Book Review: Twelve Years a Slave (Essay Example)

In the memoir Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup, the storyline follows the harrowing tale of the author, a 32-year-old free African American man living in New York in the early 1800s. His life changes drastically when he is kidnapped from his home in the guise of a job offer. Northup was sold into slavery with no means to gain back his stolen freedom. The author’s memoir follows his life from his kidnapping and the following twelve years in the institution of slavery. As the narrative unfolds the central contents of the memoir are presented in Northup’s beliefs surrounding his own identity, through his recollections and commentary of religion, inhumanity, dignity, misogyny, and slavery’s corrupting influence in an emerging America. 

Solomon Northup was a African American that was born free from a father who had once been a slave but had been given liberty, while his mother was always free. His father Mintus, owned farming land and strived to give his children an education. Northup learned  many things from his father from working on the farm and later acquiring a job as a raftman and a renowned fiddle player.. In the 1830’s he married his wife Anne Hampton and had three children; Margaret, Elizabeth, and Alonzo. Anne was a cook who worked in different hotels and taverns, while Northup was a professional violinist at heart. He had to find many supplement jobs, mostly carpentry due to inconsistency with fiddle playing jobs. The author’s need for a job is what drove him into the chains of slavery from 1841 through 1853. 

Northup took a job from two men in 1841 who promised to pay him well if he played the violin for the circus company they worked for. This job took his from his home to Washington City where slavery was legal. The author acquired papers to show that he was a free citizen of New York. One day after spending the afternoon with his companions in a saloon Northup fell ill and unresponsive. When the author awoke his was bound by chains in a slave pen within view of the U.S. Capitol building. When he protested boldly that he was a free man from Saratoga he was lashed severely, and James Burch asserted that he was from Georgia and his slave. 

Solomon Northup was no longer a free man but a slave named Platt. The author's own perception of his identity plays a key role throughout the narrative. Before Solomon was a slave his identity was one of a prosperous and a favored violinist in his community. His entire identity is barbarically ripped away after being enslaved. He is no longer ‘Solomom Northup’ instead he carry’s his slave name ‘Platt.’ Northup is forced into coveting his own sense of being, amd is thoroughly reminded that he will be punished severely if talks about his life in New York to anyone, even other slaves. He can no longer approach his life with freedom as he did before, he is forced to obey white people's words as law and bend to their will. Northup may be driven into submission to change his identity externally, but internally he is the same. The author knew who his past self was, and that drove him to survive. Northup, never once in the twelve years gave up trying to escape; he found comfort in the violin; he never betrayed his wife; he remembered who he was and what he wanted desperately to return to. Throughout the years he tried to send information back to New York that he was alive and what had become of him, but was betrayed and almost punished for his troubles. That all changed the day he told Bass the truth of his identity, and finally obtained validity of who he was as a man and not a slave. By disclosing his identity to Bass he allowed for his way back to freedom to be assured.

The author's tendency to refer back to religion throughout his narrative, plays a critical aspect in his judgment regarding what and who he deemed was moral and immoral. Northup respected his first owner William Ford for his religious actions and holding sermons for his slaves which comforted them and gave them a sense of contend in what was to come in the afterlife. Ford in Northup's eyes was the most virtuous and christian man he had ever met, this was due to the fact that Ford did not forsake the lord's name with profanity. Meanwhile, the author viewed Tibeats and Epps as immoral and of bad character due to their tendency to partake in heavy drinking and frequently speaking with irrelevance in terms of religion. When Northup escaped from Tibeats and his men through the reptilian infested Bayou Boeuf the author alludes that he himself is religious as he prays for survival, and deemed it was god's mercy that allowed him to survive. 

Solomons recollection of the the cruel actions of a master to his slave unveils how barbaric a man could be to another man. The author ruminated on the fact that some master were humane to their slave and  kept them happy, fed, watered, and sheltered. While, other masters starved, beat, and left their slaves to the elements. Northup is clear in his thoughts on how the institution of slavery is an inhuman and unjustly cruel one. Tibeats and Epps were sadistic in their pleasure of puniishing slave for even a wrong doing they could not control. One such instance occurred with Tibeats over the size of nails, Master Tibeats had raised his whip to the author and caused great pain over nothing. When working for Epps the slaves were to meet a strict schedual and quota  cotton picked a day; if it was to little they were whipped in equivalence; to much and they were expected to bring in that same amount the next day and punished if it wasn’t the same. Northup also recalls slave being stripped naked and lashed out in the open in front of peers and the white men alike. 

The authors eyewitness accounts and commentary of misogyny and the resulting sexual assult of female slaves is present and resolve around Patsey. Northup felt pity fro the girl and other females slave who had no confort, and were forced into submission by their masters. Patsy suffered sexual and physical violece under Epps oppression and the author comments on the tragedy of their situation. When Mistress Epps was upset by her husband's preference for Patsey, Epps lashes her horribly in response. Northup notes that Patsey was an excellent cotton picker, but suffered terribly and was broken hearted by Epps appetite for pleasure and punishment. He also talked of Eliza who was a white mans mistress and had his children, but due to jealousy from the wife and daughter she was decieved into slavery when she believed she would finally be emancipated. 

Northup was concise in his thoughts that slaves were not thoughtless machines that bnded to their masters will. He asserted that they still had dignity and were very much alive and unique. The author comments that some had higher intellect, while others contained diverse personalities. The author alluded that all slaves knew their limitation and the conditions in which they lived. The slaves tried to make their lives meaningful even with restricted independence; they would’ve pursued relationships; tried to escape or been rebellious; shared memories amd stories bringing about their humaness; played music and danced. Northup's mentioned individuals were presented by him as authentically human in the narrative. 

The author viewed the institution of slavery as a poison. From the narrative it is crystal clear that slavery was extremely dubious to all parties involved. The many African Americans that were stolen, shipped, and traded were trapped in the greed of others. Northup also believed that slavery itself was corruptive to anyone it touched. Slavery turned white people who were moral and kind into tyrannical beings. It was normal and accepted on slave plantations for masters to be cruel, violent, and sexually abusive to their slaves. The author also reflected on the fact that Ford, while a virtuous and moral man, found that there was nothing wrong in owning other human beings, it was how he had been raised. This also incited Northup to comment on how the masters would punish their slave in front of their children and how the children were merely reflecting the actions of their parents. He also observed that even Mistress Epps was a kind and wonderful woman to him. Meanwhile, she was poisoned by the power she had over Patsey, and the influence she had on her husband to cruelly punish Patesy for his own affliction he had with Patsey. 

Overall, Northup’s narrative of his twelve years in bondage depicted the real threat and dismay of slavery even to those in free states like New York. His memories of the injustice and toxic actions of his masters served as a reminder to those who believed that slavery was of no qualm to them, that the human rights of every individual can be stolen from them by the greed of others. The author's intentions of this book was written in an attempt to be understood by any who had witnessed and been subjected to the horrors of slavery. The narrative targeted the importance of one's own identity, while bearing witness to the authors reguards to religion, inhumanity, misogyny, dignity, and the poisonous affect of slavery in America.