The book 12 Years a Slave is written my Solomon Northrup, and he discusses how his life changes from living as a free man in New York to being a slave in Louisiana. While Northrup was in the north, he was tricked into slavery by two men impersonating circus actors. The first night of their journey involved heavy drinking and Northrup eventually passed out only to wake up in chains in a beat down shack outside of the capital. After a brief spurt with smallpox and a name change to Platt, he gets sold to William Ford who ends up treating him fairly well. However, Ford suffers some financial problems and has to sell Platt to John Tibeats who is not very fond of him. Tibeats actually tries to kill Platt twice, but Ford intervenes. As a result, Tibeats
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If the slaves become educated, they could be more likely to runaway from the planation, and it would give them more human qualities than the average slaveholder would prefer. This can be seen in all three memoirs. In the Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass, Douglass moves to Baltimore to live with Hugh Auld and his wife Sophia. Not long after Douglass arrives, Sophia begins to teach him the alphabet and how to spell words. Douglass writes, “Just at this point of my progress, Mr. Auld found out what was going on, and at once forbade Mrs. Auld to instruct me further” (63). Hugh is a firm believer of keeping slaves uneducated. If slaves learn how to read and write, they become “unmanageable,” and then the Auld’s would essentially have to rid themselves of the burden. Also, educated slaves could be more likely to escape because they could secretly read newspapers and might realize what is going on. If they successfully escaped to the north, they may even be able to pass as a free black man and fool potential employers. Once they had a job and some money there would be no stopping them from going further north into Canada. Through Hugh’s words of discontent with his wife, Douglass learns the importance of education and decides he is going to further his studies by learning from neighborhood
If the slaves become educated, they could be more likely to runaway from the planation, and it would give them more human qualities than the average slaveholder would prefer. This can be seen in all three memoirs. In the Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass, Douglass moves to Baltimore to live with Hugh Auld and his wife Sophia. Not long after Douglass arrives, Sophia begins to teach him the alphabet and how to spell words. Douglass writes, “Just at this point of my progress, Mr. Auld found out what was going on, and at once forbade Mrs. Auld to instruct me further” (63). Hugh is a firm believer of keeping slaves uneducated. If slaves learn how to read and write, they become “unmanageable,” and then the Auld’s would essentially have to rid themselves of the burden. Also, educated slaves could be more likely to escape because they could secretly read newspapers and might realize what is going on. If they successfully escaped to the north, they may even be able to pass as a free black man and fool potential employers. Once they had a job and some money there would be no stopping them from going further north into Canada. Through Hugh’s words of discontent with his wife, Douglass learns the importance of education and decides he is going to further his studies by learning from neighborhood