Cultural Artifact

Many cultural artifacts, such as poems, songs, paintings, and films, have helped us understand the Africam American experience. But one major Film that I’m going to examine to understand better the different lifestyles African Americans obtained in the three distinctive plantations and expand further into the ira berlin theory. The Film is called “12 years a slave” about Solomon Northup, a free black man living with his family in upstate New York. He works as a carpenter and talented at the violin. His wife works as a cook to help Northup. When one day, Northup was approached by two men Asking him if he could perform in a circus in Washington, D.C, for extra money. Northup Agrees without letting his family know. Unforttully, Both men drugged Northup and waked him up at Williams’s Slave Pen and are placed on the market as a slave. He then was taken to South to Louisiana to be sold to William Ford, a kind minister with a tiny plantation in the Great Pine Trees.
Solomon and his other slaves are handled well by Ford. However, when ford had to pay a debt, he gives Northup to A cruel slave owner named John Tibeats. Tibeats will often beat Northup, But one-day, Northup decides to take matters to his own hands by whipping Tibeatts back. Tibeats wanted to kill Northup, but Ford intervenes to save his life. Tibeats sold Northup to Edwin Epps, a cruel slave master who owns two plantations in Bayou Bœuf. Epps beat his slaves daily no matter what they do. For the next ten years, Northup was forced to work picking cotton since he wasn’t good at it; he was given to do other tasks. Northup fears that he won’t survive long enough to see his wife and kids again. But a carpenter who works for Epps with Northup in a building. The carpenter, called Bass, is an abolitionist. Northup waits for an excuse to chat to Bass alone, and he tells his story to Bass and requests from Bass to take a letter to his family. To say to them where he is being kept as a slave. Bass agrees to get Northup’s wife and Henry Northup’s letters. Henry Northup receives the letter. He makes a plea to the Governor of New York to grant him legal authority to recover Northup, where The governor will eventually agree, and Henry heads to get Northup home.
This Film relates to the Three distinctive slave systems I discussed in “Time, Space, and the Evolution of Afro-American Society Afro-American Society on British Mainland North America.” by Ira Berlin. For example, in the Film, we see how Northup was a free man with a job and a family in the north, but when he was abducted, he was turned into a slave in the South. which reveals the different lifestyles African Americans lived in the North And the South