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slave narrative solomon northup
sparknotes twelve years a slave by solomon northup
slave narrative solomon northup
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Solomon Northup otherwise known as “Platt” of Twelve Years a Slave encounters many individuals that play a remarkable role in his life of a slave. Northup originally being a free man who is tricked and eventually sold into slavery down south. He encounters so called “kind” and cruel masters throughout. The underlining cause on how a master treated the slaves really seemed rely on their placement in society. The “kind” characters seemed to have their role in society figured out for example; William Ford: a well off man who owned a lumber business (60) and Samuel Bass: a hired hand by Edwin Epps who supervised Northup at one point. Cruel owners who engaged with deep anger and actions seemed to be fueled power struggles and or unhappiness within …show more content…
Actions of treatment really set Ford Apart from other slave owners. Ford provided Northup with proper care and a level respect as he was referenced as the “smartest nigger in the pines” (63). The respectable actions of Ford seemed to be inflicted on his ranking within society provided he was still a slave owner but believing in the fair treatment of slaves. This was shown in many case but primarily when Ford forces John. M Tibeats to sell or hire him out due the inhumanly treatment. (98) Having this amount of respect from a slave master seemed to be a real scarcity; “during my residence with Master Ford I had seen the bright Side of Slavery”. Even though Ford may be brought up as one of the “kinder masters” of the time it’s also provides that it could be overlooked in one major aspect. Ford was a still an active slave owner while he treated them well in comparison to the others it was still a weak point within …show more content…
John Tibets a man under ford who received Northup as a payment was described as a “Small, crabbed, quick tempered, spiteful man” (65). Tibet’s struggled to find employment as he was transferring from plantation to plantation regularly which seemed to create an inside tension (65) then due to his ignorance much of the slaves didn’t respect him which seemed to frustrate him (65). These powerless feeling really showed when he attempts to whip Northup for using the “wrong size nails” and ended up getting whipped by Northup (71). These factors of so called “disrespect” and powerless
Northup’s father was a slave to the Northup family but was freed when the Northup family moved to New York State where slavery had been abolished. As a child he worked his father’s farm and worked as a rafts man in upstate New York. When Northup was a young man he married Anne Hampton on Christmas day and they had three children (Wilson, 1853). Northup was an excellent fiddler and when he was asked to join a travelling musician band for good wages he eagerly agreed. The lure was a wage of a dollar a day and thre...
During a period of time, the world lost its values due to ambition. Blacks were enslaved for being different. Races became a huge part of people’s everyday talk and to succeed, farmers and business owners had to make African Americans do their dirty work for them. During this period of time, people like Joe Starks from “The Eyes Were Watching God” and people like Frederick Douglass’s slavemasters became abundant in the world. The belief that they were superior to everyone else lead them to impose power in a way that even themselves could not tolerate. Even though “The Eyes Were Watching God” was written after slave abolition, Joe Starks and Douglass’s slavemasters have many characteristics in common and differences which are worthy to be noticed.
1. The insight that each of these sources offers into slave life in the antebellum South is how slaves lived, worked, and were treated by their masters. The narratives talk about their nature of work, culture, and family in their passages. For example, in Solomon Northup 's passage he describes how he worked in the cotton field. Northup said that "An ordinary day 's work is considered two hundred pounds. A slave who is accustomed to picking, is punished, if he or she brings less quantity than that," (214). Northup explains how much cotton slaves had to bring from the cotton field and if a slave brought less or more weight than their previous weight ins then the slave is whipped because they were either slacking or have no been working to their
In the well-written narrative The Life of Fredrick Douglass, the author, and former slave known as Fredrick Douglass, uses multiple examples of brutal whippings and severe punishments to describe the terrible conditions that African American slaves faced in the south. Douglass’s purpose for writing this narrative was to show the physical and emotional pain that slaves had to endure from their owners. According to Fredrick Douglass, “adopted slaveholders are the worst” and he proves his point with his anecdotes from when he was a slave; moreover, slave owners through marriage weren’t used to the rules of slaveholding so they acted tougher. He also proves that Christian slave owners weren’t always holier, they too showed no mercy towards their slaves and Douglass considered them religious hypocrites.
According to Douglass, the treatment of a slave was worse than that of an animal. Not only were they valued as an animal, fed like an animal, and beaten like an animal, but also a slave was reduced to an animal when he was just as much of a man as his master. The open mentality a slave had was ...
Solomon had the unique experience of being a free man for decades before being captured and enslaved, and that greatly challenges proslavery claims made by the Southern whites stating that slaves could never survive on their own without them. Solomon’s first owner, William Ford, could be compared to proslavery claims of how well slaveholders treat their slaves. Ford treated his slaves well and Solomon believed if Ford had grown up under different influences, he would not be a slaveholder at all because he was such an honorable man. Solomon’s second master, John Tibeats, was the complete opposite image of what proslavery southerners were trying to prove. “He was ignorant, withal, and of a revengeful disposition…Certain it is, it was a most unlucky day, for me that brought us together”. Solomon was barely allowed to have any rest, worked long hours, and was never spoken to politely by Tibeats. Harriet Jacobs also had similar experiences as Solomon, but was even more oppressed than others because she was a woman. Jacobs was sexually exploited by her master for years and treated like she was property. There was not one recollection of Harriet Jacobs experiencing anything enjoyable about slavery; only suffering and punishment which threatens proslavery claims. Many slaves tried to challenge the notion of slavery by escaping or fighting back. Solomon fought back by whipping
Platt’s next owner was William Ford. Platt had great admiration for Ford. Northrup stated that “there never was a more kind, noble, candid, Christian man than William Ford.”(Northup, 48) The way that William Ford’s slaves and wife treated them kindly as well as Ford himself made Northup see a little glimmer of hope. Ford would have church services on Sunday for the slaves, preaching to them and encouraging them to have morals and have moral behavior. Because Ford was so kind Platt saves Ford a lot of money by his hard work and gets named “smartest nigger in the Pine Wood”( Northup, 54) I feel like this was a turning point for Northup. Because of the
During the time of slavery, slaves were put to work on plantation, fields, and farms. They were considered property to their slave-owners and put under unfair living conditions. Growing up in this era, we can see the injustice between white and colored people. And one slave by the name of Fredrick Douglass witnessed this unjust tension. And because of this tension, dehumanizing practices became prominent among the slaves and in slave society. The most prominent of these injustices is the desire of slave owners to keep their slaves ignorant. This practice sought to deprive the slaves of their human characteristics and made them less valued. Fredrick Douglass was able to endure and confront this issue by asserting his own humanity. He achieved
In Solomon Northup’s narrative, 12 years a slave, he shares a story of the horrors of his past that was a lifelong reality to many African Americans throughout American history. Northup, being a free man of Saratoga, New York, was stripped of his freedom and sold ‘down the river’ to the Bayou Boeuf of Louisiana and was bound to slavery for twelve years. Along with recounting the gruesome hardships and labor that he had to endure, Northup also gives detailed accounts of the lives of fellow slaves that he comes across, primarily, women. Northup’s narrative allows readers to see that the hardships that slave women experienced by far surpassed anything that a slave man could endure. Stripped of their families, beaten relentlessly and forever victims
Since Northup wrote this book himself, it was able to provide readers with the truth and the experiences of living as a slave in the South. The good experiences written about by Northup seemed to be few and far between in the story, but the moments were big. In the beginning of the story, he talked about being with his family and the experience of being a free black man in the North. Once his freedom and family were taken from him, the next good experience he spoke of was when he met friends, either on the boat rides or on the plantations. These friends, although he was once free and most of them were not, had many things in common with Northup, and they all had similar views on slavery. A third positive experience that Solomon wrote about was when the officials came to Ebbs’ plantation to take him back North to freedom, which Ebbs could not believe. Although Ebbs wasn’t happy about it, Solomon was excited to go back to the North and his family. Being reunited with his family after ...
Frederick Douglass had moved into a new mistresses home who had never known of slavery. While she had initially taught him to read, fed him well, and looked upon him like an equal human being, she eventually forbade him from reading and whipped him at her husband’s request. The kind woman he had known became inhumane and degrading because that was required to maintain the unwarranted power over slaves.
Douglass's narrative is, on one surface, intended to show the barbarity and injustice of slavery. However, the underlying argument is that freedom is not simply attained through a physical escape from forced labor, but through a mental liberation from the attitude created by Southern slavery. The slaves of the South were psychologically oppressed by the slaveholders' disrespect for a slave’s family and for their education, as well as by the slaves' acceptance of their own subordination. Additionally, the slaveholders were trapped by a mentality that allowed them to justify behavior towards human beings that would normally not be acceptable. In this manner, both slaveholder and slave are corrupted by slavery.
The first master, Mr. Garner was in charge of the farm called “Sweet Home” before the other master named Schoolteacher took over. Mr. Garner ruled his slaves without raising a fist. He was a seemingly polite master. He considered his Slaves “men” and allowed them to do things that most owners wouldn’t. His slaves were allowed and encouraged to correct him, and “even defy him” (p.125). He allowed his slaves “to buy a mother, choose a horse or a wife, handle guns, even learn to read if they wanted to” (p.125). These are actions that a typical slave owner didn’t allow. But Mr. Garner was not a typical slave owner. He was a proud man, and very pleased with the way he ran his farm and his slaves. Some writers even feel tha...
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:
Once Northup was freed and returned to his family as a free man, he filed kidnapping charges against the men who had sold him as a slave and defrauded him. What followed was a long trial that was eventually dismissed based on technical details. Additionally, Northup did not receive any compensation for the 12 years of his life that they h...