For a long time, some have argued that slavery was good for slaves because it civilized them, and they were content to be held in bondage but that is not the case according to those who were actually going through slavery and being held in bondage. A man by the name of Solomon Northup was born free, but twelve years of his life was spent as a slave. Throughout the story, Solomon Northup shares the frustration, fear, and heartache of being separated from the ones he loved and being a slave. Solomon shares his perspective on slavery, violence, religion, and labor to give readers true insight on his time being a slave.
Solomon, a black man, was born free but when he later on moved to Saratoga Springs, he labored in different types of industries and became unique due to the talent of being a really fine violin player. Despite being unemployed, Solomon was looking for work and something to do upon arriving to Saratoga. Solomon was approached by two men, names of Merrill Brown and Abram Hamilton, they were dressed nice but never did Solomon hint at the fact that they would end up being the reason why he became enslaved. Due to his playing and musical abilities, Solomon was asked to join the two men to play in a group with them and he didn’t hesitate to join them. At the time, the three men including Solomon were traveling to New York City, but Solomon didn’t catch any suspicious acts, so he went along with the two men wherever they asked him to. They ended up going to Washington, D.C., but at the time it was considered slave territory. After one day in Washington, Solomon started to feel ill and weird and later passed out but woke up in chains surrounded by darkness.
Slavery was becoming a huge deal in society at the time but the way it worked was through manipulation. The two men who Solomon encountered manipulated him into being enslaved. Solomon mentions human integrity as the first casualty of slavery, and simply describes himself as being lured away from his family, home, and Saratoga but being kidnapped was the worst part. Solomon saw that fraud was keeping slavery together and intact. Brown and Hamilton were a good example of how the white race and people were coming to blacks and American society. When the demands of slavery would rise, the white men would do whatever it took to bring slaves into their territory. In this case, the two men conveyed that slavery turned the “good” white men into morally corrupt people who used kindness as evil deceit.
The day after he is ill, Solomon finds himself beginning his twelve-year horrific experience as a slave by noticing the mistreatment and identifying other captives inside the territory he was located in. Solomon finds that the other captives in the territory are some really good people, like Clemens Ray, a man who is labeled as kind and a person who is intelligent with wisdom and Eliza who is quite similar and is a great mother and has a wonderful family. These values of the captives are ignored and are basically abused by a white man who is in charge of selling slaves. James H. Burch, a slave trader who is known for lying and his violence is contrasted from his slaves by Solomon because he shows dignity of man’s humanity and creation that is clearly visible through every black there and is it absent from his fellow white masters. Solomon had proof of being a free black man, was treated by others as a normal person, but when he was kidnapped there was no doubt that all of that was ignored and was considered property like an animal.
Solomon never changed as a person, the only thing that ever changed was his freedom due to the corrupt system that declared he could be owned. At the time, a paper was the only thing that could take away humanity. Slave owners and masters including Northup’s believed that they could not only treat the slaves however they pleased to and wanted but rather claim them as their own or property. The black slaves were brutally abused and destroyed by the American policy because it basically stripped their humanity away. The men and women felt that the best option for them was to die, due to the horrors that they would face daily. Slaves had no hope of dying, much less free, but they were often born on plantations because there was no freedom but to raise children to be hard-working servants. Their whole life was devoted to satisfying the needs of their owners/masters. Masters would brutally award slaves with lashes at their backs, which left visible scars. At auctions, the slaves were instructed to strip down and dance around like monkeys because buyers would observe their abilities and after a price was put on them, a white man could buy them. During a confrontation, a supervisor tried to lynch Solomon but due to the fact that he wasn’t his owner he couldn’t do so. Throughout the book, Solomon describes how the torture and punishment they received broke down the human spirit of every human there at the plantations.
Religiously, Solomon credits his survival to God. It is evidently known that Solomon is a firm believer in God, and all his faith in surviving is after his beliefs. Religion plays a significant role in his story, because throughout, Solomon emphasizes which people are good and bad. For example, Solomon gives insight on fellow blacks who are held captive at the plantations and describes in full detail of how good of people they really are and goes on to describe the men that manipulated him into becoming a slave after he had documentation showing he was a normal person. Tibeats and Epp both use God’s name in vain, which show their true sense of poor character, but Ford, the plantation of owner above Solomon never puts God’s name in vain but is known to be a firm worshiper of God. Despite religion not being well mentioned throughout his story, Solomon describes how Ford held “Sermons” and would invite his slaves to attend and share the name of God with him. Throughout his slave journey, Solomon conveys his religious beliefs throughout many situations just like when he survived the forest that was snake-infested.
Solomon describes how racism became the motivation and drive for evil human souls, and how it didn’t really matter what the skin color was but rather slave owners feeling satisfied over cruelty. Solomon also mentions that some slave owners had dark skin just like slaves and some slaves were as white as some masters. At the time, the Southern society had a crazy system established but it really showed how the evil that it led to was shown through character. A prime example is Epps, because his craving of violence needs to satisfied. He uses his slaves to satisfy his craving of violence and when he wanted entertainment, they’d be used for that as well. It was often when Epps would come home drunk, but the slaves were to do as he pleased. Despite being worked hard in the fields of picking cotton, the slaves were to do everything the owner wanted at any time. Epps would turn his violence on the slaves, and they’d be forced to run around outside because of the whips that were given, and this would be used to help get rid of the sting that the whip would leave.
Solomon describes his experience playing the violin while Epps would force slaves to get up in the middle of the night and dance around to his music. If they danced too slow, sometimes they’d get whipped. It is clearly conveyed through Solomon’s story that racism was a learned behavior and that human evil is justified. Epps’s son is a mirror image of this learned behavior and even he began to see slaves as animals and would often ride out to the yard where the slaves were and whip them. Despite slaves being used for their labor and hard work in the fields, they were clearly used for the entertainment and satisfaction of their owners. The mindset of the owners and master was just absurd, because they did as they pleased without any sense of care of slaves.
Throughout the story, the reader can point out that Solomon concludes that racism was caused by slavery. Although slavery was the foundation to everything on top, racism is what kept slavery going and prolonged it. Solomon approached slavery and racism in a religious way and appealed to Northern Protestants who showed interest in morality.