Ellie's History Hub: Learning history through film RD

The movies Glory and 12 Years a Slave both show very important parts before the Civil War, while Glory talks about the 54^th Regiment 12 Years a Slave shows you the life of a slave. While both these movies are about real life events, some are truer than others. Glory has fictional characters with all fake backgrounds, Pvt. Trip wasn’t real and neither was Sgt. Maj. John Rawlins. The reason why 12 Years a Slave is more accurate is due to Solomon’s memoir. Since it is a primary source, this memoir includes real people with real backgrounds. 12 Years a Slave is a type of movie that makes you think, that makes you want to ask multiple questions about slave history. In 12 Years a Slave, the topics that I researched that most about included master-slave-mistress relationships, separation of slave mothers and children and the kidnapping of free blacks.

The master-slave relationships were very common during the slave era. Just like Patsy in 12 Years a Slave, the slave women were “forced to comply with sexual advances by their masters on a very regular basis.” Since the master was usually married, this caused tension between wife and slave women. Many women were forced to have sex being afraid that their master might punish them, by whippings or other consequences; but some after a while liked having the attention and the gifts from their master. The most common though was being forced. Louisa Picquet was one of the many slave girls that were chosen by her master, “Then he told me I must come to his room that night; if I didn’t he’d give me hell in the mornin’.” Since many girls were frightened of the consequences, like in this example, they went and they were raped and if the master enjoyed it he would call them time and time again. This gave suspicions to the mistress of the house, she didn’t want someone else sleeping with her husband, and to make it worse they were usually younger and prettier. “I had entered my 16^th year, and every day it became more apparent that my presence was intolerable to Mrs. Flint.” “There was considerable gossip in the neighborhood about our affairs, to which the open-mouthed jealousy of Mrs. Flint contributed not a little.” Many of the slave girls became scared, not only of their master but of the wife also. There were several accounts of slave girls writing to their families for help, “But the state of things grew worse and worse daily […] I would apply to my grandmother for protection […] I had a hope of somehow getting out of his clutches.” As I stated before, some women enjoyed receiving gifts from their masters, many slave women were treated well by their masters. “Dr. Flint contrived a new plan. He told me that he was going to build a small house for me, in a secluded place, 4 miles from town.” The slave women received so many gifts because they usually had children with the master, and a father always loves his kids. Since the kids were born into slavery the master would buy them. “On condition of paying his mistress […] His strongest wish was to purchase his children.” But many of these girls are too young to have babies, leading to their children’s or theirs. “The baby is dead, thanks God; and I hope my poor child will soon be in heaven, too.”

When slaves are being sold at an auction, the masters are usually only looking for children or men, not a whole family. This led to many children being separated from their mothers and fathers. “My mother and I were separated when I was but and infant.” In 12 Years a Slave, there is a scene where Solomon was being sold, the master took Solomon and a mother but not her children. This led to a very violent scene of the mother being ripped away from her children, they were all screaming and crying, and they never saw each other again. Even though thousands of children were separated from their mothers, the siblings were not always separated. “I had two sisters and one brother, that lived in the same house as me; but the early separation from out mother had well nigh blotted the fact of out relationship from out memories.” This had a massive toll on the mothers because she was one, loved her children and didn’t want to be separated from them, and two, worried were they might end up. “Oh, master, do not take me from my child!” The masters would even use the children as leverage, “He would threaten to sell my child. “Perhaps that will humble you,” said he.” But overall, the separation from mother and child was above all sad. “Oh, my child! my child! master, so let me have my child! oh, do, do, do. I will stop its crying, if you will only let me have it again.”

The final topic is in relation to the entire story of Solomon becoming a slave, when he was drugged and kidnapped. Slave kidnapping didn’t happen as often as separations did, but when they happened free black people were taken from their home and brought down into slave states. Since slave kidnapping was illegal, they gave the slaves new names, for instance Plat was Solomon’s fake name, and told them they were slaves. Many of them tried to fight back and spread their story but were threaten with whipping or death. “Equiano grew up among the Ibo people before he was kidnapped at the age of 11 and sold into slavery.” Many were taken very young so they were of more use, you wouldn’t take a free old black woman to work in the cotton fields, and she would die in the span of three days! “At the end of 6 or 7 months after I had been kidnapped, I arrived at the sea coast.” Many men were actually celebrated for the kidnapping of free blacks they were paid very well in retrieving them from free states. “He was also celebrated for slave selling, kidnapping, and negro hunting.” After being kidnapped ad became free or ran away, many tried to spread their story as Solomon did. “I had frequently told several people, in my excursion on shore, the story of being kidnapped with my sister.”
In the end, the movie 12 Years a Slave made me want to research more about the way slaves were treated. Since the topics that I researched were brought up in the movie, the acting really helped show how these events happened. The movie Glory was just very straight forward with me, I didn't find anything interesting to further my knowledge on the 54th Regiment. 12 Years a Slave is a true story which really was intriguing to me, Glory was just a movie that had made up backgrounds and a spotlight on a Colonel who was "trying to figure out who he is."
Sources:
1: 12 Years a Slave: Breaking Silence about Slavery
I used this to talk about the differences between Glory and 12 Years a Slave.
2: Master-Slave Relations
I used this to talk about the relationships between the master and a slave women.
3: We are Your Sisters: Black Women in the Nineteenth Century
This source gave me massive insight into the daily life of a black women back during slave times.
4: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
This was another source that helped me understand what the black women were going through during slave times. With being a diary/journal this really helped me to get into the shoes of slaves.
5: Slave Narratives: A Library of America
This was a broader source where I got more men and women mixed rather than just women writing in their journals. Not only did this source mention rape, it mentioned kidnapping and child separation from their parents.