Extreme Violence In Solomon Northup's Story, 12 Years A Slave

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Recommended: 1500 to 1800 transatlantic slave trade

Born into freedom, Solomon Northup was kidnapped into slavery at the age of 30. With the promise of money and adventure, he was sent to Washington D.C, unknown of what’s about to come. Soon Northup was soon drugged, beaten, and sold into slavery within view of the capital. During 1800’s, about one million African Americans were transported to the Deep South in the domestic slave trade. Extreme violence is central in Northup’s story, 12 Years a Slave; he emphasizes that the slave owner’s authority was controlled by terrorizing slaves they owned with powering violence. Nailed to the floor, Northup experienced painful activities to his naked body after he awoke in a slave pen; his enslavers paused only to ask for him to accept his new status

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