Solomon Northup’s account on slavery gives reader insight into the treatment of the slaves and how religion justified the masters’ acts of violence. “Twelve Years a Slaves”, illustrate Northup’s experiences with his three owners. Each owner treated their slaves differently and without exception they were all religious and use a sort of violence to keep their slave in order, whether it was by their own hands or their workers. The novel reveals how religion contributes to the treatment Northup and other slaves and how violence played a role of dehumanization. Before becoming a slave Solomon Northup was a well-respected freed man. He had a wife and two children and lived in a town where the community respected him and his talent playing the …show more content…
Many southerners took part in the evangelical reform, in fact those who did not take part of the reform where considered rebellious or witches who were later killed or burn at the stake. Solomon Northup’s’ also experienced his years as a slave when the reform became the model behavior. Northup makes evident that the reform effected the treatment of slaves by comparing the slave masters he was once under. For instance in (Northup-39) it states, “He never doubted the moral right of one man holding another in subjection, he was a model master, walking uprightly, according to the light of his understanding, and fortunate was the slave who came to his possession. Were all men such as he, Slavery would deprived of more then half it’s bitterness.” Northup describe the rational respect that he had for his first slave master William Ford. Mr. Ford was a noble Christian man, he knew his slave are humans and gave them the same respect he had given his own people in the community. He provided the slave with appropriate food, break, and sleep. Northup appreciated Ford for his treatment towards them. Though Ford enslave them he still treated them better than other slave …show more content…
Tibeats refused to treat the slave with the same respect as Ford did. Chaos stirred on the plantation which had Northup’s life in danger after an altercation with Tibeats. In fact Ford knew Northup was no ordinary man so before Tibeates can have his way, he trade Northup in hope to save his life. “There may be humane masters, as there certainly are inhuman ones - there may be slaves well-clothed, well-fed, and happy, as there surely are those half-clad, half-starved and miserable; nevertheless, the institution that tolerates such wrong and inhumanity as I have witnessed, is a cruel, unjust, and barbarous one. Men may write fictions portraying lowly life as it is, or as it is not - may expatiate with owlish gravity upon the bliss of ignorance - discourse flippantly from arm chairs of the pleasures of slave life; but let them toil with him in the field - sleep with him in the cabin - feed with him on husks; let them behold him scourged, hunted, trampled on, and they will come back with another story in their mouths. Let them know the heart of the poor slave - learn his secret thoughts - thoughts he dare not utter in the hearing of the white man; let them sit by him in the silent watches of the night - converse with him in trustful confidence,
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.
In Solomon Northup’s memoir, Twelve Years A Slave, he depicts the lives of African Americans living in the North as extremely painful and unjust. Additionally, they faced many hardships everyday of their lives. For one, they were stripped of their identities, loved ones, and most importantly their freedom. To illustrate this, Northup says, “He denied that I was free, and with an emphatic oath, declared that I came from Georgia” (20). This quote discusses the point in which Northup was kidnapped, and how he was ultimately robbed of his freedom, as well as his identity. Furthermore, not only were his captors cruel and repulsive, so was the way in which they treated African Americans. For instance, Northup states, “…Freeman, out of patience, tore Emily from her mother by main force, the two clinging to each other with all their might” (50). In this example, a mother is being parted from her child despite her cries and supplications, the slave owner
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
Solomon Northup was one of the few that escaped the grasps of slavery. He wrote his own book, 12 Years a Slave, and even had a movie crea...
When the slaveholders transfer this fear by corrupting something they revere, religion, slavery’s perversive power is shown in horrifying clarity. The slaveholders will stop at nothing, they will leave nothing untouched and unsoiled if it means the preservation of slavery. Slavery isn’t just a physical and mental burden upon the slaves it imprisons; it is a moral burden on the entire society in which it exists. Jacobs’ depiction of religion in the South throughout the Incidents reveals it to be much more than merely a place to gather and express beliefs; it is yet another tool owned and used by slaveholders to strengthen the system of slavery.
Although many white Northerners proclaimed to support the Abolition of Slavery, all of them did not have a genuine concern for the Blacks. During the Age of Abolitionism, many white Northerners were known for opposing the slavery that still existed in the Southern States of the United States of America, but writers such as Harriet Wilson and Frederick Douglass wrote literary works that exposed the white Christians and abolitionists from the North, who did not treat Blacks as their equals. In Douglass' narrative, The Narrative and life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, his autobiography, Douglass revisits his escape from slavery and his first encounter with the white abolitionists. The tone that he uses is similar to the one that Wilson uses in Our Nig; or, sketches from the life of a Free Black. In this novel, the life of Wilson is mirrored by the protagonist, Frado, who endures the harsh treatment of the Bellmonts, a white family with which she lives. Like Douglass, Wilson exhibits anger towards the white Northerners who, like their fellow white Southerners, were guilty of offending and mistreating Blacks. Wilson exhibits fury towards white Northerners who exploit Blacks by forcing them into indentured servitude.
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.
Imagine that it is the year 1841 in Saratoga, New York and blossoms of the dogwood tree are swirling around your face as the wind gently tousles your hair. All seems well in the world, and, to Solomon Northup, great opportunities are coming his way. Two men, by the names of Merrill Brown and Abram Hamilton, had offered a dream job to Solomon. They had asked him to join them in a circus, playing the fiddle, an instrument Solomon had mastered. However, these men were not as honest as they seemed. Brown and Hamilton later drugged and kidnapped Solomon at a hotel one night during the tour. These men successfully forced Solomon into twelve years of slavery.
In Northup's own words "There my be humane masters, as there certainly are inhuman ones - there may be slaves well-clothed, well-fed, and happy, as there surely are those half-clad, half-starved and miserable" (207). Slave owners as a father figure would be far from the description that Solomon would have given or agreed upon in his time in servitude. Slave owners as good or bad owners of animals would be a much better description of the relationship between a slave and a master. Even in the worst accounts of parental abuse, it is rare that the child is kept like an animal to serve the parents needs and work to for them to just be allowed to stay alive.
Can it be possible that the Northern people have made the negro free, but to be returned, the slave of society, to bear in such slavery the vindictive resentments that the satraps of Davis maintain today towards the people of the north? Better a thousand times for the negro that the government should return him to the custody of the original owner, where he would have a master to look after his well being, than that his neck should be placed under the heel of a society, vindictive towards him because he is free.
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 ...
Solomon Northup was a black man who was born a free man at a time when slavery was still legal in America. He was born in Minerva, New York, in the year 1808 (Northup 19). Northup’s father, Mintus, was originally a slave of the Northup family in Rhode Island. He was freed when the family relocated to New York. When he was growing up as a young adult, Northup helped his father with farming chores and became a raftsman for a short while on the waterways of New York. As an adult, Northup married Anne Hampton, who was of mixed heritage on Christmas day of 1829. Together, they had three children. Over the years Northup became a famous fiddle player, and this gave him recognition in his town.
Frederick Douglass, the author of the book “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”, said “I saw more clearly than ever the brutalizing effects of slavery upon both slave and slaveholder” (Douglass, p.71). Modern people can fairly and easily understand the negative effects of slavery upon slave. People have the idea of slaves that they are not allow to learn which makes them unable to read and write and also they don’t have enough time to take a rest and recover their injuries. However, the negative effects upon slaveholder are less obvious to modern people. People usually think about the positive effects of slavery upon slaveholder, such as getting inexpensive labor. In the book “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”, Douglass also shows modern readers some brutalizing impact upon the owner of the slaves. He talks about Thomas Auld and Edward Covey who are his masters and also talks about Sophia Auld who is his mistress. We will talk about those three characters in the book which will help us to find out if there were the negative influences upon the owner of the slaves or not. Also, we will talk about the power that the slaveholders got from controlling their slaves and the fear that the slaveholders maybe had to understand how they were changed.
Within the “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave” Douglass discusses the deplorable conditions in which he and his fellow slaves suffered from. While on Colonel Lloyd’s plantation, slaves were given a “monthly allowance of eight pounds of pork and one bushel of corn” (Douglass 224). Their annual clothing rations weren’t any better; considering the type of field work they did, what little clothing they were given quickly deteriorated. The lack of food and clothing matched the terrible living conditions. After working on the field all day, with very little rest the night before, they must sleep on the hard uncomfortably cramped floor with only a single blanket as protection from the cold. Coupled with the overseer’s irresponsible and abusive use of power, it is astonishing how three to four hundred slaves did not rebel. Slave-owners recognized that in able to restrict and control slaves more than physical violence was needed. Therefore in able to mold slaves into the submissive and subservient property they desired, slave-owners manipulated them by twisting religion, instilling fear, breaking familial ties, making them dependent, providing them with an incorrect view of freedom, as well as refusing them education.
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, brings to light many of the social injustices that colored men, women, and children all were forced to endure throughout the nineteenth century under Southern slavery laws. Douglass's life-story is presented in a way that creates a compelling argument against the justification of slavery. His argument is reinforced though a variety of anecdotes, many of which detailed strikingly bloody, horrific scenes and inhumane cruelty on the part of the slaveholders. Yet, while Douglas’s narrative describes in vivid detail his experiences of life as a slave, what Douglass intends for his readers to grasp after reading his narrative is something much more profound. Aside from all the physical burdens of slavery that he faced on a daily basis, it was the psychological effects that caused him the greatest amount of detriment during his twenty-year enslavement. In the same regard, Douglass is able to profess that it was not only the slaves who incurred the damaging effects of slavery, but also the slaveholders. Slavery, in essence, is a destructive force that collectively corrupts the minds of slaveholders and weakens slaves’ intellects.