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Historical Essay on ’12 Years a Slave’
Slavery in America around the 1850s was about half free states and half slave states. Even free african americans were treated differently and relationships varied since there is still racism present whether slavery was allowed or not. Relationships definitely varied and were affected by slavery.
Before the Reconstruction which took place after the Civil War, many slaves began to acquire their freedom by many things, including escaping plantations, buying their freedom, or being granted freedom from their former owners. Once slaves entered the North, they were able to finally be seen as free African American. The thing that scared African Americans the most, frequently happened, was being sent back to the South into slavery. The technical definition of a slave is a person who is the legal property of another and is forced to obey them. Slavery was and is great oppression of multiple races, while they are sold, separated from their families, and forced to work until they die, in certain circumstances.
Slavery affected Solomon’s relationship with his family in the book 12 Years a Slave, for he was born a slave and subjected to labor on a farm in Louisiana in his early life until he turned legal age and was released from slavery. It seemed that he was close to his father before he passed away and his father also gave his children an education not usually bestowed on African children. The dynamic of the connections between slaves and their masters was one which was intended to undermine and demean the slave. The master practiced total position and domain over his slaves and treated them cruelly. The masters’ impression of blacks was that they needed self-restraint and morality. They legitimized Slavery by asserting that they were preparing the slaves to master self-control through work and furthermore train them in the statutes of God. Not all masters were unforgiving and cruel. Some treated their slaves with generosity and in this way were very much cherished. In any case, despite everything it rises that a dominant part of even the kindest masters still didn’t connect a lot of human value to their slaves. When it was said that I would die, Master Epps, unwilling to bear the loss, which the death of an animal worth a thousand dollars would bring upon him concluded to incur the expense of sending to Holmesville for Dr. Wines This shows that slaves cant rely on their holders for they don’t particularly care for them in any way other than producing manual labor and that they are only animals.
while lying in a slave hut in the distant and sickly regions of Louisiana, smart-ing with the undeserved wounds which an inhuman master had inflicted, and longing only for the grave which had covered him, to shield me also from the lash of the oppressor.
From this passage, we can tell that the african american slaves would rather be dead, and would wish death on their children than be oppressed and forced into manual labor that they do for the rest of their lives. In this passage, there is also evidence that slaveholders and their slaves would have a very one-sided relationship. Meaning, that a master only has a slave and keeps them alive for personal gain. The white people that own slaves don’t think of slaves as human, at most slaves could be compared to mules or working animals, as well as incapable of thinking for themselves that’s why they have to be controlled and oppressed into manual labor.
In the book 12 Years a Slave, there is a slaveholder that buys solomanFord preached of ‘kindness towards each other’. Ford would praise his slaves and servants frequently and in return, the slaves would work more than the bare minimum to please him. ‘It is a fact I have more than once observed, that those who treated their slaves most leniently, were rewarded by the greatest amount of labor. I know it from my own experience. It was a source of pleasure to surprise Master Ford with a greater day’s work than was required, while, under subsequent masters, there was no prompter to extra effort but the overseer’s lash. It was the desire of Ford’s approving voice that suggested an idea that resulted in his profit’. But Ford would allow a slave the opportunity to own and read a bible although reading and writing were not allowed of the slaves, Northup looks back to these days as the ‘bright side of slavery’ and would have served him forever had he had his wife and children with him. Though Solomon still wanted to return to his free man status as well as his family. There was not a slave who did not want their freedom. No matter how good or bad a master was, it is human nature to need freedom. In Twelve Years a Slave it does not appear that a master would feel to care for his slaves from birth to death. Even if a master is considered nice you are still considered property in their eyes. As a slave lost his ability to serve they would start working easier jobs such as a house slave or watching over the master’s children. In this time slaves would only work until death of old age or die a premature death of disease or something other than old age.
Though White people during the 1800 thought of black people and slaves as dumb, uneducated people. They still thought that they would be useful in manual labor. the whites justify slavery as these people, because of their environment, were not built to be smart as the white people. They Justified this by saying that in Africa the heat melted their brains and because white people had to live through winter and survive that white people are smarter. The white people then had a valid argument that slaves only have the brain power to do manual labor and be controlled by the smart white people.
Before Solomon was kidnapped and forced into slavery even though being a free man, he had a wife and two children who he loved. Slavey took him away from his family and he used all of his power to get back to them
‘From the time of my marriage to this day the love I have borne my wife has been sincere and unabated; and only those who have felt the glowing tenderness a father cherishes for his offspring can appreciate my affection for the beloved children who have since been born to us’.
We see from this passage that Solomon is a loving devoted husband and father. He understands the relationship between a father and his children. Solomon though only had a father for a small amount of time, understood what a relationship should look like with his children.
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