Solomon Northups Twelve Years A Slave Essay -- Essays on Twelve Years

After reading Solomon Northup's Twelve Years A Slave, I was overwhelmed with his experience. He was born a free man in New York in 1808. In 1841 he was tricked, captured, and sold into slavery in Washington, D.C. Throughout his book, Solomon goes into details describing his life as a slave, which validates our critique of slavery. As abolitionists, it is our duty to do something about slavery. Although, as abolitionists, we have a history of disagreements among us, it time to put a stop to our arguments and start fighting for something we all believe in - to abolish slavery. While the growing cotton economy has made slavery more attractive than ever before to most southern people, slavery has to be abolished based on these reasons: first, because slaves are treated inhumanly; second, because it makes southern white society savage and cruel, and third, it turns southern whites into greedy and lazy people. One of the main reasons that slavery should be abolished is because masters treat their slaves inhumanly. Masters disregard the idea of family among slaves. Although they encourage slave marriage, they do so out of selfish reasons. Slaves who have families are likely to have kids, who will become property of the master after birth, and at the same time they are least likely to run away. In addition, the actual law does not provide any protection or recognition of slave marriage or family, which discourages the formation of family among slaves . Just like the law, masters do not take families into consideration and are reluctant to break slave families by sale. For example when Eliza was sold, she begged her new master to purchase her daughter as well. However, Freeman would not sell Emily, because "there were piles... ...e Declaration of the Independence. After reading Twelve Years A Slave, I was sad to find out about how people struggle; however, at the same time I was excited because it would open up people's eyes about the mistreatment of African-Americans. It provides examples of how slaves are treated on daily basis; it also shows how whites in the South are breaking the law, which fails to serve justice even if they are caught in the act. It also shows how people in the South are turning into a barbaric and uncivilized society. Therefore as abolitionists, we feel that unless slavery is abolished, the goal of this country to make all men free and equal has failed. So if our fight for freedom has failed, what is left of our country? Works Cited: Northup, Solomon. Twelve Years a Slave. 1853. Ed. Sue Eakin and Joseph Logsdon. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1975.