12 Years a Slave

by

Solomon Northup

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on 12 Years a Slave makes teaching easy.
Need another quote?
Need analysis on another quote?
Need analysis for a quote we don't cover?
Need analysis for a quote we don't cover?
Need analysis for a quote we don't cover?
A LitCharts expert can help.
A LitCharts expert can help.
A LitCharts expert can help.
A LitCharts expert can help.
A LitCharts expert can help.
Request it
Request it
Request analysis
Request analysis
Request analysis
Chapter 1 Quotes

Thus far the history of my life presents nothing whatever unusual—nothing but the common hopes, and loves, and labors of an obscure colored man, making his humble progress in the world […] Now I had approached within the shadow of the cloud, into the thick darkness whereof I was soon to disappear, thenceforward to be hidden from the eyes of all my kindred, and shut out from the sweet light of liberty, for many a weary year.

Related Characters: Solomon Northup (speaker)
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 9
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 2 Quotes

The idea struck me as a prudent one, though I think it would scarcely have occurred to me, had they not proposed it […] I must confess, that the papers were scarcely worth the cost of obtaining them—the apprehension of danger to my personal safety never having suggested itself to me in the remotest manner.

Related Characters: Solomon Northup (speaker), Merrill Brown, Abram Hamilton
Related Symbols: Free papers
Page Number: 13
Explanation and Analysis:

Then did the idea begin to break upon my mind, at first dim and confused, that I had been kidnapped. There must have been some misapprehension—some unfortunate mistake. It could not be that a free citizen of New-York, who had wronged no man, nor violated any law, should be dealt with thus inhumanly […] I felt there was no trust or mercy in unfeeling man.

Related Characters: Solomon Northup (speaker), James Burch, Merrill Brown, Abram Hamilton
Related Symbols: Free papers, Chains
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 18
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

Though suspicions of Brown and Hamilton were not unfrequent, I could not reconcile myself to the idea that they were instrumental to my imprisonment. Surely they would seek me out—they would deliver me from thraldom. Alas! I had not then learned the measure “man’s inhumanity to man,” nor to what limitless extent of wickedness he will go for the love of gain.

Related Characters: Solomon Northup (speaker), James Burch, Merrill Brown, Abram Hamilton
Related Symbols: Chains
Page Number: 24
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4 Quotes

So we passed, hand-cuffed and in silence, through the streets of Washington—though 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!

Related Characters: Solomon Northup (speaker), James Burch, Ebenezer Radburn
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 31
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

My cup of sorrow was full to overflowing. Then I lifted up my hands to God, and in the still watches of the night […] begged for mercy on the poor, forsaken captive. To the Almighty Father of us all—the freeman and the slave—I poured forth the supplications of a broken spirit, imploring strength from on high to bear up against the burden of my troubles […].

Related Characters: Solomon Northup (speaker), Theophilus Freeman
Page Number: 48
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

He would make us hold up our heads, walk briskly back and forth, while customers would feel of our hands and arms and bodies, turn us about, ask us what we could do, make us open our mouths and show our teeth, precisely as a jockey examines a horse which he is about to barter for or purchase.

Related Characters: Solomon Northup (speaker), Theophilus Freeman
Page Number: 50
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7 Quotes

The influences and associations that had always surrounded him, blinded him to the inherent wrong at the bottom of the system of Slavery. He never doubted the moral right of one man holding another in subjection. Looking through the same medium with his fathers before him, he saw things in the same light. Brought up under other circumstances and influences, his notions would undoubtedly have been different.

Related Characters: Solomon Northup (speaker), William Ford
Page Number: 58
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

He was my master, entitled by law to my flesh and blood, and to exercise over me such tyrannical control as his mean nature prompted; but there was no law that could prevent my looking upon him with intense contempt.

Related Characters: Solomon Northup (speaker), John Tibeats
Page Number: 72
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

I must toil day after day, endure abuse and taunts and scoffs, sleep on the hard ground, live on the coarsest fare, and not only this, but live the slave of a blood-seeking wretch, of whom I must stand henceforth in continued fear and dread. […] I sighed for liberty; but the bondman’s chain was round me, and could not be shaken off.

Related Characters: Solomon Northup (speaker), John Tibeats
Related Symbols: Chains
Page Number: 85
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 13 Quotes

Bent with excessive toil—actually suffering for a little refreshing rest, and feeling rather as if we could cast ourselves upon the earth and weep, many a night in the house of Edwin Epps have his unhappy slaves been made to dance and laugh.

Related Characters: Solomon Northup (speaker), Edwin Epps
Related Symbols: Whip
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 128
Explanation and Analysis:

He could have stood unmoved and seen the tongues of his poor slaves torn out by the roots—he could have seen them burned to ashes over a slow fire, or gnawed to death by dogs, if it only brought him profit. Such a hard, cruel, unjust man is Edwin Epps.

Related Characters: Solomon Northup (speaker), Edwin Epps
Page Number: 130
Explanation and Analysis:

[…] it had fallen to her lot to be the slave of a licentious master and a jealous mistress. She shrank before the lustful eye of one, and was in danger even of her life at the hands of the other, and in between the two, she was indeed accursed.

Related Characters: Solomon Northup (speaker), Edwin Epps, Patsey, Mistress Epps
Page Number: 134
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

The existence of Slavery in its most cruel form among them has a tendency to brutalize the humane and finer feelings of their nature. Daily witnesses of human suffering—listening to the agonizing screeches of the human slave—beholding him writhing beneath the merciless lash—bitten and torn by dogs—dying without attention, and buried without shroud or coffin—it cannot otherwise be expected, than that they should become brutified and reckless of human life.

Related Characters: Solomon Northup (speaker), Edwin Epps
Related Symbols: Whip
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 147
Explanation and Analysis:

It is not the fault of the slaveholder that he is cruel, so much as it is the fault of the system under which he lives. He cannot withstand the influence of habit and associations that surround him. Taught from earliest childhood, by all that he sees and hears, that the rod is for the slave’s back, he will not be apt to change his opinions in mature years.

Related Characters: Solomon Northup (speaker), Edwin Epps, William Ford, Young Master Epps / Epps’ Son
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 147
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15 Quotes

Alas! Had it not been for my beloved violin, I scarcely can conceive how I could have endured the long years of bondage. It […] relieved me of many days’ labor in the field […] and oftentimes led me away from the presence of a hard master. […] It was my companion—the friend of my bosom—triumphing loudly when I was joyful, and uttering its soft, melodious consolations when I was sad. Often […] it would sing me a song of peace.

Related Characters: Solomon Northup (speaker)
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 155
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 17 Quotes

No man who has never been placed in such a situation, can comprehend the thousand obstacles thrown in the way of the flying slave. Every white man’s hand is raised against him—the patrollers are watching for him—the hounds are ready to follow on his track—and the nature of the country is such as renders it impossible to pass through it with any safety.

Related Characters: Solomon Northup (speaker)
Page Number: 173
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 18 Quotes

It was the Sabbath of the Lord. The fields smiled in the warm sunlight—the birds chirped merrily amidst the foliage of the trees—peace and happiness seemed to reign everywhere, save in the bosoms of Epps and his panting victim and the silent witnesses around him. The tempestuous emotions that were raging there were little in harmony with the calm and quiet beauty of the day. I could look on Epps only with unutterable loathing and abhorrence, and thought within myself—“Thou devil, sooner or later, somewhere in the course of eternal justice, thou shalt answer for this sin!”

Related Characters: Solomon Northup (speaker), Edwin Epps, Patsey
Related Symbols: Whip
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 187
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

If they are baboons, or stand no higher in the scale of intelligence than such animals, you and men like you will have to answer for it. There’s a sin, a fearful sin, resting on this nation, that will not go unpunished forever. There will be a reckoning yet—yes, Epps, there’s a day coming that will burn as an oven. It may be sooner or it may be later, but it’s a coming as sure as the Lord is just.

Related Characters: Bass (speaker), Solomon Northup , Edwin Epps
Page Number: 194
Explanation and Analysis:

He spoke of himself in a somewhat mournful tone, as a lonely man, a wanderer about the world—that he was growing old, and must soon reach the end of his earthly journey, and lie down to his final rest without kith or kin to mourn for him, or to remember him—that his life was of little value to himself, and henceforth should be devoted to the accomplishment of my liberty, and to an unceasing warfare against the accursed shame of Slavery.

Related Characters: Bass (speaker), Solomon Northup
Page Number: 199
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 21 Quotes

The secret was out—the mystery was unraveled. Through the thick, black cloud, amid whose dark and dismal shadows I had walked twelve years, broke the star that was to light me back to liberty.

Related Characters: Solomon Northup (speaker), Bass, Henry B. Northup
Page Number: 219
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 22 Quotes

I was then offered as a witness, but, objection being made, the court decided my evidence inadmissible. It was rejected solely on the ground that I was a colored man—the fact of my being a free citizen of New-York not being disputed. […] Burch himself was offered as a witness in his own behalf. It was contended by counsel for the people, that such testimony should not be allowed—that it was in contravention of every rule of evidence, and if permitted would defeat the ends of justice. His testimony, however, was received by the court!

Related Characters: Solomon Northup (speaker), James Burch, Henry B. Northup
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 233
Explanation and Analysis:

I have no comments to make upon the subject of Slavery. Those who read this book may form their own opinions of the “peculiar institution.” What it may be in other States, I do not profess to know; what it is in the region of Red River, is truly and faithfully delineated in these pages. This is no fiction, no exaggeration. If I have failed in anything, it has been in presenting to the reader too prominently the bright side of the picture.

Related Characters: Solomon Northup (speaker)
Page Number: 237
Explanation and Analysis:
No matches.