Summary
Chapter XIX
In June 1852, the man to whom Solomon owes his freedom arrives in the bayou. Bass is an itinerant carpenter from Canada who travels around the country doing work; he currently lives in Marksville. He is noble, warmhearted, inoffensive, and firmly committed to the end of slavery. People throughout the South find him genial and do not take offense to his strong words. Even Epps, who hires Bass to work on a house, likes Bass and merely laughs when Bass tells him that white men and black men are equal, that slavery is a sin and a stain on the nation’s conscience, and that the system is absurd and cruel.
Solomon hears Bass tell Epps these things and thinks that this man may be able to help him, but he is still wary. Finally, one day, when the two of them are working alone, Solomon asks Bass what part of Canada he is from. Bass tells him that Solomon wouldn't know the area, but Solomon tells him he’s been to many places. He rattles off the names of places in Canada and upstate New York. Bass is shocked into silence. After expressing hesitation, Solomon tells him his whole melancholy tale.
Bass immediately volunteers to help Solomon by mailing a letter to his friends in the North. They meet the next evening and Bass takes down names of people Solomon knows, to whom he can send letters. Solomon tells Bass openly of his sufferings, and Bass assures him of his friendship and support.
Over the next couple of weeks, Bass and Solomon are very careful never to interact with each other in other people’s sight; there is no suspicion of intimacy between them.
Bass goes home to Marksville and pens the letters. One is to Judge Marvin; one is to the Collector of Customs in New York; another is to Messrs. Perry and Parker (this is the one that succeeds). He includes Solomon's message along with one of his own.
When Bass returns to Epps’s place, he tells Solomon that a response would arrive in perhaps six weeks at the latest. Sadly, six weeks pass, then ten, with no response. Solomon's hopes begin to crumble. Bass endeavors to lift his spirits and promises to take a further step if necessary. Solomon worries that the letters miscarried, or were misdirected, or that the people to whom they were addressed had died. Perhaps they did not care at all about him.
Chapter XX
The day before Christmas, Bass returns again from Marksville. He gives Solomon a nod to meet him after dark. He does not show up, and Solomon assumes correctly that they should meet the next morning before the rest of the household awakes. Bass tells him he has heard nothing, and Solomon despairs. Bass adds quickly that he has planned to go to Saratoga himself. Shocked, Solomon listens as Bass says that he is tired of the South and slavery; he will go to Saratoga to see the people Solomon mentioned.
During the Christmas holidays, Solomon has to play his violin for local planters. One day, he plays for Madam McCoy and her household. He states that McCoy is a delightful, lovely, and benevolent young woman who treats her slaves well and proves that not all slaveholders are monsters.
On the morning of January 3rd, Solomon is working in the cold fields with Abram, Patsey, Bob, and Wiley. Epps yells at them for not picking cotton well, but their fingers are numb with the cold.
The slaves look up and see two men approaching on horseback. Solomon writes that he will now double back in the narrative to follow the movement of Bass’s letter.
Chapter XXI
Messrs. Perry and Parker receive Bass's letter and immediately inform Anne. Her children visit Henry B. Northup to attain his assistance. As there is a statute protecting free citizens from being reduced to slavery, he pursues this with the Governor. He is able to prove that Solomon is a free citizen of New York and that he is being wrongfully held in bondage.
The Governor is very interested in the matter and appoints Northup as agent. Northup travels to Washington and meets with the Louisiana Senator, the Secretary of War, and a Justice of the Supreme Court. He receives papers to show the officials in Louisiana.
Northup plans to go directly to New Orleans but stops in Marksville first. He shares his business with the Hon. John P. Waddill, who is happy to help him. Waddill has never heard the name of Solomon Northup, though, and asks his boy, Tom, who also does not know the name. Northup despairs a bit, as Solomon's letter was vague and the course to take is not clear.
There is a fateful moment, however: the two men are discussing politics when Northup asks if there are any free-soilers in the region. Waddill laughs and mentions a man named Bass. Northup starts and looks at his letter. He realizes this is the same man who wrote the letter for Solomon, and he tells Waddill this.
A bit of searching locates Bass at a landing on the Red River. Northup goes to him and asks after Bayou Boeuf and Solomon. Bass is reluctant to respond at first, not knowing whether Northup is an honest man, but Northup tells him frankly of his purpose in inquiring and Bass tells him all.
Bass provides a map to Bayou Boeuf, and Northup begins legal proceedings against Epps. He and a sheriff travel to Epps’s plantation as soon as they can so that word cannot leak to Epps.
Solomon now returns the narrative to the moment when he saw the two men coming across the field. He does not recognize them. The sheriff comes up to “Platt” and asks if he recognizes the other man. Solomon looks carefully, and memories begin flooding back. He joyfully cries out that it is Henry B. Northup. The sheriff asks Solomon a few questions to establish his identity, and Solomon bursts into happy tears. The other slaves are completely discombobulated as they watch this.
Northup and Solomon embrace, and Northup and the sheriff lead him to the house. Epps comes out, puzzled. When the information about Solomon is conveyed to him, Epps asks Solomon sharply why he said nothing. Solomon speaks with more authority than he has with Epps before: he states that he was never asked and that he was whipped when he had said something.
Epps grows violently angry that a white man helped Solomon and demands to know who it is. He swears profusely and wishes he’d had an hour to secret Solomon away.
Mistress Epps politely bids Solomon goodbye; Epps only swears. When Solomon says goodbye to Patsey, she looks at him tearfully and says she does not know what will become of herself.
The Louisiana court settles that Epps will not litigate and that Solomon is free to return North.
Chapter XXII
The ship heads up the river to New Orleans, where the men tarry for two days. Northup has Solomon’s free papers with him, and he is unaccosted.
In Washington DC, they try to bring charges against Burch. Burch is arrested, allowed to post bail, and ordered to trial. Unfortunately, a former partner of Burch’s lies on the stand about the situation. No one will challenge him about it. Solomon’s own testimony cannot be used because he is black. Burch is acquitted of the charges.
Northup and Solomon leave Washington and finally make it to Sandy Hill. Solomon’s reunion with his family is tremendously emotional. He learns that they did know he was in bondage from the letter onboard the brig (and from Clem Ray), but they could do nothing to find him.
Solomon concludes by stating that there is neither fiction nor exaggeration in his text. If anything, he painted the picture too brightly.
Analysis
Though Northup is eventually rescued, he seeks to make clear that this was not at all a guarantee, and that getting out of slavery in any way is almost impossible. For himself, procuring paper and pen is rare, and getting the letter to the right person is also difficult (as seen in the fiasco with Armsby). He is lucky because he knows how to read and write, unlike most slaves, who do not have this vital tool at their disposal. Northup details the various reasons that running away, especially deep in the Louisiana bayou, is rarely successful. There are slave patrols and vicious dogs sent after fugitives, terrifying wild animals in the swamp, a lack of food and drinkable water, and a high likelihood of getting lost. Many slaves return to their plantation after a time because trying to survive in the wild is sure death, while returning home brings with it punishment but life as well. Northup uses Wiley and Celeste’s experiences to provide specific anecdotes about slaves who tried and failed to achieve freedom. His own experience in the bayou after running from Tibeats also adds to the sense of terrifying isolation amid the slimy, deadly creatures of the swamp.
Northup’s background as a free man, however, makes his case a bit different and ultimately allows him to succeed in becoming free. He meets the rectitudinous and kindhearted Bass, who recognizes the grievous inhumanity and injustice of this free man being enslaved. Bass is ardently anti-slavery anyway, and Northup’s story shocks him into taking action. It is through his brave and tireless efforts on behalf of Northup, as well as those of Henry B. Northup, that the wrongly enslaved man’s liberty is secured.
Northup doesn’t make this sound like a miracle, however: he details in exacting fashion just how many steps it took to get a single man out of bondage. Governors, senators, lawyers, sheriffs, and more are needed to right this wrong, revealing that the South was desperate to hold onto its “property” and would only relinquish it after an exhausting process. For historians and scholars, this part of the book is a useful way of looking at the real debates about the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, which had been passed just a few years prior to Twelve Years a Slave’s publication.
Even though he gains his freedom, Northup cannot win in the courtroom against Burch. He cannot be a witness because of the color of his skin: “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” (213). Due to Northup’s elided evidence and the lies of Burch’s former partner, “the court held the fact to be established, that Burch came innocently and honestly by me, and accordingly he was discharged” (213). This reveals the extreme ways in which black people were marginalized legally and politically, even if they were free citizens.
It should not be surprising that Northup’s narrative became a bestseller after it was published. The trial had riveted the North and the book was full of damning evidence that the system of slavery was indeed as monstrous as the abolitionists were claiming. Inefficiency and waste; rape and sexual abuse; the separation of mothers and their children; cruel punishments; limited provisions; backbreaking labor; the deleterious effects on white people, making them inured to evil; hypocrisy in religion; and many more examples of slavery’s immoral, inhumane, and unjust characteristics make this work profoundly important during its own time and in the contemporary moment.
