...Source: Twelve Years a Slave: Narrative of Solomon Northrup (Auburn, N.Y., 1854) The purpose of Solomon Northup’s book was to share his detailed account of his experiences of his enslavement to rescue from 1841 to 1853, Twelve Years. Solomon Northup was born a free man in 1808 to an emancipated slave named Mintus Northup, who was originally enslaved to the Northup family in Rhode Island. Solomon grew up working on a farm alongside his father had many valuable skills. He was a farmer, carpenter and raftsman who could read, write and play the fiddle/violin. He married a cook of mixed race, Ann Hampton when he was 21 and fathered three children. He described the beauty of the free life he lives and how much he enjoys spending time with his family and earning a living through his many trades. In 1841, he and his family were living in Saratoga Springs New York where he was approached by two men who offered him generous wages as a Violin player in the circus, Solomon didn’t object and left with them immediately thinking he would be back very soon before anyone could miss him. Before leaving New York for the circus show, they insisted he gathered his free papers then travel with them to Washington D.C where those two men gained his trust, took him to a bar to have a few drinks and then drugged his drink which left him staggering, barely coherent, and violently ill. He awoke the next day, shackled in pitch darkness in a slave pen robbed of his free papers. “Alone, in utter darkness...
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...Analysis of Twelve Years a Slave Walter Croncite once said “In seeking truth, you have to have both sides of the story.” After reading Twelve Years a Slave, understanding of the life of a slave becomes clearer. However, one can’t just say that everything Solomon Northup stated was ‘true’. In this book Solomon Northup uses diction and first person point of view to let the people know that he is credible, but on the flip side, some of these memories were twelve years old and he couldn’t remain biased throughout the whole book- he uses many details and imagery that could make things seem worse than what they were. Solomon Northup established credibility on the very first page on the book by using first person point of view. People are more likely to believe something from the person who experienced it, rather than someone who got the information second hand. First Person Point of view also gives us access to the authors feelings and thoughts at the very moment the scene is playing out. Another way he establishes credibility is through his diction. When he says “a candid and truthful statements of facts” it makes the reader feel like they can trust him because he says he going to be truthful, and he says what he is going to say is factual(pg.1). While Solomon Northup did so much to try to remain as credible as he could, not everything he said could be true. His memories were twelve years old and psychology has proven that when bad things happen, the brain takes...
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...G U I D E T E A C H E R’S A TEACHER’S GUIDE TO TWELVE YEARS A SLAVE BY SOLOMON NORTHUP bY Jeanne M. McGlInn anD JaMes e. McGlInn 2 A Teacher’s Guide to Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup Table of Contents SYNOPSIS......................................................................................................................................3 ABOUT THE AUTHOR...............................................................................................................3 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY GUIDE............................................................................3 MEETING COMMON CORE STANDARDS.............................................................3 THE SLAVE NARRATIVE GENRE...............................................................................3 HISTORICAL OVERVIEW..........................................................................................................4 DURING READING.....................................................................................................................6 SYNTHESIZING DISCUSSION QUESTIONS.......................................................................9 ENRICHMENT ACTIVITIES.......................................................................................................9 ACTIVITIES FOR USING THE FILM ADAPTATION........................................................ 11 ADDITIONAL RESOURCES.....................................................................................
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...Slave narratives were used to show ignorant people just how badly slaves were treated. Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup, Incidents of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jones, and “A Slave Auction in New Orleans” by Horace Greeley all reveal the horrors of slavery. Incidents of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs shows the audience that many slave owners believed they were kind and caring towards their slaves. For example, Jacobs refers to a time when “His wife agreed to the proposition, but said I mustn't bring my bed into the house, because it would scatter feathers on her carpet. I knew when I went there that they would never think of such a thing as furnishing a bed of any kind for me and my little ones. I therefore carried my own bed, and now I was forbidden to use it” (Jacobs). Here, the Flints wanted their house slave to live in the grand house with them, but didn’t think about where she would sleep without her bed. As her owners, they expected her to just be happy to be in their house and sleep on the floor with her children....
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...having a family. He was lured south and kidnapped in 1841 and enslaved for more than a decade, enduring horribly violent conditions. Northup was freed in 1853 with help from colleagues and friends. Northup was born a free person of colour in what is now Minerva, New York. Though he claimed to have been born in July 1808 in Twelve Years a Slave, a later deposition in which he specified his birth date and age indicates that he was likely born a year earlier. His father, Mintus, had been born into slavery but was freed following the death of his master, Capt. Henry Northup, whose will contained the stipulation that his slaves be manumitted. Mintus eventually acquired his own farm and enough land to fulfill the property ownership requirement that African Americans faced in order to vote. Solomon received some education and worked on his family’s farm as a child.He married Anne Hampton in 1828. In 1834, after selling their farm, the couple moved to Saratoga Springs, New York, where they worked odd jobs to support their three children. Northup also established a reputation as a talented fiddler.His experiences are the subject of the book and film 12 Years a Slave. Background Solomon Northup was born in July 1808 in Minerva, New York. His father Mintus had once been enslaved but was released upon his former master's death, and hence Solomon and his older brother Joseph grew up knowing freedom. Northup worked with his father on a farm growing up, and also took to books and playing...
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...Naomi Chebii American Culture and Film 2nd Essay: 12 Years a Slave 28-09-2015 Ref: Analysis on 12 Years a Slave The film 12 Years a Slave tells the horrific true story of a free black man Solomon Northup, who was dragged, kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1850s America to suffer years of abuse in the Pre-Civil War South. From start to finish, basic facts about the time, the places, the people, and the practices of the day are incorporated, sometimes in excessive detail, into Northup’s story. He speaks with authority on all subjects of his enslavement, naming names and pointing out landmarks along the way. In doing so, he dares skeptics to refute his story, knowing that public record and common knowledge would defend it. The son of an emancipated slave, Northup was born free. He lived, worked, and married in New York, where his family resided. He was a multifaceted laborer and also an accomplished violin player. In 1841, aged 33, he was tricked into leaving his family behind his wife, and two young daughters, by two white con men, who offered him a job as a fiddler in a travelling circus. So he travelled with them to Washington, D.C., where they dragged him and sold him to a slave trader called Burch. Despite having papers showing he was a free man, Solomon was whipped and beaten and subjected into a brutal torture by his new owner. 12 Years a Slave serves as a timeless indictment of the practice of human slavery. As we saw from the film how Northup’s detailing the abuses...
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...Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Birds Sing” and Solomon Northrup, “Twelve Years a Slave” are two memoirs with similar themes that encompassed their societies. These literally works depicts many life stories in which thematic concerns of religion, racism, chauvinism, education, poverty and seclusion carry an American dream. One quickly notices that they both relate in the way they pass out their different themes especially the theme of religion in this case. Religion is the main concern in this article considered for literary analysis. Therefore, the two authors used religion as part of their larger story to bring out a more or less the same thematic concept. Maya Angelou composed a stunning and energizing personal history titled “I know why the caged birds sing” of her hardship in her growth as a dark young woman in the southern states of America. Set in the 1930's the place the legacy of subjection remained. One thing, which made this literature work so fascinating to peruse, was the way that this book had such a variety of topics, which are both relative and imperative to us today like the absence of equivalent chances, prejudice, bias, training, neediness, seclusion, religion and The American Dream. On the other hand, in his work Solomon Northrup’s, “Twelve Years a Slave” shows the pain and ill-use encountered by Solomon Northrup in his 12 years of subjugation. For instance, the huge number of different slaves hijacked in Africa and sold over the US is a inexcusable case of...
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...Throughout United States history, the United States Supreme Court has decided major cases related to the civil liberties of African Americans. In 1857, the Supreme Court case Dred Scott v. Sanford raised the questions, “Is a slave a citizen?”, “Can a slave sue in court?”, “Is a slave free if transported to a free territory?”. The Supreme Court ruled no to all of these questions. In 1896, the Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson ruled “separate but equal” is constitutional. These decisions have had a significant impact on the nation. The years leading up to the Dred Scott v. Sanford case consisted of tensions over the issue of slavery and slave rights. There are many compromises and documents established that helped to prevent the extension of slavery. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 was one of the first of many documents that banned slavery in the territories. It was established to allow for the administering of new territories and forbade the expansion of slavery into...
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...History 105 Class Marty Montgomery The Reconstruction period remains the most significant period in American history. The things that seized my mind the most was the liberty given to slaves and African Americans and the opportunity to vote since they did not have any of these opportunities before this time. While they were uncontrolled, existence was still mainly problematic for blacks’ around America principally in the southern states. It would take many years before life enhanced for the former confined African-Americans in the United States of America. According to Gao (1989), the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865 abolished slavery; most slaves desired to unite with family members missing due to the slave trade. Freed African-Americans wanted to establish their own churches and schools, many schools for African-Americans opened in the southern states. Slave marriages had no legal standing at all after emancipation thousands of freed African-Americans registered their unions before the army, Freedman’s Bureau, and local governments. People in the South were trying to figure out a new system of labor to replace the one that was abolished by slavery ending, many of them wanted to reestablish the stronghold they had during slavery. Former slaves thought they should have a claim to land after the many years of excruciating labor they contributed during their enslavement. Only a small percentage of free African-Americans would succeed in purchasing land, mostly due to southern whites being...
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...History 105 Class Marty Montgomery The Reconstruction period remains the most significant period in American history. The things that seized my mind the most was the liberty given to slaves and African Americans and the opportunity to vote since they did not have any of these opportunities before this time. While they were uncontrolled, existence was still mainly problematic for blacks’ around America principally in the southern states. It would take many years before life enhanced for the former confined African-Americans in the United States of America. According to Gao (1989), the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865 abolished slavery; most slaves desired to unite with family members missing due to the slave trade. Freed African-Americans wanted to establish their own churches and schools, many schools for African-Americans opened in the southern states. Slave marriages had no legal standing at all after emancipation thousands of freed African-Americans registered their unions before the army, Freedman’s Bureau, and local governments. People in the South were trying to figure out a new system of labor to replace the one that was abolished by slavery ending, many of them wanted to reestablish the stronghold they had during slavery. Former slaves thought they should have a claim to land after the many years of excruciating labor they contributed during their enslavement. Only a small percentage of free African-Americans would succeed in purchasing land, mostly due to southern whites being...
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...The purpose of this book is to show that how they claimed that slaves up North were free, they could easily take their freedom away and there was nothing anybody could do about. The book shows an accurate representation of the common slave experience in the United States in the South before Civil War. In “12 Years a Slave” the story takes off Solomon Northup explaining what his life was like being a free man in Minerva, New York This story takes place in 1808. His father was named Mintus, who was enslaved to the Northup family in Rhode Island. He was then freed after the Northups’ made a move to New York. While growing up Solomon helped his father with chores such as farming and worked as a raftsman on the waterways of New York. Solomon was...
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...the guise of darkness and staying in safe houses during the day. The goal of the railroad was to get the slaves from the South to the Free states and to Canada where slavery was prohibited. A slave knew that once they crossed the border into any one of the Free states that they were safe from the cruelty of being a slave as long as they were not captured by slave catchers. A reason why the railroad was so successful was because they had allies who were both black and white. One such example is the Quakers, as well as the...
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...12 years a slave In the years before the Civil War, Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a free black man from upstate New York, is kidnapped and sold into slavery in the South. Subjected to the cruelty of one malevolent owner (Michael Fassbender), he also finds unexpected kindness from another, as he struggles continually to survive and maintain some of his dignity. Then in the 12th year of the disheartening ordeal, a chance meeting with an abolitionist from Canada changes Solomon's life forever. Twelve Years a Slave (1853) is a memoir and slave narrative by American Solomon Northup as told to and edited by David Wilson. Northup, a black man who was born free in New York state, details his being tricked to go to Washington, D.C., where he was kidnapped and sold into slavery in the Deep South. After having been kept in bondage for 12 years in Louisiana by various masters, Northup was able to write to friends and family in New York, who in turn secured his release with the aid of the state. Northup's account provides extensive details on the slave markets in Washington, D.C. and New Orleans, and describes at length cotton and sugar cultivation and slave treatment on major plantations in Louisiana. The work was published eight years before the Civil War by Derby & Miller of Auburn, New York,[2] soon after Harriet Beecher Stowe's best-selling novel about slavery,Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), to which it lent factual support. Northup's book, dedicated to Stowe, sold 30,000 copies...
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...Summary of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Chapter I-IV Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave brings to light many of the injustices that African Americans faced in the 1800s under slavery. Through vivid images of brutality, Douglass presents the story of his life in a way that implicitly critiques the institution of slavery. In the first few chapters of his narrative, Douglass chronicles the barbarity that he witnesses and experiences himself during his childhood at Colonel Lloyd’s plantation, including the separation of families, the whipping of slaves and crimes against slaves. Douglass introduces his family circumstances in the first part of his Narrative. Because he lacks accurate knowledge of his birthday and age, Douglass notes the place of his birth—“Tuckahoe, near Hillsborough, twelve miles from Easton, in Talbot County, Maryland”—indicating the importance of his birthplace, the only piece of information he possesses about his own identity. He regards his “want of information” about his background as “a source of unhappiness” during his childhood. Moreover, according to Douglass, slaveholders always separate slave children from their mother before the children reach twelve months. Douglass decries the fact that this separation inevitably extinguishes the natural affection of the mother for the child as well as the child’s affection toward his mother. His own reaction after he heard about...
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...unfortunately still exists today. No matter what event you choose to focus on, between the Atlantic Slave Trade, to the London Laboring Classes and its child labor, to the more recent sweatshops that still exist in Asia, the pain and suffering these people had to go through and are still going through is not only inhumane, but also immoral. “The London Laboring Classes” is an excerpt from the London Journal by Flora Tristan. The article is broken down into two parts: Factory Workers and Prostitutes. Tristan wrote this article in order to expose the cruelties suffered by industrial workers, women, and slaves, during the Industrial Revolution. It would be an injustice to Tristan if I paraphrase her shocking description of the life of the factory worker, so I’ll quote her directly. “Most of the workers lack clothing, a bed, furniture, a fire, wholesome food, and often even potatoes! They are shut up twelve to fourteen hours a day in mean rooms where they breathe in, along with foul air, cotton, wool, and linen fibers, particles of copper, lead, iron, etc., and frequently go from insufficient nourishment to excessive drinking.” (2) After hearing this description, it’s no wonder why these workers frequently got sick and acquired diseases. The way these poor people lived is mindboggling, and to think, these conditions weren’t only limited to adults, even children as young as six years old...
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