Summary Of ' Twelve Years A Slave ' By Solomon Northup

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.

Many people believe that Christians played a great role in abolishing slavery. However, Douglass’ ideas about religion and its connection to slavery shine a light on the dark side of Christianity. Douglass’ account of his own life is a very eloquent first hand retelling of the suffering and cruelty that many slaves were going through. His account gives a detail of the ills that were committed against the slaves. The atrocities committed by the various different masters varied in intensity depending on the masters’ individual personality (Glancy 42). This first hand narrative gives us a glimpse in to the connection between religion (Christianity) and slavery.

While reading the book titled Narrative of The Life of Fredrick Douglass, an American Slave sparked many thoughts, and cause my brain to paint many different pictures of the world around me. This story was very complex in its approach of addressing the many issues surrounding slavery. Its main purpose was to spark interest in the growing antislavery movement, and possibly change the minds of current slavery supporters. However, there is a strong undertone of religion, and the role it plays in the furthering discrimination of the slaves.

“12 years a slave” is a book about the slavery in the pre-Civil War South. It was written based on a true story that happened to Solomon Northup who is also the author of the book. The story was a violent protestation, but also full of love without any hatred of Black people, who were being slaved for all their life. The Slavery was abolished in North America; however, it still existed in the South America at that time. Solomon Northup, a Black citizen of New York City, was kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1851. He was rescued at a Louisianan cotton plantation in 1853. After being freed, Solomon Northup wrote the book “12 years a slave” to recount the years of terrible abuses that he had been bearing under the Slavery. Northup’s story was regarded as a source of inspiration in Civil War which contributed in the democracy of United States as today. It was also a piece of art as well as a work of human insight which awaked the human love, conscious fight, dignity protection, and the freedom of man.

After reading Solomon Northup's Twelve Years A Slave, I was overwhelmed with his experience. He was born a free man in New York in 1808. In 1841 he was tricked, captured, and sold into slavery in Washington, D.C. Throughout his book, Solomon goes into details describing his life as a slave, which validates our critique of slavery. As abolitionists, it is our duty to do something about slavery. Although, as abolitionists, we have a history of disagreements among us, it time to put a stop to our arguments and start fighting for something we all believe in - to abolish slavery. While the growing cotton economy has made slavery more attractive than ever before to most southern people, slavery has to be abolished based on these reasons:

The slave system was kept in existence for many years since the early 1600’s. A never ending cycle of pain, and harsh conditions From being in 12 years of slavery, Solomon Northup recounts the time when he had once been a free man to be kidnapped of that freedom back in 1841. The relationships that Northup encountered were neither positive or negative . From friends he gained or his slave masters, the relationships were shaped by slavery and helped intact the slave system. In those relationships, how the supervisors of the slaves treated them impacted the slaves work ethic and the friendships that were made during this harsh time, thus supporting the slave system.

To conclude, both writings share many similarities and many differences when describing the influences of religion on both slaves and owners. The differences compliment each other, while the similarities intensify the points they are intended to make. The heart wrenching stories they provide will surely affect everyone who reads these works and would have opened many Americans at that time’s eyes to the barbarity of slavery and religion’s varied influences on it.

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:

In the book, 12 Years a Slave by Solomon Northup, the ongoing slave war is at its peak. We see this through the eyes of Solomon Northup, a free man who was kidnapped and sold to slavers. Throughout Solomon’s journey, we see the cruel treatment that is done unto him by southern white slavers. We also see that in the world of unjust and cruel mannerisms, there is always someone who is standing up for what they believe is right. This book shows that the slave trade was not a war between black and white, but a war against good and evil, and that there are good people, black or white, that are willing to risk it all for what is morally just. These people, no matter what skin color, are the heroes we should aim to be like.

In American History, slavery is always a hot topic. Even though people now believe that it was a violation of human being’s right of freedom, slavery was once be viewed as a normal system not only in laws but also in people’s mind. Most people at that time, especially southerners, thought that black slaves were inferior and should be controlled in order to keep the society worked. When it came to northerners, many of them had little knowledge about slavery, thus they had little passion on the abolishment of slavery. In addition, racist existed all around the country, and the right of black people were not guaranteed, no matter slaves or free black. In Solomon Northup’s book, Twelve Years a Slave, he talked about his life as a slave in the South.

Twelve Years a Slave was written by Solomon Northup. The book provides the reader a deeper understanding of the hardest periods in American history “slavery.” When reading Twelve Years a Slave, people can have a better understanding of how slaves were treated back in the 1800s. Northup discussed in details how slaves were mistreated and cruelly beaten by their masters. Masters were heartless; they would beat their slaves till they were close to take their last breath. Many people feel grateful that they were not born during the 1800s. Northup showed different aspects of slavery. He deliberated his days from a free man, to held captive, serving as a slave for three different masters in the south, to gaining his freedom again after twelve years.

Solomon Northup’s “12 Years a Slave” is a memoir about how he was born a free man in the North, then kidnapped to be sold into slavery down South. Although this miraculous story may astonish people, unfortunately, situations like this happened to black people very often back then. This one man’s story represents the struggle for the lives of many. The beginning starts off with Solomon Northup was born a free man; his father was an emancipated slave, and he was living in New York with his wife and started a family. His wife was a cook, and he was a violin player, but did not really specialize in anything. As the story continues, Northup was

Slave narratives were written for several main purposes such as to present a true description of the slave system and the treatment of slaves, to show the religious ideals of the main characters, and to appeal to abolitionists by showing the common humanity of slaves. Solomon Northup’s dominant purpose in writing the narrative novel Twelve Years a Slave is to present a true description of the slave system and the treatment of slaves. This purpose is chosen over the rest because he gives a clear explanation of what he went through as a slave, how he became a slave and how he dealt with it, and what it was like to live a slaves’ life when he was originally a free man.

Steve McQueen’s award-winning historical drama, 12 Years A Slave, has been glorified for it’s very realistic adaptation of the 1853 slave narrative by Solomon Northup. The film takes place in antebellum United States and it is told through the perspective of Northup, a free black man from New York, who was abducted and sold into slavery. In New Orleans he is given the name Platt and sold to plantation owner, William Ford. He is then sold to another plantation owner, Edwin Epps. Throughout his 12 years as a slave he struggles with surviving, yet holding on to any remnants of his dignity. On Epps’s plantation he meets an anti-slavery Canadian laborer named Samuel Bass who Northup ends up trusting with the task of sending a letter up north to

Twelve Years a Slave tells the first-person account of Solomon Northup, a black man born free in New York, who is kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1841 Washington D.C., prior to the Civil War. Mintus Northup, Solomon’s father, was emancipated upon the death of his owner, and continued as a free man to work in agriculture, for both members of the family that gave him his namesake, as well as other private farmers in New York state. Solomon was born in 1808, and grew up a child that was taught the value of work and effort, often helping his father with farm work. In his spare time, he studied and learned how to play the violin- a skill that would come to benefit him throughout his life, in addition to the enjoyment it gave him to play.