Twelve Years A Slave By Solomon Northup

As American’s our country’s history has been drilled into our education. There are many things to make us proud, as well as ashamed. An atrocious attribute to our country’s past is slavery. Slavery not only happened in America but in numerous countries for far too long. So many people of color were discriminated, abused, abducted and often times killed without remorse. There are millions of individuals, who if were still alive today, could identify with each of those things stated above and tell their own story. One person who would proudly protest their unfortunate experience would be a man by the name Solomon Northup. He wrote a memoir addressing his oppressors and coming clean with all the unjust actions that had taken place. In his book

When spirituality falls into the wrong hands the words can be misconstrued and manipulated. Not only does this take place in present times with religious extremist but it took place for the slaves as well. Many Master’s would not allow slaves to be educated or to possess scripture themselves so they learned what they were taught. This was exemplified in Twelve Years a Slave with a man by the name Peter Tanner. Tanner read scripture to his slaves much like his brother in law Master Ford but instead he used “different spirits” claimed Northup. Tanner used a particular verse out of The Holy Bible from the book of Luke to proselytize his slaves, “And that servant, which knew his lord’s will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.”. After the scripture Tanner made sure his own interpretation was known to the slaves, “That nigger that don’t obey his lord- that’s his master-d’ye see?- that ‘ere nigger shall be beaten with many stripes.”. Doing this used slave’s spirituality against them. Making slaves believe that being abused and held captive was all apart of God’s plan for them. If a slave were to go against his Master, then they would be going against their lords will for their life and ultimately deserved high punishment. Through deeper analyzation the true meaning of that passage from the Bible can

The definition of faith is customizable to each person. Many people think that faith is a set denotation upon one’s religious beliefs but faith can be anything that keeps your soul driving forward. His own personal faith sparked a fire within his soul no master could ever extinguish. His deep desire to reach his long lost family was what encouraged him to be strong, smart and to push on through the pain. Numerous times throughout his book Northup mentioned thinking about his wife and three children and wondering of their safety. He had strong regret of taking the leap of faith and bestowing his fate in the hands of two strangers who ultimately tore his life apart. He took great risks to reach out and trust a stranger again in hopes of giving his family some form of information on his whereabouts. An English man, John Manning, did Northup a remarkable favor and mailed out a letter he had written to his family. This was very dangerous on behalf of both men but he sacrificed his safety for the love of his family. Northup was unable to control himself when it came to doing things in regards to his family. It has been proven that love is one of the strongest motivators of all. Studies show that love can effect your brain the same as a drug and make you do crazy things. He put his life on the line and sacrificed his well being numerous times just to benefit his family. His love for