The Slave Narrative Of Solomon Northup's Twelve Years A Slave

Winston Churchill’s “History is written by the victors”, was accepted as truism. Anything that happened in the past, history, can be distorted, changed, and even disappear. This may happen by the writers (in charge) writing what they want to hear, rather than what has actually been said; this can be done for many reasons, including propaganda, or covering up the ugly truth. Howard Zinn, an American historian, for the allegations stated above, wanted to review history from the other side, from the viewpoint of the oppressors. It might be a valid idea, using a slave narrative as a method of gathering information to study history when discussing the Slave Era. Since a first hand account of what happened everyday would be beneficial to a historian. However, we cannot forget whether or not the author actually wrote this story, whether it was written based on someone else’s train of thoughts, whether it was corrupted. Although doubts start to emerge when referring back to this quote: “One would jump to studying historic evidence from the viewpoint of the oppressed”, here the oppressor is the slave. After reading these passages, I gathered that at …show more content…
The editor could have tried and probably did write his own ideas for the story. Solomon was born a freeman but kidnapped and stripped of his rights and his dignity when he was sold a slave. He was a slave for 12 years before being rescued. During his time as a slave, he recounts many stories of him being blamed for things he did not do and of course getting punished for them; to keep his sanity he recalls not allowing himself to cry. Once his master was getting the flogger stick ready for some angry reason or another, Northup grabbed the stick from his master 's hand and beat him senselessly. Although Northup thought the punishment for that would be death, by virtue of his unpaid debt, he was simply sold to a different