How To Kill A Slave In Walter Johnson's Soul By Soul

The antebellum south was an intense and dangerous place. The slave trade was a very serious business for those involved, and trying to enter the business was difficult. Many southern whites believed that the more slaves they owned, they better they were. Slave’s were a sign of wealth, as plantation owners could afford a large quantity of captives. In Walter Johnson’s book on the subject of the slave trade, “Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market,” he discusses how detrimental presenting and purchasing slaves on the market is to white men. The main point Johnson makes throughout the two chapters is just how seriously these slave traders not only took the business of slave trading but also how much these men believed their social ranking depended on it. For young, white men, breaking into the slave trading business proved to be a difficult task, as many of …show more content…
Similarly, in the film, “12 Years a Slave,” Solomon Northup is beaten into submission and forced to leave his identity behind in order to survive in the slave trade. Captured slaves were given entirely new identities, including their names and where they came from. For example, Solomon Northup was told that his name was Platt, and was given advice to essentially forget everything that he had known in order to survive the antebellum south. Although Northup was eventually able to escape captivity, for much of his time in captivity he had to pretend as though he was illiterate, in order to protect himself from harm, or even death. It wasn’t until 12 years had passed he met a man who subsequently helped him contact a family friend to provide his free papers and take him home to his family. Many slaves, however, did not have this luck, and they were born and died in slavery, with no identity other than that of a