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Start discussion here for Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup.

From Penguin (Publisher):

INTRODUCTION

For a free black man who lived in a society in which most black people were politically proscribed, economically impoverished, and socially ostracized, Solomon Northup lived a good life. He, his wife, and children enjoyed a modest prosperity in the upstate New York community of Saratoga Springs where his reputation as a clever jack-of-all-trades and an accomplished fiddler gained him the respect of white and black.

But free status and admirable reputation meant little in a slave society, where the worth of black flesh was measured by labor transformed into dollars. While slavery may have been abolished in the North, kidnappers and their confederates-driven by the swelling demand for men and women to grow cotton, sugar, and other valuable commodities-roamed the land. The lack of respect for black humanity put all black people, no matter what their standing, at risk.

In the spring of 1841, Northup's wife left Saratoga for short-term employment in a nearby town.

In her absence, Northup-eager to earn a few extra dollars, display his talents, and perhaps see a bit of the world-eagerly accepted an invitation to join a traveling circus. His travels went well until Northup reached the nation's capital where his companions drugged and sold him to a local slave trader. Beaten mercilessly when he asserted his claim to freedom, Northup was shipped to Louisiana where he labored as a slave for more than a decade.

In Twelve Years a Slave, Solomon Northup tells the story of his captivity. His account is distinguished from the some 150 slave-authored narratives published before the Civil War, as Northup had been born free. It is a brutal story, which provides an unvarnished view of the inhumanity inherent in the system of chattel bondage. More than any contemporary account of slavery, Northup's provides a full sense of how slavery compounded the most sordid human instincts and twisted even well-meaning acts beyond recognition. But Northup was determined neither to exaggerate slaveholder's inequity nor the slave's virtue. Slave masters were both good and bad; slaves strong and weak. Rather than rehearse the well-known stereotypes, Northup exposed complex ways in which men and women, master and slave reacted to the unspeakable evil of enslavement. It was not a pretty picture.

But if slavery was a hellish nightmare, living death in the words of one scholar, it was also life. Twelve Years a Slave explains how some men and women refused to be dehumanized by dehumanizing circumstances, creating meaningful relationships and maintaining estimable values in the most difficult of circumstances. Others collapsed before the unrelenting brutality that was the essence of slavery. Northup's narrative tells both stories and historians have declared his harsh truths to be one of the best accounts of slavery.

Through his years of enslavement, Northup never surrendered his desire to reclaim his birthright in freedom. Heart-rending betrayals frustrated his several attempts to escape. Eventually, however, a chance encounter with an eccentric Canadian journeyman carpenter-whose antislavery views were so beyond the conventional wisdom that most white Southerners dismissed them as harmless-informed Northup's wife of his whereabouts. She, in turn, mobilized Northup's friends and local officials to secure his liberty.

In 1853, Northup reunited with his family. His escape from bondage made national news, elevating Northup to celebrity status. With the aid of abolitionist friends, he took to the lecture circuit and a local littérateur helped him pen Twelve Years a Slave, which went through several editions during its first years in print. By 1856, it had sold some 30,000 copies. Although the book enabled Northup to restore his family's prosperity, his fame was fleeting. Attempts to bring his kidnappers to justice foundered in the courts and came to nothing. Northup enjoyed his last years with his family in nearly total anonymity. Nothing is known of when or where he died. But with Twelve Years a Slave, he left his mark for posterity.

ABOUT SOLOMON NORTHUP

Solomon Northup was a free man kidnapped into slavery in Washington, D.C, in 1841. Shortly after his escape, he published his memoirs to great acclaim and brought legal action against his abductors, though they were never prosecuted. The details of his life thereafter are unknown, but he is believed to have died in Glen Falls, New York, around 1863.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Solomon Northup's Twelve Years a Slave was one of some 150 so-called "Slave Narratives" published before the Civil War. Their purpose was to give the white Northerners a first-hand glimpse of slavery and to enlist them in the antislavery crusade. They were both literature and propaganda. What is the essence of Northup's description of Southern slavery?

2. One of the distinguishing features of Twelve Years a Slave is its specificity. Unlike most slave narratives, Northup did not employ pseudonyms for persons or places and rarely wrote in generalities. Northup also studiously avoided stereotypes: there are good masters and bad; slaves who resist and those who collapse before white power. Northup hoped that this frank portrayal would convince readers of the authenticity of his story. Does it? How does it achieve that aim?

3. After witnessing the brutalities not only of white masters against enslaved blacks, but also white brutality against other whites, Northup observed, "It is not the fault of the slaveholder that he is cruel, so much as it is the fault of the system under which he lives" (p. 135). Do you think this observation is accurate? Does it seem accurate to state that both whites and enslaved blacks that lived in the South were mutually affected by the system of slavery?

4. Although Northup says little directly about the struggle against slavery that is preoccupying the nation in the decade before the Civil War, Twelve Years a Slave is one of the most powerful weapons in the antislavery arsenal. What makes it so?

5. Another distinguishing mark of Twelve Years a Slave is the author's free status. Most of the slave narratives-like that of Frederick Douglass, for example-were written by an author who had been born into slavery. How does Northup's free status shape his narrative? How might it have influenced the book's reception?

6. How does Northup depict black life in the North?

7. In the North, free black people lived in fear of kidnappers, who operated with near impunity in almost all Northern cities. Yet, Northup seems impervious to the possibilities that he might be targeted and that the offer to join a circus might be too good to be true. What might have made Northup miss the seemingly obvious danger?

8. Solomon Northup was a keen observer of human nature. Did his ability to discern people's character build solidarity with his fellow slaves or did his analytic skills to observe how others dealt with the reality of enslavement distance him from the slave community? With what types of men and women did Northup find commonality or comradeship?

9. Solomon Northup never gave up hope of regaining his freedom and resisted the dehumanization of enslavement in many ways. How did he and other slaves resist slavery?

10. The family played a critical role in Northup's life in both freedom and slavery. How does his portrayal of black family life shape his narrative and his critique of slavery?

11. Related to the emphasis on family life is the role played by women, black and white, in Northup's narrative. In fact, females are among the most important characters in Twelve Years a Slave. How do women serve as a measure for the nature of slavery?

12. Describe the position of women within the slaveholding world. How would you characterize someone like Eliza or Patsy? What are the differences between the experiences of enslaved women and slaveholding mistresses like Mrs. Epps? Are women more or less vulnerable than men to the brutality of a slave society, or is it a different kind of vulnerability altogether? What advantages or disadvantages might enslaved women have over enslaved men?

13. Northup has a good deal to say about labor. What is his understanding of the nature of work, the development of a work ethic, the relations between employees and employers (in the North) and slave and masters (in the South), and the quality and productivity of labor in both sections?

14. Music plays a large role in Northup's life. Northup's omnipresent fiddle was a source of empowerment and a symbol of his subordination. What does the fiddle tell us about Northup and African American life in slavery and freedom?

It surprised me that Solomon felt the need to include an appendix with copies of the legal documentation that proved he was a free man. To me this seemed to conflict with his notion that slavery was a legal and moral abomination. It however rhymes with the fact that at times I detected a feeling of superiority from Solomon over some of the other slaves, particularly those who reacted weakly in the face of their ordeal. In that sense I felt it distanced him from them (Q8).

This also relates to Q3, in that the system elevated Solomon above the other slaves because as a free man he acquired skills that they could not, and that in turn meant that when he met this mass of slaves that were not as skilled or confident as himself, his own latent prejudices started to surface. Some of his distance was of course for self-preservation, because those living under slavery for all their lives might out of fear give away his plans for escape.

I read it a couple of months ago so I can't be certain, but is there any mention of him trying to obtain the freedom of any of those who he spent 12 years with or joining the antislavery movement after he is freed? I have read that he went on a lucrative lecture circuit - but maybe it's me trying to look at things back then from today's perspective.

Well the movie just took the Oscar. So excited to start this one - so then I can see the movie. But gotta finish up a few other books first.

This book was hard to read because it described how brutal the kidnappers and slave owners were. As impressive as Oscar winners are, I could not sit through the movie. I did finish the book. It should be required reading for all Americans and anyone who wants to understand this nation.

George wrote: "It surprised me that Solomon felt the need to include an appendix with copies of the legal documentation that proved he was a free man. To me this seemed to conflict with his notion that slavery wa..."

I'm not surprised that he included this information. First, it helped make it clear that he, a black man, was the author of this book. That was a big deal back then - most people wouldn't believe that a black man could write so well. Second, after having had so much trouble with his freedom, I could understand his wanting to have those papers copied everywhere.

I have to think that his going on a lecture circuit was a way to let people know of the horrors of slavery, and would be an attempt to end all slavery - not simply free the people who Northrup was with.

Helen wrote: "This book was hard to read because it described how brutal the kidnappers and slave owners were. As impressive as Oscar winners are, I could not sit through the movie. I did finish the book. It sho..."

I, too, have been reluctant to watch the movie. I was likewise reluctant to read the book, because it is so awful to read about man's humanity to man and of course so much later there is nothing we can do for those people - they are long dead. I had read Roots and Uncle Tom's Cabin (the classics on this; I'm sure there's much more) and did not know what I would get from 12 Years a Slave. But I did find it worthwhile. The other two books, although based on true cases, necessarily incorporated some fiction. 12 Years a Slave did not, and so it spoke with more authority.

I am about half way through the audiobook, and i like it.,, i mean what i get from it. More later,

The New York times ran a 160 year old correction to the original story on Solomn Northup.


Here's the link to the story in Slate. It includes the original 1853 article and the Tweet that caught the incorrect spelling.

Courtney wrote: "The New York times ran a 160 year old correction to the original story on Solomn Northup.


Here's the link to the story in Slate. It includes the original 1853 article and the Tweet that caught t..."

Thanks for the link to the article! Very interesting.

I am almost finished with the book, and I am glad that I am reading it before I see the movie. What impresses me the most is the effective writing and his ability to take nonfiction and weave it into a compelling story. Very well done and short and powerful enough for a high school class to read.

However, readers should be aware of the North's complicity with slavery as well as the nations of West Africa. All had a hand in the institutionalization of slavery. An interesting mockumentary by Spike Lee, CSA, portrays what would have happened if the North did not win the Civil War.

George wrote: "It surprised me that Solomon felt the need to include an appendix with copies of the legal documentation that proved he was a free man. ...is there any mention of him trying to obtain the freedom of any of those who he spent 12 years with or joining the antislavery movement after he is freed? I have read that he went on a lucrative lecture circuit... "

The book itself, like most of the many other slave narratives published around the time, constituted activism in favor of the abolition movement. The lecture circuit was the same thing. It was one of the main ways of drumming up support for abolition. Northup was sort of a 19th century version of Malala Yousafzai.

The only legal way to free someone else's slaves at the time was by buying them and emancipating them. Freeing them by unlegal means was done (through the Underground Railroad) but probably incompatible with being a public figure, as Northup became.

Northup was probably wise to advertise and prove the fact that he was a freeman. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 caused a great many problems for escaped slaves, especially those who had gone public by writing books or speaking. Many were forced to flee to Canada or Britain.

BTW, for those interested in slave narratives, there's a ton of them at Documenting the American South for free, including Northup's.

I am halfway through the audio book and I may be missing out on some of the experience due to the narrator's voice - which just sounds so not impacted by what is being read, jolly is not the word, maybe scholarly? The voice takes away from some of the emotional impact that should be present, but still, I can get the story.

Sarah wrote: "I am halfway through the audio book and I may be missing out on some of the experience due to the narrator's voice - which just sounds so not impacted by what is being read, jolly is not the word, ..."

I am listening also and i had the same thought. Then again, i am wondering how else he could read it. It is a long monologue, really. But it does make it easy to get distracted. I do know how many times I had to go back.

I have just read the first 3 chapters today as part of a buddy read.

My response to Question 2: I think that Northrup's use of very specific details of time, place, descriptions of people adds credibility to his account in a major way. Sometimes when a person speaks in generalities or is vague on detail, their account seems more questionable. A common example is a teen account that he / she was "out" and "with friends." I appreciate Northrup's highly specific account of what happened. It helped that I am familiar with some of the locations, for example NYC and Washington. That helped me visualize what he was relaying in his account.

Question 6: how does Northrup describe black life in the north?

The lifestyle that Northrup describes once he becomes a free man, sounds comparable to the life of a white person. As a free man, Northrup chose where he would live and how he would make a living. He bought property, then moved when he found a location that he thought was more suitable. He and his wife used their varied skills to earn money to support themselves. They had prosperous times and lean times.

This was very surprising to me. As a northerner, growing up 100 yrs after Northrup became a free man, I did not see that type of mobility among the black population. It seemed to me that black people in my area lived in a tight-knit black community, with substandard housing and limited low paying job options eg. housekeeping, yard work, harvesting produce.

Janet wrote: "Question 6: how does Northrup describe black life in the north?

This was very surprising to me. As a northerner, growing up 100 yrs after Northrup became a free man, I did not see that type of mobility among the black population...."

That's very interesting. I wonder if that means things regressed after Northup's time (possibly due to the mass migration of blacks from the South), or if Northup's experience in the North was an unusual one?

Janet wrote: "Question 6: how does Northrup describe black life in the north?

The lifestyle that Northrup describes once he becomes a free man, sounds comparable to the life of a white person. As a free man, N..."

His close and ongoing relationship/friendship(?) with the family of his father's ex-owners (the other Northups) is also a bit surprising.

George wrote: "Janet wrote: "Question 6: how does Northrup describe black life in the north?

This was very surprising to me. As a northerner, growing up 100 yrs after Northrup became a free man, I did not see t..."

George, maybe Northrup's experience was unusual. That's an interesting thought. It seems like it was more common for newly freed slaves to migrate in groups to the north. I would be interested in other opinions on the topic.

Anne wrote: "Janet wrote: "Question 6: how does Northrup describe black life in the north?

The lifestyle that Northrup describes once he becomes a free man, sounds comparable to the life of a white person. As..."

Anne,

I agree. My only knowledge is based on fiction or non fiction accounts of slavery. I have not read another description of a free black man or woman being treated with respect and goodwill by their former owners. Oppression and abuse seems more the norm. I am aware of white owners & their families forming bonds with black slaves, but the black person seemed rather stuck in a socially outcast and / or subservient relationship. Interesting account by Northrup....

Here are a few things I've garnered on the lives of free black people in the north - after abolition up there and before abolition in the south.

From Wendell Phillips: Liberty's Hero (a dry and dusty tome only for the truly motivated, I'm afraid):
Among the battles abolitionists were fighting in at least some parts of the north during this period were segregation: of public transport by private companies (the governments said they had no right to interfere), and also I think, of schools.

Segregation in higher education seems to have been taken for granted even by most of the abolitionists. Some of them financially supported students to the first black (and rather late in coming) university, Wilberforce. Today we might take it for granted that they would fight for, and fund integration to existing universities, but they didn't as far as I know - I don't know if there was an institutional barrier to that.

From my visits to Philadelphia:
The African-American Museum has a great deal of information on the free black population of the city. They occupied all walks of life, from working to upper class, and many professions. Many working class men were involved in sea-faring as I recall, but also butchers, bakers, etc. There was not total integration between black and white families but there was mixing, including many interracial families at all class levels. Many black and mixed families were actively involved in abolition, especially if they were wealthy and educated. This museum is small but fascinating by the way, I highly recommend it, if you happen to be near Philly.

Very interesting information from the African-American Museum in Philadelphia. I have not been there.

I grew up in MA. It is an area that heavily focuses on the American Revolution, perhaps to the exclusion of other important historical events.

RitaSkeeter wrote:
In relation to slavery in general (not just in the South but in other places where it occurs also) I just can't understand how people can behave so barbarically to others and to deny their very human-ness..."

It's something I'm trying to get to grips with, as I am writing a novel set in Jamaica between 1770-96, part of the period slavery existed there. But I think we can make some observations today, which may help us to understand. I think people seem to have a deep-seated tribal instinct which though dormant much of the time, can easily be brought to the fore.

Central African Republic - Muslims brutalised Christians when they came to power, now the Christians are in the ascendacny, they are cleansing the entire Muslim population from major cities.

Libya is the same with different tribal factions fighting instead of brining the country together. And there are many other examples from around the world.

another interesting book from roughly the same time period was Behind the Scenes: Or, Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House - which was about the woman who became known as Mrs Lincoln's Dressmaker - she was a slave who was freed and then became a well-known seamstress

RitaSkeeter wrote: "Chapter 6 spoiler [spoilers removed].

In relation to slavery in general (not just in the South but in other places where it occurs also) I just can't understand how people can behave so barbarical..."

Yeah - this scene really got to me too.

Dee, looks like a good resource. I am new to the concept of "slave narratives."

Lot of slave narratives for free here:

Documenting the American South

9. Solomon Northup never gave up hope of regaining his freedom and resisted the dehumanization of enslavement in many ways. How did he and other slaves resist slavery?

The "peculiar institution" of slavery has so many layers to it. One good resource is the PBS series, "Africans in America." Slaves always resisted. Running away, revolts, passive aggression (slow to move, acting unintelligent, small acts of defiance or sabotage). Solomon did all of these. What saved him was his skills and intellect without letting on to others.

In the classroom, many students feel that they would do this or that and not put up with that treatment, even when we read, Warriors Don't Cry (the story of the Little Rock Nine). But what they do not understand is the depth of terror and violence that was a constant and that the inherent will to live survives. What is also difficult for most is the thought of slavery - how could we allow it as a nation? The institution of slavery has been around since the beginning of time. It was considered a booty of war, one was born into that class, or one was sold by a family that could not afford not to. Slavery (illegal) still exists today in Northern Africa as well as through the modern day system of human trafficking. Man's desire for wealth will always oppress a weaker people - even our iPhones are produced by "slave" labor in China. How many of us have cell phones and buy them without thinking about the human cost to make them?

What truly changed was our country's proclamation that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." That was a first in humankind and sparked a wave of revolutions throughout the world and the abolitionist movement. Despite our awful complicity with the institution, in addition to how long it took us to rid ourselves of it, and then to secure the promises of those freedoms, we continue as a country to strive to uphold those truths.

In actuality, Brazil imported the most slaves of all - over 4 million. They had no care for them - they literally worked them to death and just imported more. As much as ours was a brutal system, it wasn't the worst in the Western Hemisphere. The US only imported 5% of the total slave population (500,000).

http://ad4change.org/wp-content/uploa...

But the slave trade was worldwide.

Twelve Years a Slave was a compelling narrative because Solomon was at first a free man and knew the taste of freedom. How horrible to be tricked into losing such precious freedom! I don't understand how he could have been so trusting and naive. But he never gave up hope and would not let them take his dignity. All I could think of though at the end, is how can you leave the others to such misery? Wasn't there anyway to buy them and take them with him? How they must have felt watching him ride away. I wonder what happened to all of them.......

Thank you Cathy. I think that it must have been hard for Solomon to leave those behind that he cared for, but I think his book was his contribution to the greater cause. At the end, in the scene of his deliverance is when I finally wept - it was bitter sweet. There were tears of joy that one man's hardship as a slave had ended, he was triumphant, but also still devastating because of all the inhumanity that still existed for so many others.

Cathy wrote: "Wasn't there anyway to buy them and take them with him?.

It's so true. And yet as a slave, Solomon himself was worth one thousand dollars. His labor during that time was worth one dollar a day. In other words, he was worth just over three years of a laborer's work, in today's terms maybe around $50,000.

I just estimated that figure loosely from the book. People using more sophisticated methods often set the value of a slave at around $100,000 in today's terms. It puts the possibility of ordinary people owning, let alone buying and manumitting slaves into perspective.

Cathy wrote: "9. All I could think of though at the end, is how can you leave the others to such misery? Wasn't there anyway to buy them and take them with him? ..."

Thank you Cathy. That's exactly the point I was trying to make in my earlier post, even if not so clearly. We learn that he and his family become well to do again after the publication of his book and his lecture tours. If he had bonded with any of the other slaves, especially Patsy, then I would have thought he would at least try to buy her freedom (even if he had to raise additional funds for it from the people interested in what he had to say).

George wrote: "Cathy wrote: "9. All I could think of though at the end, is how can you leave the others to such misery? Wasn't there anyway to buy them and take them with him? ..."

Thank you Cathy. That's exact..."

from History.comIn spite of the memoir’s commercial success, Northup earned only $3,000, and his ultimate fate is still a mystery.

Despite the wording of the article, George is right that $3000 is actually quite a bit a lot of money in those days ($150,000 to $300,000) for us. Northup could have bought Patsey for a bit less than a third of that - assuming Epps had been willing to sell her which is very far from certain. No doubt his wife had already asked him to do just that many a time!

It's interesting to think like a novelist and imagine the story of how her emancipation could happen and how her future - and his - might pan out as a result.

Anne wrote: "George wrote: "It surprised me that Solomon felt the need to include an appendix with copies of the legal documentation that proved he was a free man. ...is there any mention of him trying to obtai..."

I agree with Anne. The narratives had a distinct purpose - to inform the public of the horrors of slavery and support the abolition movement. One thing I learned was that the abolitionists pushed the myth that Europeans went onto the shores of West Africa and kidnapped Africans themselves. There was never any mention of the complicity of the African kingdoms, especially Dahomey and they gave this idyllic version of life in the North. However, it is believed that the first Africans that came to the shores of VA were treated as indentured servants and that there were many who prospered. One that always sticks with me is Anthony Johnson whose eventually owned a farm in VA and slaves himself. His family flourished and continued with the farm. However, when slavery began to become institutionalized, the family lost their farm and were condemned to slavery. That is what is so horrifying about it. What our nation would have been like if slavery never became what it did,

Cathy, the point I like most is our complacency today with our support as a people, as society, toward slavery, i.e. supporting companies that use slave labor. I would also point out our part in the degradation of the planet and rape of the world - its lands and global resources, as our human population continues to grow exponentially and corporations make exorbitant profits polluting and running government while we sit around supporting them, getting fat, doing a whole lot of nothing, living the dream at the expense of future generations of the human race period.

Anne wrote: It's interesting to think like a novelist and imagine the story of how her emancipation could happen and how her future - and his - might pan out as a result ..."

Thank you Cath..."

I'm certainly not suggesting he could have bought Patsey and taken up with her. But here is my thinking: We tend to help people who are close to us, family, friends, before widening it to other groups in general. From what is being said, it seems Northup helped his family first (which is understandable and reasonable) but then if I accept his book and lecture tours were a way of helping, he then chose to help a more general slave population. My point is that in those 12 years he was with slaves such as Patsey, he did not appear to develop a close enough relationship with them to consider helping them - I think throughout the narrative he was stressing his difference from them to the point of even deliberately separating himself from them.

The institution of slavery also brought out things in him that he was probably unaware were there.In some of the slave narratives I have read, it's evident that some house slaves thought themselves better than field slaves, and light skin slaves felt themselves better than dark skin slaves. Northup himself identified this in one of the female slaves he met early on, who thought she was better than and would move on to better things than the others. I see no reason why he cannot have been afflicted by the same thing. He was at pains to highlight his skills, to the point at one stage of being so pleased at being praised by the master for doing a good job that he wanted to do more.

Also, at times I felt he connected better with and had more sympathy for Epp's wife than he did with the other slaves.

Going to see the movie Wednesday.

Another thought:
In an earlier post, someone mentioned that where Northup lived as a free man in upstate New York was generally a white community, and at being surprised Northup did not live in one of the black communities, as that was the norm at the time. She was also surprised that he had maintained such long relationships with the family of those who had owned his father. Now for me, that may already suggest some distancing from the black community by Northup (It is not unusual even today. I know people who do it and a few have even admitted they do it because they think it will make them better off). So it would not be inconsistent with him distancing himself and not being able to connect with the black slaves he spent 12 years with.

George wrote: "Another thought:
In an earlier post, someone mentioned that where Northup lived as a free man in upstate New York was generally a white community, and at being surprised Northup did not live in one..."

I'm quite interested in your line of inquiry because you obviously feel this distancing quite strongly. One avenue you would have to pursue is how the actual book was put together. Obviously, the details came from Northup but there's questions in my mind about the role of the 'editor', as he calls himself: David Wilson.

Wilson was white, a pro-abolition professional writer, and Solomon Northup was put in touch with him by Henry B. Northup with the view that they should produce this book. Exactly how they worked together, I don't know, but I suspect we owe it to Wilson that the book is structured so much like the typical 19th C novel*.

So you may be in part, reacting to the voice of an educated middle-class white man who knows he's addressing other educated middle-class white people (mostly). But there's a lot of other things to be said about that voice, and the way it's presented... it's assertion of moral authority for example, the fact that it's a 19th century voice, vehiculing 19th century values in a way 19th century readers would relate to. None of which explains Northup's own choices of action, of course.

* Wilson's preface to the memoir says "He (Northup) has invariably repeated the same story without deviating in the slightest particular, and has also carefully perused the manuscript, dictating an alteration wherever the most trivial inaccuracy has appealed." and "the only object of the editor has been to give a faithful history of Solomon Northup's life, as he received it from his lips."

I watched the film this afternoon and as George stated, he is portrayed as being separate from the others. But as the film depicts it, it is, in my opinion, due to the fact that he has tasted freedom and will do what is necessary to survive until he can find a way to contact his family/friends in the North. He is not like the others as the film also mentions when he is on the boat to New Orleans. Those that he is traveling with state that they are not like those who have only know slavery. So, he does it to keep up his hope and moral - it's as if he gets too close, he will become one of them and accept his lot.

For the most part, the film stayed true to the narrative; however, the big discrepancy was how he ended up at Erps place. They skip over the entire time he was with Tibbets and that Master Ford only gave Solomon to him because of his debts - the film has Ford selling him to Epps because of the first time Solomon beats up Tibbets.

Anne wrote: "...there's questions in my mind about the role of the 'editor', as he calls himself: David Wilson.

Wilson was white, a pro-abolition professional writer, and Solomon Northup was put in touch with him by Henry B. Northup with the view that they should produce this book. Exactly how they worked together, I don't know, but I suspect we owe it to Wilson that the book is structured so much like the typical 19th C novel*."

I am certainly beginning to realise how much a historical writers personal views can colour how they see events. I have been reading R.C. Dallas's The History of the Maroons, first published in 1803, for a novel I'm working on.

The Maroons were runaway slaves who fought a war against the British in the mountains of Jamaica, and signed a peace treaty with the crown in 1739, whereby they were given a kind of nominal independence on their lands in the mountains. A second war was fought against Trelawny Town Maroons in 1795-1796. Dallas puts the main reason for that second war down to the Maroons being so inept at leadership that they desperately wanted the British superintendent of their town, a Major John James, to remain with them. He dismisses as reasons their requirement for more lands because their community had grown, and their displeasure at 2 Maroons being convicted of stealing tame hogs and then being sentenced to be flogged and humiliated by slaves, which was outside the terms of their treaty.

But a reading of part of Dallas's narrative reveals his world view and where he saw leadership qualities as existing:
"In the month of April 1795, Lord Balcarres, who, as we have already seen, was
appointed to succeed Sir Adam Williamson as- Lieutenant-Governor of Jamaica, arrived in the island; and the landing of that nobleman, in whom civil and military talents were known to be happily- blended, afforded a joyous presage of the future security and welfare of the country, notwithstanding the horrid war that was then desolating the neighbouring island of St. Domingo (Haiti); where the negroes had been driven into arms by the French Government, in support of doctrines unfounded in nature and peculiarly hostile and destructive to the order and well-being of every West Indian colony; and from which it was of the highest importance to preserve those of Great Britain."

George wrote: "I am certainly beginning to realise how much a historical writers personal views can colour how they see events. I have been reading R.C. Dallas's The History of the Maroons, first published in 1803, for a novel I'm working on..."

Hey, that's so close to my research area! I'll certainly take a look at your novel when it comes out. I've got Secrets of the Dust on my to-read list as it is.

Reading secondary sources for history is always an awkward prospect. 'Driven into the arms of the French government,' my ***. The French Revolutionary government had just abolished slavery!

At least Twelve Years a Slave is a primary source though its method of production and purpose is an area for vigilance. Your Dallas is perhaps a primary source for learning about the British establishment of 1803, hostile to the French, furiously class essentialist as regards leadership at home and keen to hold and justify their slave colony against rising opposition, and oh boy, a newly independent black kingdom right next door to it. It's worth noting that he's not a certain guide to attitudes of the British establishment before the French and Haitian revolutions. Those event changed everything for British politics.

For what it's worth, I tend to think of that 'maroon colony' on Jamaica as a full-blown African mini-kingdom anyway. But that's also an artifact of history today, or a contemporary model for exploring the past, if you prefer. I find it useful. We're becoming increasingly aware of all the many, many cultural and societal transfers from Africa to the Caribbean in that period, better at spotting and even finding new documentation. I hope you get lots of up to date stuff while you're doing your research - even on Haiti, so much has been done recently.

PS: apologies to everyone else for my off-topic enthusiasm.

Regarding why he didn't try to buy any of the slaves he had been in captivity with: even if he had the money, did he have any legal rights to do so at the time? One, as a black man, was he allowed to purchase slaves? Two, as a northerner, living in a free state, was he allowed to, by his state's laws? I honestly don't know how all of that worked at the time.