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12 Years A Slave Thesis

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Slavery was a dark mark on both American and world history. There are many different documentations of slavery that have educated generation after generation of the horrific events that occurred in slave life. “Twelve Years a Slave” by Solomon Northup is one of these many documentations. Solomon Northup was born a free black man who was kidnapped and taken back into slavery. In his autobiography “Twelve Years a Slave” Northup writes about his journey and the experiences he had while enslaved. He discusses the slave life, conditions, treatment, slave masters, religion, and resistance he experienced.
Daily life on plantations consisted of long hours and intense work. In “Twelve Years a Slave” Northup writes that when picking cotton, “An ordinary …show more content…

Northup provides an example of this when he discusses Master Epps stating that, “Master Epps was a rostering, blustering, noisy fellow, who's chief delight was dancing with his “slaves” or lashing them about the yard with his long whip, just for the pleasure of hearing them screech and scream as the great welts were planted on their backs” (Northup, 163). Female slaves were often raped by their masters. Slaves had no rights and were unable to defend themselves, and if they did, they were often beaten more or killed. The abuse slaves took from their masters made their daily task even more difficult, and in some instances, slaves would commit suicide in order to escape the brutality. Therefore, plantation owners treated their slaves very poorly, often beating and raping …show more content…

Solomon Northup’s master William Ford was a pastor and Northup says, “We usually spent our sabbaths at the opening, on which days are master would gather all his slaves about him and read the expound scriptures. He sought to inculcate in our mind’s feelings of kindness towards each other, of dependence upon God setting forth rewards promise of those who led an upright and prayerful life.” (Northup 97). Both slaves and masters usually protestant beliefs. Masters would often teach their slaves about slavery, and would teach ideas around the idea slavery was “the will of God”. Masters also used the bible to try and justify slavery to abolitionist. Therefore, the protestant faith was popular amongst both masters and slaves and was used to justify

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He used his religious faith whenever he was teaching other slaves

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Instead he began to propagate the belief that sharing religion with the slaves would “lay them under stronger obligations to perform the greatest diligence and fidelity”. Though a number of protestant religions moved throughout at the time the Baptist church eventually took ahold of the south to become the most practiced religion. Frey discusses briefly the African culture that made some influence on the lifestyle of the African slaves. Most of the African cultural practices were bogged down or destroyed by the slave owners and American society.

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Backed by religion slave owners thought it justified to own slaves because it was their God-given duty so they raised negro children “in the fear of God” Document 3 states that they were allowed to have slaves because God permitted them to they were given sufficient food, drinks, and clothing. Not only was their institution justified their forced conversion to Christianity in the eyes of God was necessary. For example, slave-born babies were not granted the right to freedom but they were granted the right to be baptized for the progression of Christianity according to Virginia General Assembly of 1667. (Document 4) Although they were not viewed as people plantation owners enforced religion onto slaves in hopes of a larger

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938 Words | 4 Pages

Since they did, they often used the scripture to justify slavery. Since slavery was justified to them, they saw no wrong in beating people until they were bleeding or even to the point that flesh was gone. Slaves were allowed to receive religious teaching, but they couldn’t be on the plantation were they worked. In an article written by Peter Randolph, he references the sermons that were preached to the slaves (Randolph, The Difference betwee the Christianity Taught by Masters and Preached by Slaves) . Sermons were geared to servants obeying your masters.

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Slaves were warned to obey their masters, “As to the Lord and not to men.” However, their masters were also held to this same standard. Masters were expected to treat their slaves well and even to treat them as brothers, as God is the master of all people, including

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1572 Words | 7 Pages

Douglass who grew up under the hand of many different Christian overseers and masters, shared that, “religious slaveholders [were] the worst.” When Douglass was abiding with Mr. Thomas Auld (Mr. Auld’s brother), He described him as a man, “incapable of managing his slaves either by force, fear, or fraud,” until his religious conversion. Mr. Thomas Auld was converted at a Methodist camp-meeting, and Douglass expressed, “I indulged in a faint hope that his conversion would lead him to emancipate his slaves, and that, if it did not do this, it would, at any rate, make him more kind and humane.” Douglass was let down in both respects, and he said, “If it had any effect on his character, it made him more cruel and hateful in all his ways… after his conversion, he found religious sanction and support for his slaveholding cruelty.” One of his master’s justifications involved reciting religious passages and quotes from the Bible while whipping his slaves.

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The writer does not hide his contempt for those slaveholders characterized as “blood-seeking wretches.” (Twelve Years a Slave 125) Such slaveholders as Tibeats and Edwin Epps, another ruthless plantation owner, who buys Solomon from Mr. Williams, fall exactly into such a category. Nonetheless, soon Northup admits that his life on Epp’s plantation proves to be even worse than working with Tibeats. The writer notes that Epps never spares his whip to extract obedience from the “niggers.” Moreover, “being fond of the bottle” and various violent amusements, Epps repeatedly makes his slaves dance for him in the middle of the night or lashes them around his yard with his whip “just for the pleasure of hearing them screech and scream.”

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Southerner’s Justification of Slavery Using the Bible Slavery was first introduced into America when Jamestown was founded in 1619. It was introduced so that the slaves would do all of the work for slave owners and they would be able to make profit off of their labor. They were submitted to horrible acts of inhumanity against their will. Many slaveowners justified their actions with the bible. Slavery was introduced into Jamestown so that they could work for their owners.

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During the time when Douglass wrote this book, there were several myths which were used to justify slavery. The slaveholder during his time justified this inhuman practice using different arguments. The first argument they used was the religion. From the narrative, Douglass says that slaveholders called themselves Christians which was the dominant religion by then.

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It was seen as necessity for a country to have slaves now since they needed them to do the work since the newly converted Christians had protection from slavery from the crown. Merrick Whitcomb describes this in his, Gold of the Indies (Doc 1). Whitcomb also goes on to describe how the Europeans treat the slaves imported from Africa. This is the first shift in the gradual switch to more humanitarian ideals.

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Many masters act very cruel to their slaves and give no regard for their well-being or how they feel. They will whip them if they do something wrong, cut off an ear if they try to escape a multitude of times, and even kill them if they feel like the slave is doing too much. An example of this is how Mr. Gore had shot Demby. Demby had been resisting Mr. Gore’s call and had been in a creek trying to resist punishment.

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In everyone's lives, there is an eye opening experience that changes their perspective on life. The slave narrative, Narrative of The Life of Frederick Douglass, by Frederick Douglass, tells a story about the struggles the author goes through during his grueling life during and after being enslaved. During the book, Douglass goes through so much during his life, including hardships such as beatings, starvation, and depression. Along with the bad things, he also experiences some good things including escaping, discovering literacy and enlightening himself and others about the awful aspects of slavery. Frederick Douglass manages to free himself not only physically, but also mentally from the hardships of slavery.

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901 Words | 4 Pages

Back when there were slaves in America, their owners didn’t realize that they did the wrong. The master’s had a feeling of power, even those that started out nice would soon understand the power that lay in their hands. The impetus of their cruelty, was the feeling of power and control over a person that would swallow even the nicest of the people. Slaves, the creatures of the time that used to be thought of as nothig. To show their control, owners would sometimes beat slaves for no reason at all.

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729 Words | 3 Pages

his plantation, the amount of violence Northup details becomes more frequent, and he describes the fear that all slaves faced at the beginning of the new work day “Then the fears and labours of another day begin; and until its close there is no such thing as rest. He fears he will be caught lagging through the day; he fears to approach the gin house with his basket-load of cotton at night; he fears, when he lies down, that he will oversleep himself in the morning. (Northup, pg.171). Solomon Northup captures the relentless emotional and physical toll that slaves faced every day at the hands of their masters and the hired help.

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927 Words | 4 Pages

Religion and its relationship to slavery is a contradictive subject, whether it was forced upon slaves or was a form of hope and freedom is still commonly debated about to this day. However, these individuals were devoted Christians in the abolitionist movement who all

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