Slavery: Solomon Northup

Slavery is one of the most shocking phenomenon’s of our world. The meaning of the word slavery transforms an individual human being into becoming an item. This phenomena has destroyed millions of lives, taking away people’s family, happiness, fate, etc. It is mind-boggling to think that humans were considered property to other humans at one point in time. African American slaves were treated like animals; they were brutally beaten, tortured, and often murdered. White Americans believed that this was okay and that beating them would make them work harder. I am going to use my resources to explain the horrors of slavery and to give examples of the pain and fear Solomon Northup encountered in his years of being enslaved. Solomon Northup was …show more content…
As he went from master to master, he went on many different plantations. They were extremely large homes with a large yard. The movie expresses the stereotype that if your master does not like you than they can beat you or even can kill you. For example, in the movie we see that Master Tibeats gets in a fight with Solomon over a box of nails. After the fight, Tibeats and two other men dragged Solomon to his hanging, but were soon ran off by Mr. Chapin (12 Years a Slave, 46:14 - 48:59). Solomon was left hanging from the tree with just his tip toes touching the ground until Master Ford came to him and cut the rope. Master Ford saved his life and told him he had to get rid of him because Solomon was no longer safe on his …show more content…
The article states “The woman’s desperation, Solomon’s reserve, and the fierce sadness of both, is depicted with an unflinching still camera which documents a moment of human contact and bitter comfort in the face of slavery’s systematic dehumanization” (Berlatsky, 1). It is scenes like this that make you feel like you are witnessing slavery (Berlatsky, 1). In reality, this scene never happened, and it is assumed that Northup would not be pleased with this because he was never unfaithful to his wife. Another fact that differs from the movie that stands out to me is that Mistress Epps is the one who tries convincing Northup to drown Patsey (Berlatsky, 1). The movie shows Patsey begging Solomon to kill her and bury her in a lonely place in the swamp. Mistress Epps was very jealous of Patsey because Master Epps had an eye for her. During this scene, we experienced a horrifying raping incident from Master Epps. This scene relates to history because that is something that occurred regularly for slaves. The women could not fight back or they would be beaten. In the movie, the sailor that was going to rape one of the slave women stabs a male slave trying to protect her. However, sailors are not the owner of the slaves and the slaves are valuable, therefore, this scene can be misinterpreted. The slave this incident refers