On the dedication page of 12 Years a Slave, Solomon includes a quote from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s book A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The passage he pulls from the book is the one in which Stowe references Solomon's story:
“It is a singular coincidence, that Solomon Northup was carried to a plantation in the Red River country‒that same region where the scene of Uncle Tom’s captivity was laid‒and his account of this plantation, and the mode of life there, and some incidents which he describes, form a striking parallel to that history.”
Here, Solomon is alluding to Stowe’s book Uncle Tom’s Cabin (published in 1852) as well as her follow-up book A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin (published in 1853). Uncle Tom’s Cabin was a harrowing novel that highlighted the horrific realities of slavery and ended up being the second-bestselling book of the 19th century (after the Bible). A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin outlined the accuracy of the depiction of slavery in the novel and acted as Stowe’s response to white Southern enslavers who claimed that she exaggerated the violence of slavery. (Interestingly, Stowe would later receive critiques from 20th-century Black authors who believed her book advanced negative stereotypes about Black people.)
Solomon’s choice to quote from Stowe’s book (and also dedicate the memoir to her) helped both Solomon and Stowe. It firmly placed Solomon in the genre of Abolitionist literature and meant that he would have a wider audience. It also gave Stowe credibility, as it proved that her depictions of slavery were not exaggerated—she may be a white woman removed from slavery, but here is a recently freed man describing similar conditions.
When Solomon introduces his wife, Anne, at the beginning of his memoir, he describes her as resembling a “quadroon." This is an allusion to the racial classification system in use at the time:
[Anne] is not able to determine the exact line of her descent, but the blood of three races mingles in her veins. It is difficult to tell whether the red, white, or black predominates. The union of them all, however, in her origin, has given her a singular but pleasing expression, such as is rarely to be seen. Though somewhat resembling, yet she cannot properly be styled a quadroon, a class to which, I have omitted to mention, my mother belonged.
“Quadroon” was colloquially and officially used as a designation for someone with one quarter Black ancestry—an “octoroon” was someone with one-eighth Black ancestry, and so on. This language was started by white people in power who categorized people who had any Black ancestry as Black in order to continue their subjugation (and ensure that “pure” white people continued to be seen as superior).
The detail with which Solomon describes his wife’s complexion shows how important racial classification was at the time he wrote his memoir. It’s possible that he referred to his wife and mother as “quadroons” in an attempt to show his (primarily white) readers that he has white ancestry as well—an attempt at bridging the racial divide.
That Solomon ends up being kidnapped while visiting the nation’s capital—the symbol of freedom and democracy—is an example of situational irony. He notes the irony of this as he is being transferred from the slave pen to the ship that takes him to Louisiana (the passage also contains an allusion to the song "Hail, Columbia"):
So we passed, hand-cuffed and in silence, through the streets of Washington—through the Capital of a nation, whose theory of government, we are told, rests on the foundation of man’s inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness! Hail! Columbia, happy land, indeed!
While the act of being chained in a city that claims to represent freedom makes this an example of situational irony, Solomon also uses verbal irony in this passage by sarcastically exclaiming that Washington, D.C. is a “happy land,” when, of course, the opposite is true for him in this moment. He ironically encourages readers to “hail” the nation’s capital, a moment when his bitter resentment about slavery and racism comes through. (This is also an allusion to the song “Hail, Columbia” which used to be one of the U.S.'s several national anthems.) Here ,Solomon is not just highlighting the irony of this moment in his individual life, but the irony of slavery being allowed at all in a country that claims to prioritize liberty above all else.
Throughout 12 Years a Slave, Solomon makes it clear that Christianity has been warped by slaveowners in order to justify the ways that they treat enslaved people. In one example of this, Ford’s brother-in-law Peter Tanner reads the Bible to the people he enslaves and emphasizes verse Luke 12:47:
When he came to the 47th verse, he looked deliberately around him, and continued—“And that servant which knew his lord’s will,”—here he paused, looking around more deliberately than before, and again proceeded—“which knew his lord’s will, and prepared not himself”—here was another pause—“prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.”
After reading from the Bible, Tanner says that “lord” is a stand-in for “master” and that “many stripes” signifies “forty, a hundred, a hundred and fifty lashes,” concluding with, “That’s Scripter!” This biblical allusion highlights the hypocrisy of white Southern Christians who look for what they want from the Bible (typically violent rhetoric) and interpret it to suit their unjust practices. Conflating God with enslavers, for example, is a clear rhetorical stretch.
It is notable tha, despite the Bible being used to justify racist violence, Solomon does not reject Christianity. He understands that the Bible is being willfully misinterpreted and refuses to let these violent men take away his own personal relationship with God.
The Declaration of Independence is alluded to a couple different times in 12 Years a Slave, including in a conversation between Epps and Bass, when Bass tries to make a point about the immorality of slavery:
“Look here, Epps,” continued his companion; “you can’t laugh me down in that way. Some men are witty, and some ain’t so witty as they think they are. Now let me ask you a question. Are all men created free and equal as the Declaration of Independence holds they are?”
The Declaration of Independence was the founding document of the U.S. when the young country asserted its freedom from British rule. It was often referenced by members of the Abolitionist movement, highlighting the contradiction between claiming all people are created equal while treating Black people as if they were less-than-human. Bass here represents that white members of the Abolitionist movement who cared about the morality of slavery even without racism affecting them directly, because they saw the contradiction between spouting off that all people should be free while keeping some in chains.
Solomon pulls language from the Declaration of Independence himself when, early in the novel, he describes being shackled through the streets of D.C., “whose theory of government, we are told, rests on the foundation of man’s inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness!” Here, again, Solomon is noting the inherent contradictions of slavery in the United States.
