12 Years A Slave Gender

Solomon Northrup is a free black man that is kidnapped and sold off into the southern slave trade during the antebellum era in the United States. Suffering for 12 brutally long years in the antebellum South; Solomon is flogged, broken, and bound by the color of his skin to ruthless slave masters in Louisiana and Georgia where race and gender define one’s status. White male slave owners being at the top of the hierarchal ladder and black woman being at the bottom help to elevate white woman’s statuses in the Deep South. The idea that the institution of slavery being sanctioned by the bible and insisting that slaves are better off than free laborers differs than the ideas of those in the North. Steve McQueen’s film “12 Years a Slave” verifiable …show more content…
Gender played a significant role as well. With white male slave owners being considered at the top and black women/children being considered at the bottom. I found that white women’s status’s somewhat contradicts. On one side you have white southern women being seen as elevated in the Antebellum south. On the other side you have white southern women being seen as less. Eric Foner writes about Planters controlling and holding the majority of the slaves in the Deep South in our textbook, “Give Me Liberty!” Since ownership of slaves provided an avenue towards wealth, status, and influence, white southern women in the antebellum south married to planters were often times elevated in their status over other women. Planter’s wives, Eric Foner notes, were able to stay within their proper elements which is defined as the home. This in turn raised their status’s over those who were of the less wealthy and had to work the fields or were seen working in the industrial complex. Black woman and children were seen at the very bottom of the hierarchal ladder. Black mothers being separated from their children and sold as Steve McQueen depicts in his film, “12 years a slave” when Eliza and her children are separated and sold. Eric Foner mentions this as well in chapter 11 under gender roles among slaves giving weight to the film. Sexual abuse plays a significant role …show more content…
Edwin Epps is seen leading his congregation of slaves preaching the bible in Steve McQueen’s film, “12 years a slave.” This religion and words that Epps is preaching to his congregation of slaves is unlike any religion I have ever heard before. In Eric Foner’s, “Voices of Freedom document #69” De Bow’s Review talks about religion being used as a reason to why there is nothing wrong with enslaving blacks in the south. De Bow talks about how Abraham had servants that are bound to him and tries to make the case that a servant of god’s slaves are treated worse than the slaves in the antebellum south. De Bow talks about the Old and New Testament speaking of slavery and that the bible does not condemn it, but allows it, and even goes a step further when he says “create it.” I found it interesting in the film how Epps used religion in a way to oppress and frighten his slaves by making it seem that slavery is somehow divine. De Bow speaks to this same narrative of slavery being divine and natural because even God himself owned slaves. Which leads me to George Fitzhugh and his “Cannibal All! Chapter 1 excerpts.” Fitzhugh Argues that it is that of the free laborer that is worse off than that of the slave in the Deep South. That the free laborer might be free, but is still bound at the end of the day to feed, clothe, and take care of their family and home. Fitzhugh argues that the black