Bonus Book! 12 Years a Slave

12 Years a Slave by Solomon Northup

Primary Source (1853/2013* - 242 pp.)

When on Earth does a primary source become a major movie release?

12 Years a Slave, 160 years later.

Solomon Northup was born free, lived in New York State with his wife and children, practised carpentry while playing the violin on the side, and then was lured to Washington, DC with the promise of being in a travelling circus band for a fair wage. From there, he was drugged,** imprisoned, shipped to New Orleans under an assumed name, sold into slavery at an auction block, and then put to work on three slave plantations. Finally, after almost twelve years in captivity (1841-1853), under William Ford (1841-1842), John Tibeats (1842-1843) and Edwin Epps (1843-1853), he was able to send letters to his compatriots back in New York, some of whom received their letter and immediately came to his rescue.

The form of the narrative combines the legacy of 18th-century English literature with a modern touch that resonates today. The descriptions at the start of each chapter correspond roughly to the succeeding paragraphs, with each description acting as an entry in a chapter's table of contents. Although this makes events like fights and attempted escapes less unexpected, it adds anticipation. Learning that there will be an axe attack in one chapter, for example, makes it harder to put the book down. It also shows Northup's ambition in seeking a wide audience for 12 Years a Slave, as memoirs or journals typically do not take their forms from novels.

The opening scenes, in which Northup descends from freedom into slavery, contain some of the most harrowing descriptions. Whereas slavery, once started, turned into a sort of daily monotony for Northup, the transition toward slavery involved: deception by two supposed circus ringleaders, the aforementioned possible drugging, unlawful seizure of a government-issued document establishing Northup's freedom, imprisonment in fetters in a slave pen, the giving of the assumed name Platt to Northup, and a bout of smallpox on the boat to New Orleans. Northup's bewilderment is transferred to the reader. Northup comments on the poor showing at the one circus show he played at on his violin: "The audience was extraordinarily sparse, and not of the selectest character at that, and Hamilton's report of the proceeds presented but a 'beggarly account of empty boxes.' " (14) His early attempt at rescue in New Orleans was thwarted by the uncertainty of the auction block, which could lead Northup to any number of possible destinations: "...it was then impossible to conjecture my ultimate destination, and requesting he would take measures to rescue me." (43)

Northup was a highly literate man who composed letters, read when he had a book in front of him, described the inner machinations of a sugar mill to a level of detail I could not possibly have done, (139-140) and made 12 Years a Slave a literary work. Ultimately, though, Northup faces the recognition that no matter how poorly Tibeats or Epps treats him, they are all human: "Blessed be sleep! It visiteth all alike, descending as the dews of heaven on the bond and free." (94) When the plantations' inhabitants come to blows, they are surprisingly balanced, such as when Northup defends himself from Tibeats so effectively that Northup puts his foot on Tibeats's neck until Tibeats relents. (71) Northup waxes literary when, in describing the events of years later, he decries the entire civilization of the pre-Civil War South: "Every man carries his bowie knife, and when two fall out, they set to work hacking and thrusting at each other, more like savages than civilized and enlightened beings." (134-135) Rather than a book summary or (gasp!) a book report, this entry weighs the merits of a primary source as a literary source. Here, Northup straddles the fine line between a true diary, factual but private, and a written performance. Gates Jr. acknowledges as such when, in the book's Afterword, he openly acknowledges that Northup engages in occasional factual wrongness, including regarding Northup's own birthyear.^ Northup's contemporaries verified the heart of his account, but it is interesting to see just how much the factual timeline can be bent until it breaks.

Northup's descriptions of the vicissitudes of slave life jar the reader into just how arbitrary an existence they were forced to live. I was taken aback at the average daily quota of two hundred pounds of cotton picked per day per slave, (109-110) considering I think of cotton as being an extremely lightweight material. By comparison, a heavy pair of jeans weighs approximately two pounds. Patsey's five hundred pounds of cotton per day seems unreachable to me. The abundance of bacon sounds delicious until Northup reminds the reader a few times that it is frequently worm-infested, rendering it inedible; he then remarks that the "flesh of the coon^^ is palatable" and that roast possum is "delicious". (131-132) As someone who's eaten nothing more adventurous in the USA than Kentucky burgoo, I can't imagine the foods Northup describes. All of that changes once per year, though, on a very special day I can identify with: "It was Christmas morning-the happiest day in the whole year for the slave." (189) His description of Mary McCoy's Christmas feast in 1852 portends good things to come. Northup would be rescued less than two weeks later.

Samuel Bass, a Canadian abolitionist who found work on Epps's plantation, sends the letters to Sandy Hill, New York, that would lead to Northup's rescue. Northup's overhearing of a conversation between Bass and Epps leads Northup to realize that Bass could be of assistance, especially when Bass gives his opinion on the institution of slavery: "There's a sin, a fearful sin, resting on this nation, that will not go unpunished forever." (179) That punishment would come eight to twelve years after the release of Northup's memoir, when slavery was destroyed by the Union Army. Sadly, although there is evidence of Northup being alive in 1863, his last public appearance was in 1857, (236) and there is no extant document showing what Northup thought of the Civil War.

As a Canadian, I feel proud of the fact that Samuel Bass was Canadian. He is also the only named Canadian in the book. One hundred percent of the Canadians who are mentioned by name in 12 Years a Slave help Northup emerge from slavery. The one point Bass omits is the complete lack of mention of the name "Platt" anywhere on the letters he sends. (184) Due to this omission, and Northup never going by his actual name in Louisiana, Henry Northup almost never found Solomon. Even with his best efforts, Solomon Northup needed a little luck to return to freedom.

12 Years a Slave has three appendices that further restrict the percentage of paper that actually contains Northup's writing. Appendix A is a copy of the New York statute under which the Governor was compelled to appoint and compensate a representative to rescue a freeman kidnapped into slavery: Chap. 375, An act more effectually to protect the free citizens of this state from being kidnapped, or reduced to Slavery, (219-220) reproduced on Wikisource here. Being the interpreter of statutes I am, I read this short statute a couple times. The main thing that jumped out at me was the preponderance of the word "shall". When a slave was kidnapped from New York State into slavery, the Governor shall appoint a representative, the representative shall rescue the person in question, and the Governor shall compensate the representative, at least for expenses incurred. This is mandatory language, signalling that the legislature did not want to take its chances with a governor who was either sympathetic toward slavery or simply too apathetic to open the public coffer for a rescue mission. Many statutes that delegate authority use words like may, permissive language that grant a discretionary power. Not so for Chap. 375, which ties the Governor's hands. To Governor Washington Hunt's credit, he "took a lively interest in the matter" and appointed the self-nominated Henry Northup as representative immediately. (195)

Where does 12 Years a Slave leave us in terms of appreciating a primary source as a work of literature, then? My old mantra of art appreciation - "Does it do what it is attempting to do?" applies once again. 12 Years a Slave was meant both as a memoir and as an attempt to reach a large audience. As a memoir, Northup's attention to detail (see, for example, the sugar mill description) grants historians the source material they require. As an attempt to reach a large audience, the fact that a major movie was based on it 160 years after its release should suffice.

Ease of Reading: 6

Educational Content: 9

NOTE: I occasionally jump between present tense and past tense during this entry. The rule is simple: present tense applies to events confined to the book, whereas past tense applies to historical events primarily outside the book. For example, Bass sends the letters, as the evidence for this event lies within the book's narrative, as whereas Hunt appointed Henry Northup, an event that occurred when Solomon Northup was understandably not present.

*Northup's original account was written, published and discussed widely in 1853. The edition I read, from 2013, contains three introductions (Foreword by Steve McQueen, Editorial Essay by Henry Louis Gates Jr., Introduction by Ira Berlin) and an afterword by Gates Jr. I did a double-take before realizing that Steve McQueen, the director, was born six years after The Great Escape (1963), starring the other Steve McQueen.

**Gates Jr. thinks Northup's captors got him very drunk, (233) whereas other sources state that the effects Northup relays are consistent with belladonna or laudanum poisoning. The exact cause of Northup's shaky memory of that night is unimportant compared to what he endured afterward; this uncertainty merely shows how inexact a reading of events 160+ years ago is bound to be.

^Northup claims to have been born in 1807, whereas Gates Jr.'s assessment of the available records shows Northup to have been born in 1808. (240) Chillingly for me, assuming the 1808 date is correct, that means Northup was abducted at the same age I am now.

^^"coon" is short for "raccoon". This was a term that I, being from Toronto, grasped right away.