12 Years A Slave Sparknotes

In 12 Years A Slave, Solomon Northup paints a picture of his tortures and painful 12 years as a slave. He explains how he was born a free American with a wife and kids living a normal life until suddenly he was kidnapped into slavery. Northup explains that the reason he is writing this book is to show the people what slavery truly was without exaggeration. He wanted to convey the degree of pain and agony through true experience. Northup sought to get the audience to comprehend what slavery was about and not just see it as an interesting topic. Northup begins by introducing the readers to his background and how his father became a freeman because his owner had passed away. He described his life with his family and how he enjoyed playing the violin as he worked in the industry. One day two men approached him and asked him about his violin talent and invited him to join them to Washington. During this irresistible trip, Northup was drugged and kidnapped where he found himself “in utter darkness, and in chains”(17). Hamilton and Brown had stolen his free papers and sold him to James H. Burch where he was severely beaten because he had claimed he was a free man. While Northup was with Burke, he was shipped off on a steamboat where he met Robert and Arthur, two slaves in a similar situation as him. They had planned to escape but
While he was on this plantation, Northup worked with a man named Tibeats who was extremely harsh. At one point, Ford fell into financial trouble and was forced to sell Northup to Tibeats. One day, Tibeats got angry at Northup for an outrageous reason, and he was about to attack him, but Northup got a hold of him and watched “the stiff stock of the whip wrap round his cringing body” as he beat him(74). Tibeats then came back and tied Northup up in the blazing sun until he was saved by Chaplin and