Twelve Years a Slave

Henry B. Northup was a white man and a lawyer in New York. He was a relative of Solomon Northrup’s family who owned Solomon’s father when he was a slave. When he hears news of Solomon Northup’s illegal captivity in Louisiana, he journeys to the plantation where Solomon is being held and helps free him. He also helps Solomon Northup pursue charges against his captors (even though these charges are unjustly dropped).

Anne Hampton was Solomon Northup’s wife. She was an accomplished cook and a woman of mixed-race ancestry. At the time of her husband’s kidnapping, she is the loving mother of their three children, Elizabeth, age 10, Margaret, age 8, and Alonzo, age 5.

In Northup’s memoir, Burch runs an illegal, hidden slave pen in Washington, DC, just steps from the Capitol building. He works in cooperation with a slave trader in New Orleans named Theophilus Freeman. He keeps Northup chained in a dark cellar, beating him brutally and threatening to kill him whenever he claims to be a free man.

When Northup obtains his freedom after 12 years, he and Henry B. Northup attempt to pursue criminal charges against Burch. Because Northup is Black, however, he cannot legally testify in court. Giving the sole testimony, Burch egregiously claims that Northup willingly volunteered himself into slavery. Thus, the court does not prosecute him for Northup’s illegal enslavement.

Eliza is one of the other captives in Burch’s slave pen with Solomon Northup. Before her enslavement by Burch, Eliza is the slave and mistress of a wealthy man named Elisha Berry. Eliza has two children with Berry, a boy named Randall and a girl named Emily. Berry treats her kindly and promises that upon his death, she will be freed from slavery. After his death, however, his resentful family members sell her to Burch.

Both Solomon and Eliza are shipped to New Orleans, where they are paraded like animals in a slave market by Theophilus Freeman. Freeman sells Randall to another master and refuses to sell Emily, claiming she will be a beauty later in life and he can make great deal of money off of her. When Eliza is purchased by William Ford (along with Solomon), she is thereby separated from both of her children. She never overcomes the loss of her family and languishes both physically and psychologically.

Clemens Ray is a fellow captive of Burch’s slave pen in DC. He is insightful and intelligent and informs the other captives of what will happen to them when they are shipped to the Deep South. When they reach New Orleans, Clemens Ray is the only captive taken back to DC. Twelve years later, Northup sees Ray in DC and learns he has also obtained his freedom.

Freeman is a slave trader who works in cooperation with Burch. In New Orleans, he assumes possession of both Eliza and Northup. He changes Northup’s name to “Platt” and insists that he answer to this name. After subjecting Northup and his fellow slaves to inhuman rituals at a slave market, he sells both Northup and Eliza to William Ford.

William Ford is a white slave master who owns a plantation and a lumber mill on the banks of the Red River in Bayou Boeuf, Louisiana. Northup admires Ford’s kindness and Christian values and believes he is as noble a man as a slave owner can be. Northup reflects that men such as Ford are slave owners due to the nefarious influence of their peers and the social system they are brought up within. When he falls into difficult financial times, Ford is forced to sell Northup to his carpenter, John M. Tibeats. On several occasions, he rescues Northup from Tibeats’s cruelty and murderous rages.

Tibeats is a white carpenter who works under William Ford. He is bad-tempered and spiteful, often falsely accusing Northup of wrongdoing. On several occasions, he attempts to kill Solomon, but he is thwarted by Ford. In an act of spiteful vengeance, Tibeats sells Northup to Edwin Epps, a cotton planter who is widely known for his brutality toward slaves.

Edwin Epps is a cotton plantation owner and slave master of Solomon Northup for 10 years. He is an alcoholic prone to subjecting his slaves to both his vicious temper and his damaging whims. He frequently whips his slaves for the sheer pleasure of hearing them scream. He also forces his slaves to participate in late-night dance parties, shouting for them to dance until they are exhausted. Epps often rapes Patsey, one of his female slaves. These sexual incidents insight the jealous wrath of Mistress Epps. Thus, he often makes a show of punishing Patsey by whipping simply to satisfy his wife’s anger.

Patsey is a slave of Edwin Epps. She is the most productive cotton picker on his plantation, often bringing in over twice as much as any male slave.

A young, attractive Black woman in her early twenties who was brought up in the Epps household as girl, she is frequently subjected to rape by Epps and wrathful anger by his wife. Although she is sweet and light-hearted by nature, her devastating situation leads her to suicidal depression and hopelessness.