Twelve Years a Slave

In our multicultural memoir, Twelve Years a Slave, by Solomon Northup, the most important idea that the reader learns throughout Solomon's hardships, is that, even in the darkest times, there is hope and if you maintain that hope, then you will persevere through to a pleasing outcome. Although there were times in the book when Solomon went against this theme through his actions, he always had that hope in the back of his mind that things would turn out right. Since you probably haven't read this book, you're probably wondering why it would be so difficult for Solomon to keep faith in whatever it is that he is doing. Well, the reason is that Solomon lived as a free African-American in New York in the 1850's, a time period very popular for slave owning. However, when he was bribed to play his violin in a circus, traveling to Washington D.C., he soon found that he was being used when he woke up one morning, in chains, waiting to be sold into slavery. After twelve years living in the hardships of slavery, Solomon was finally saved by his friends from back in New York, but those twelve years included life-changing experiences that would never allow Solomon be the same man he was before. Now you can see why it would be so difficult for Solomon to keep faith in his freedom, when years of slavery were lying ahead of him.

This picture of Solomon as a slave shows
how much his life changed as a slave

Solomon as a free man, from the movie

During this time period, it was beyond difficult to escape slavery, almost impossible, even. So why was Solomon able to be sold into slavery when he was legally a free man? Well, just a few days before he had been kidnapped, Solomon obtained papers that legally said that he was a free man, but those were somehow taken from him and, even though he begged and pleaded his freedom, no one would listen to a word he had to say. His masters even threatened his life for claiming that he was a free man, which shows just how much discrimination against African-Americans was happening at the time. Since so many white people felt this way at the time, it clearly explains why escaping wasn't even near reality at the time. According to this article from history.com, on the underground railroad, escaping slavery was something that even the bravest souls feared. The risk of being caught by slave masters was so great that even the most well thought out plans could shrivel at any moment. Abolitionists, like Harriet Tubman, aided many slaves to their freedom through the underground railroad at the time. And although Solomon didn't escape through the underground railroad, this just goes to show how difficult it'd be to help someone out of slavery. These difficulties also show how important it was for Solomon to keep hope because if he didn't believe in his escape, this probability of it happening would be very slim.