12 Years A Slave Historical Evidence

Historical evidence is displayed and shown in a variety of ways through popular media, the most common way being a motion picture. For this extra credit essay, I chose to write about the movie 12 Years a Slave because I felt that it appropriately fit the time frame from the beginning of time through 1877. I have provided a short summary of the film, and then briefly described how and why I think that it has fit the time frame of this course. In the beginning of the movie, we see a group of slaves receiving instructions about cutting the sugar cane on the plantation. We see several different groups completing different tasks that they have been assigned to do. In the very beginning scenes, we are also introduced to the main character of the

We see a carriage pull up to the plantation, and someone calls out for Platt, better known as Solomon. Solomon answers and approaches the sheriff, where he is then asked several detailed questions. We discover that in the carriage is Mr. Parker, a shop owner from Saratoga and the friend of Solomon that Bass did indeed write to. Epps is furious and enraged and basically starts throwing a fit. Solomon is now able to travel home, where he is reunited with his family after twelve long years. They may be twelve years older, but the emotions are still there at seeing each other again after all of this time. We learn that his daughter has gone on to get married and even had a son, and named him Solomon Northup in honor of him. As the words flash across the screen, we learn that he became an abolitionist and aided many runaways in achieving their freedom (IMDb Staff,

Twelve Years a Slave is one of the most authentic descriptions of slavery from the viewpoint of the slave himself (Lieblich, 2015). Not only does it accurately describe and show how violently the slaves were treated, it showed how they had limited to no rights and how in-control the slave-owners were. Another thing that I noticed in this movie that was relatable to something emphasized in class was how hard the actual labor was. Working from sunrise to sunset with little to no breaks at least six times a week has to put a lot of strain on the body. Something else that I noticed was an accurate historical fact was that the female slaves faced separation from their families and their children. Using Eliza as a prime example in this movie, we can see how it can affect an individual. Female slaves also have to deal with additional problems that male slaves don’t. Patsy, for example, had to deal with getting sexually and physically used by her slave-owner, and also had to deal with her slave-owner’s jealous wife in