Excerpt from Black Voices

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Summary

The excerpt from the memoir Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup presents a slave auction in New Orleans and the routines the slaves must follow before being sold.

The excerpt begins with Solomon, who is one of the slaves, describing how they are made to wash themselves and shave. They are then given new suits. Then they are taken to a room where they are instructed on how to behave with the customers. The men are told to stand on one side of the room, while the women stand on the opposite side. They are all arranged by height. Freeman, the owner, tells them how to act, threatening and bribing them to do well. 

The slaves take a break and are given food, then they are made to dance. Freeman’s slave, Bob, plays the violin. Solomon asks Bob if he can play the “Virginia Reel.” Bob says he cannot, and Solomon asks for the violin. He plays a song, and Freeman tells him to keep playing. Freeman enjoys Solomon’s playing and tells Bob that Solomon is even better than him, which upsets Bob.

The next day, customers come to Freeman’s place to inspect the new slaves. Freeman praises them and points out their various positive qualities. He makes…

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Analysis

Structure

The excerpt from the memoir Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup follows a chronological structure and presents a single episode with a beginning, middle, and end. 

The excerpt begins in medias res, describing the routine Solomon and the rest of the slaves are forced to go through before being presented to potential buyers:

In the first place we were required to wash thoroughly, and those with beards, to shave. We were then furnished with a new suit each, cheap, but clean. The men had hat, coat, shirt, pants and shoes; the women frocks of calico, and handkerchiefs to bind about their heads. We were now conducted into a large room in the front part of the building to which the yard was attached, in order to be properly trained, before the admission of customers.

The beginning describes in clinical and impersonal detail the steps through which slaves are prepared before encountering customers. The preparations and instructions last an entire day.

There are several moments of conflict in the story. One of them could be considered to be when the old gentleman tries to buy Solomon, but Freeman offers a price that the gentleman is not willing to pay. Freeman presents Solomon’s positive qualities, but the gentleman is disdainful of them. The conflict is minor, however, and ends when the gentleman leaves, saying he would return.

Another conflict is that between Freeman and Eliza. When a man buys Eliza’s son, Randall, she is distraught and tries to get him to buy her and her daughter Emily as well, because she does not want the family to be separated. Freeman gets upset and threatens her:

Freeman turned round to her, savagely, with his whip in his uplifted hand, ordering her to stop her noise, or he would flog her. He would not have such work – such snivelling; and unless she ceased that minute, he would take her to the yard and give her a hundred lashes. Yes, he would take the nonsense out of her pretty quick – if he didn't, might he be d—d [damned].

Because of the unequal power dynamics between the two, the conflict cannot really manifest itself properly, as Eliza cannot fight back against Freeman.

The climax of this excerpt can be considered to be the moment when Eliza continues pleading with the buyer not to separate her family and her realization that there is nothing she can do to keep her son with her:

She kept on begging and beseeching them, most piteously not to separate the three. Over and over again she told them how she loved her boy. (…), But it was of no avail; the man couldn’t afford it. The bargain was agreed upon, and Randall must go alone. Then Eliza ran to him; embraced him passionately; kissed him again and again; told him to remember her – all the while her tears falling in the boy’s face like rain.

The excerpt ends with Solomon refle…