each week's subsistence, he quips that "no slave of [Edwin Epps's] is ever likely to suffer from the gout, superinduced by excessive high living" (p. 169). Likewise, he begins his description

Most slaves’ living conditions were extremely poor, and they had no legal rights. They forced to work hard which led to their high mortality rate. Many slaves passed away in the first decade of living in Virginia. Slaves worked from sun up to sun down with fifteen minutes break for lunch. Owners tried to fed, give clothes and shelter for enslaves to keep them alive. Conversely, many planters tried to save by decreasing costs of salves’ food, clothing, and tools. Slaves went through punishments for minor mistakes all the time. A group of ten to fifteen slaves were sleeping at a cabin with a single room. The room’s floor covered with old rags and straw. There was no medical care for slaves except their traditional African

To get from Africa to the West Indies the slaves had to go through the " middle passage". The middle passage was where whites forced African Americans to board a boat and go to America where they would be sold in auctions. So many slaves being forced to the middle passage resulted in the largest forced migration in U.S. history.

When you think of slavery and how the experience of being a slave must have been like, you might think of picking cotton, or a cruel overseer who lashed slaves regularly. And while it’s true that many slaves experienced something along these lines, the slave narratives of the library of Congress illustrate that every slave’s story is a little different. The story of Solomon Northup, portrayed in his book 12 Years A Slave, is one much different from other slave narratives, such as the story of Amos Gadsden. The two stories differ in the way the stories are told, the men’s experiences as slaves and in their slaveowners.

12 Years a Slave, by Solomon Northup, and Black Hawk: An Autobiography, by Black Hawk, are two important accounts of life in America during the 19th century. These narratives provide insight into the history of the two largest, most heavily marginalized groups in America; thus, these stories enable further examination of the distinct institutions of prejudice laid upon these groups during the 19th century. As a result, we are able to take a closer look at the differences in motivation behind African-American slavery and Native American displacement, as well as the varying degrees of opposition to both establishments throughout the country. Northup’s memoir and Black Hawk’s autobiography help to highlight major discrepancies in how African Americans and Native Americans were treated, and raise the question as to why so many whites in the North were opposed to slavery while the country was generally united on the subject of expelling Native Americans from the western frontier. To answer this, it is necessary to examine two different ways of thinking that guided national opinion regarding these matters. In conflicts with Native Americans, both the North and the South were influenced by a common nationalist and expansionist mindset. Regarding the question of slavery however, it is evident that the North and the South were divided by their respective economic doctrines: free labor and slave labor. Both of these outlooks are reflected in the aforementioned texts, as well as other

Even though freedom has been our nation’s identity for its entire existence, our nation has suffered “dark ages” when the freedoms of African Americans were repressed. During the period of slavery, African Americans were forced to labor under often cruel and gruesome conditions, for their white masters. Solomon Northup, a free man forcefully made a slave, describes his thoughts on slavery in his 12 Years a Slave:

During their few hours of gratuitous time, most slaves did their own personal study. The diet supplied by slaveholders was generally short, and slaves often supplemented it by tending small plots of land or fishing. Many slave owners did not provide enough clothing, and slave mothers often worked to clothe their families at night later on long days of toil. One visitor to colonial North Carolina wrote that slaveholders rarely gave their slaves meat or fish, and that he witnessed many slaves wearing only rags. Although there were exceptions, the prevailing attitude among slave owners was to allot their slaves the bare minimum of food and clothing; anything beyond that was up to the slaves to gain during their very limited time off from employment.