Twelve Years a Slave: (Penguin Orange Collection) Paperback – Deckle Edge, October 18, 2016

This was a powerful read and an eye opener for me. Although t was a slow read, it was well worth it.

Full disclaimer: I’ve not seen the movie.Okay, usually the disclaimer goes with a film review of a book turned into a movie, but this movie was so successful I thought I should mention it.Being a book person, I thought I would read the book. I was quite moved by Harriet Jacob’s “Incidents in the Life of A Slave Girl” many years ago, and have returned to Fredrick Douglass’ “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave,” more than once. Histories of slave life can be informing, but hearing about the experience from a slave gives us a new perspective.Like many books in this vein, Solomon Northup’s “12 Years A Slave” sounds almost dispassionate in its description. It is likely a matter of style and time that Northup can describe his experience almost objectively. His impassioned pleas sound formal, but this was not a time for emotional storytelling. However, one cannot read this book without hearing Northup’s struggle to survive this living hell. What is most insightful by Northup is that he realizes his unique position in the slave world (a free man taken into slavery) and he is sensitive to the plight of others. When you can look with compassion on others in the midst of your own suffering, you are a rare individual.Northup’s patience with waiting for the right time to reveal his free status is amazing. He questions himself a bit in the book, but even his one failed attempt shows how little trust he could put in others. It also gives you a glimpse into how trapped slaves were, especially those like Northup who was not even near a city.As a music lover, I was thrilled to see the advantages his musical skills brought him. The chance to travel off the plantation, to earn some money, and even find solace, all speak to the power of music. Even in the midst of the slave system, both masters and servants seek good musSolomon_Northup_engraving_c1853ic.What is disconcerting to modern ears can be his praise of nice slave owners, or those who treat them in a Christian fashion (slavery aside). Again, Northup views these people as victims of the system, which in a way they are. Of course, we hold them more responsible for their actions today. But it is interesting, and difficult, to hear a former slave speak well of slave owners.But in those words you find the honesty which makes this a good book. I had hoped to have my 14-year-old read it, but it will be a tough read. Northup at times gets into details which are historically interesting (how he caught fish), but make for slow reading. But those with patience will be rewarded.Having read the book, I do want to see the movie. Adding more of a “story” to Northup’s writing could make for a moving story on film.If you want to read more about Northup, the Wikipedia page has a good summary.

In 1841, Solomon Northup was a free black man living in upstate New York, with his wife and three kids. His freedom ended abruptly one day, when two men named Brown and Hamilton tricked Solomon with a promise of a job in the circus. Brown and Hamilton were just looking to take advantage of the Fugitive slave laws in the U.S. at the time, and looking to collect a quick dollar by selling Solomon back into bondage. Solomon was first kept in a holding pen in Washington D.C., and held by a man named James Burch, who claimed that Solomon was his slave, which of course he was not. It is in the slave pen where he meets Eliza, once a mistress to her master with kids from him and had some measure of freedom but she was sold to another master and now resided in the slave pen. Eliza was living the life of a slave, and suffering the emotional devastation from that fact, by constantly weeping.Solomon was transported first to Virginia and then to New Orleans, where he was bought by William Ford, a relatively kind owner who also bought Eliza, but could not afford Eliza’s children, and therefor added to her constant state of melancholy. Ford was in debt so he eventually sold Solomon to a cruel master named Tibbeats who worked Solomon day and night whipped him regularly, and nearly hung him to death, if not for the actions of an overseer named Chaplin, and a 400 dollar mortgage put on Solomon by Ford, Solomon, now called Platt, would have been a dead man that day. After more severe treatment at the hands of Tibbeats, Solomon ran away from Tibbeats and back to Ford, but the happiness Solomon felt with Ford was not meant to last.Solomon was soon no longer the property of Tibbeats or Ford, he was sold to another slaveholder in Louisiana named Edwin Epps, who seemed to share the sadism of Tibbeats, and none of the small kindnesses of Ford, when Epps was drunk he was even more cruel to his slaves. Epps had a favorite slave, named Patsey from Guinea, she could pick cotton better than Solomon and better than any other slave, male or female for that matter, but the unwanted intentions of Epps and the unwavering jealousy ofMrs. Epps made Patsey’s life intolerable. She tried to bribe Solomon to kill her, but he did not.Solomon had resolved to gain his freedom from the brutal and sadistic Epps one way or another. He wrote a letter to his friends in the North and asked a man named Armsby to deliver it. Armsby had come to Epps plantation looking for an overseer’s job. He spent several days with Epps, and Solomon somehow trusted him with his freedom, but Armsby betrayed him and told Epps about the letter In 1852 Solomon wrote another letter and asked a carpenter’s assistant named Bass to deliver it to his friends in New York State. Bass was Canadian, and vocally anti-slavery, but would he deliver Solomon’s letter, and secure his freedom?There are not enough glowing adjectives to describe this book. If you care about history, this is a must read for you. This is real history, written contemporaneously after the events of Solomon Northup’s kidnapping, and subsequent life as a slave. There is no embellishment here, there doesn’t need to be. It is just one man’s story, his harrowing experience with the peculiar institution of slavery.Solomon is first kept in a slave pen in Washington D.C. and the irony of the fact that he is being held in bondage, while just a few feet away leaders speak of freedom, that irony is not lost on Solomon. He speaks so eloquently and powerfully about freedom, real freedom, from the perspective of a man who has just had his every freedom taken from him. Today, in the atmosphere of political hyperbole that we live in, many politicians and people speak of their ‘freedoms’ being taken away by this law or that. If they can still protest the fact that laws are impinging on their rights, they haven’t lost any freedom at all.Solomon’s relationship with God is an integral part of his story. Most people in his position would be bitter and angry, but he steadfastly believed that God would one day deliver him. I find Solomon’s faith remarkable in the face of what he had to deal with every day for 12 years. Moreover, Solomon described William Ford as a ‘good Christian.’ I personally don’t think anyone who owned people as property is a good Christian, but Solomon Northrup did, and that makes him a good Christian.I implore you to read this book, it is not an easy book to read, reading about man’s inhumanity to other men in such stark terms, but it is well worth the effort.

You can learn so much from reading the true story written by one who has experienced it. It is better than reading fiction. Written so long ago the language is different. That in itself is educational too.