As you know slavery is not an engaging circumstance to be put through. I mean put yourself in a slave’s shoe, could you make it through that trying time as Northup and many others with through? This drastic change in Northup life had to be an emotional and challenging entity for him to suffer through. Northup was drugged and sold into slavery by two Caucasian men who tricked him by saying they would pay him good money to play in a traveling band. He was then sold to a slave trader in Washington, were he protested that what he was doing was wrong, “I am a free man”. The fact that Northup spoke up about his freedom infuriated the slave trader.
So Northup was whipped and shipped down south to New Orleans. Northup and many other African Americans were sent on a steam boat that was in horrible condition. Dieses and other appalling sickness affect the passers on this ride, but Northup found the will and strength to survive. Most slaves where giving their daily chores to perform by their physical abilities. A whole work day consists of 15 -16 hours of hard labor during harvest time, there were no days off for the slaves. Sex meant little to the slave owners. Women who where well along in their pregnancies still had to do field work.
Typical food allowance was a peck of corn meal and three to four pounds of salt pork or bacon per week per person. This diet could be supplemented by vegetables from their gardens, by fish or wild game, and molasses but this wasn’t a usual thing. The slaves prepared their own food and carried it out into the field in buckets. Slaves were housed in slave cabins. Small, rudely built of logs with clapboard sidings, with clay chinking. The Floors were packed with dirt, and they were leaky and drafty. The combination of wet, dirt, and cold made them diseased infested environments.
The Essay on The Slave Trade
The Slave Trade The slave trade of the 15th-19th century is an example of the largest migration in the history of the world. This forced migration turned out to be the event that influenced the historical process until now. Although the slavery derives from the ancient world, the transatlantic slave trade appears to be the largest in its scale and amount of people involved. Approximately 12 ...
Northup served a number of masters. Some brutally cruel and others whose humanity he praised. Each plantation had its own set of morals, codes, and rules, but all slaves had a slave master they had to obey no matter what. Treatments such as mutilation, branding, chaining, and murder regulated. Which means it was not against the law in the south to do these disgusting things to human beings. The way slave owners treated the slaves put a barrier between whites and blacks. This made African American look and whites in an almost hateful way. They wanted to rebel but knew the consequence that came with that.
And for years to come the relationship between whites and blacks where influenced by slavery. Most slave owners or individuals that agreed with slavery thought that Paternalism was a good thing. Paternalism to them was that they were doing to salves a favor, owning them was in the slave’s best interest, but to African American it was a different story. They felt like they had to not only depend on their salve owners, but they had to depend on them for their survival. The slaves fate where depended all on their slave owners. Northup demonstration with was paternalism was a reality in my point of view.
Without the help of some slave owners which Northup fate depended on he would have not became a free man. Twelve Years a Slave has showed me a totally different side to slavery. I personally never knew that you could be born a free man and be kidnapped into the slave trade. To see the struggle, and hard times Northup went through makes me respect him even more. Just think about being kidnapped away from your loved and not being able to prove that you’re a lawful free citizen. This had to be mind bolding time for him. This book is one of a kind. It not only gives you details about slavery and the lifestyle, but the lawful side of it also.
