Solomon Northup's Autobiography, Twelve Years A Slave

Solomon Northup , a free black man residing in new York who was kidnapped and sold into slavery, recounts his astonishing story in his autobiography, Twelve Years a Slave. This narrative explores the harsh and inhumane treatment slaves constantly endured in nineteenth century America, and the struggles that thousands of free black men faced to regain their freedom. Additionally, Twelve Years a Slave explores the theme of unity and strength through religious and social means. By writing this autobiography, Northup highlights the everyday struggles of black slaves in Southern America, but also conveys the unity and strength that slaves drew from religious morals and anecdotes. Twelve Years a Slave goes into detail on the hardships that slaves endured, simply because their owners felt that they were superior, and that their slaves were simply property to be treated as desired. Northup indicates that he was tortured even before he was under a master, and especially after he went into the ownership of numerous masters. Immediately after he kidnapped by trusted collegues, Northup was told to say that he was a slave from Georgia. When he refused to say so, as he was a freeman from New York, he was lashed for stating that he was a free man. He
Slaves in the nineteenth century were subject to harsh and inhumane methods of treatments imply because their masters “looked upon a colored man, not as a human being…but as a ‘chattel personal’ as mere live property, no better, except in value, than his mule or dog”. Northup also mentions the how religion and belief in God helped keep him and those around him hopeful and courageous. Readers cannot shy away from the reality Northup mentions in his autobiography, and they come to realize that slavery was a vile practice in the American south during the