Humanity had been degraded due to slavery during the 1800s in America. In the novel Twelve Years a Slave and the poems, Solomon Northrup and George M. Horton had portrayed the brutal outcome of slavery to people’s mentally and perspective of life. They both discussed the inhuman actions made by slave owners and how societies discerned them, thus provided the readers some aspects of animalism acting on people. In the poem “On Liberty and Slavery” written by George M. Horton, clearly implied that slavery had decreased his own value of life and ultimately complained his existence in humanity. Since Solomon himself was a freeman once, he understood the ideology of being a human. He was treated with equal respect and people greeted him as if greeting a white man. Inhumanity thus struck Solomon when he was kidnapped into slavery, and this situation had led us, as readers, to argue and and discuss what exactly is being a human and inhuman. …show more content…
Solomon suffered no liberty, even with legal documents, he was treated as an animal. “And what difference is there in the color of the soul?” (Solomon 179), No matter you are a freeman or slave, as long as you are black, you are viewed as slaves. What was it like to be a human during the time of slavery? Slaves understand what its like to be human, hence “To soothe the pain--to quell the grief / And anguish of a slave?”(Norton 11-12). Everyday, slaves dreamed of being treated equally and justified by society. Solomon Northrup even depressed himself on the level of slaves for his own survival and freedom. Inhuman actions are created by the slave owners and traders. Inhumanity may be viewed as someone with low morals, like a slave, but in my argument, slave owner such as Epps Edwin is considered inhuman, the lowest level of human being. Slavery is inhuman, human beings should not be treated cold-bloody by