The Deep South Experience

In 1831, Northern public opinion began to shift dramatically from passive abolition to a more unrelenting abolition movement. New abolitionists, propelled by William Lloyd Garrison and his publication of The Liberator, used heated rhetoric that called for an immediate end to slavery. In tandem with thought provoking memoirs, written by slaves who escaped servitude, Northern society began to perceive slavery as the ultimate sin. One such memoir, Twelve Years a Slave, written by Solomon Northup, vividly describes the horrors and brutality many enslaved men, women, and children were subjected to. Northup described the heartland of the Deep South, Bayou Boeuf, Louisiana as a region that made it pure folly for those enslaved to attempt to escape bondage, generated a plantation society built upon cash crop production, which galvanized their position in plantation society, and introduced a unique social and political dynamic between slaves and non-white neighbors.
The perilous terrain surrounding the Deep South plantations of Louisiana, with its vast forests and swampy marshlands, proved to be a formidable barrier for fleeing slaves who often lost their lives to the environment. In a despairing moment of realization, Northup explained, “The consciousness of my real situation; the hopelessness of any effort to escape through the wide forests of Avoyelles, pressed heavily upon me” (43). Northup recognized that any plan of escape from Ford’s plantation would be nothing short of madness. The forests of Louisiana, foreign to Northup and other slaves alike, would have been a disorientating obstacle, and proved difficult to navigate. When not flanked by forests, Northup described that the, “large cotton and sugar plantations line[ed] each sho...

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... described his wife Anne, “It is difficult to tell whether the red, white, or black predominates” (4). While in the Deep South, Northup offered greater insight into common interaction between slaves and local tribes. Acquainted through Northup’s work on Indian Creek, a cordial relationship between Northup and a “remnant of the Chickasaws or Chickopees” (46), was soon established. Often after a day of work, Sam, a fellow slave, and Northup would watch Native American dances and feasts. Although the natives were not spoken of in high esteem and were described as living a “wild mode of life” (46), united by the Louisiana rivers, the events Northup described gave credence to the existence of harmonious native and black relations. As result of their close locality to Indian and Mexican territories, Deep South slaves established unique cultural and political perceptions.