12 Years A Slave Essay
This is about a book. For the upcoming film based on the memoir, see 12 Years a Slave (film).
Sketch from Twelve Years a Slave (1855)
Twelve Years a Slave (1853; sub-title: Narrative of Solomon Northup, a citizen of New-York, kidnapped in Washington city in 1841, and rescued in 1853, from a cotton plantation near the Red River in Louisiana), by Solomon Northup as told to David Wilson, is a memoir of a black man who was born free in New York state but kidnapped, sold into slavery and kept in bondage for 12 years in Louisiana before the American Civil War. He provided details of slave markets in Washington, DC, as well as describing at length cotton cultivation on major plantations in Louisiana.
Published soon after Harriet Beecher Stowe 's novel, Uncle Tom 's Cabin, Northup 's book …show more content…
At times, his carpentry and other skills mean he is treated relatively well, but he also suffers extreme cruelty. On two occasions, he is attacked by a man who is to become his owner, John Tibeats, and finds himself unable to resist retaliating, for which he suffers great reprisals. Later he is sold to Edwin Epps, a notoriously cruel planter, who gives Northup the role of driver, requiring him to oversee the work of fellow slaves and punish them for undesirable …show more content…
Northup 's slave narrative has details similar to those of some other authors, such as Frederick Douglass, Harriet Ann Jacobs, or William Wells Brown, but he was unique in being kidnapped as a free man and sold into slavery. His book was a bestseller, rapidly selling 30,000 copies in the years before the American Civil
Sketch from Twelve Years a Slave (1855)
Twelve Years a Slave (1853; sub-title: Narrative of Solomon Northup, a citizen of New-York, kidnapped in Washington city in 1841, and rescued in 1853, from a cotton plantation near the Red River in Louisiana), by Solomon Northup as told to David Wilson, is a memoir of a black man who was born free in New York state but kidnapped, sold into slavery and kept in bondage for 12 years in Louisiana before the American Civil War. He provided details of slave markets in Washington, DC, as well as describing at length cotton cultivation on major plantations in Louisiana.
Published soon after Harriet Beecher Stowe 's novel, Uncle Tom 's Cabin, Northup 's book …show more content…
At times, his carpentry and other skills mean he is treated relatively well, but he also suffers extreme cruelty. On two occasions, he is attacked by a man who is to become his owner, John Tibeats, and finds himself unable to resist retaliating, for which he suffers great reprisals. Later he is sold to Edwin Epps, a notoriously cruel planter, who gives Northup the role of driver, requiring him to oversee the work of fellow slaves and punish them for undesirable …show more content…
Northup 's slave narrative has details similar to those of some other authors, such as Frederick Douglass, Harriet Ann Jacobs, or William Wells Brown, but he was unique in being kidnapped as a free man and sold into slavery. His book was a bestseller, rapidly selling 30,000 copies in the years before the American Civil