Summary
Chapter XV
Since Solomon is skilled at cutting cane, Epps often hires him out during the season. Solomon describes the process of cultivating cane. He begins by explaining that the land is only planted every three years. The joint of cane has an eye and sends out sprouts. The field is hoed three times and general cutting begins in October. A slave takes a knife, shears the flags from the stalk, severs the stalk at the root, and places the stalks on the cart. The stalks are taken to the sugar house and ground up.
In January, the slaves prepare the field for another crop. The dry debris is set afire and the field left clean for the hoes. This works until the third year, at which point the seed has exhausted its strength and the field must be plowed and planted again.
Solomon often works in the sugar house. The mill is a massive building with a great deal of machinery. Slave children place the cane on an iron roller that moves the cane to be crushed, dropped upon another carrier, and deposited on top of a chimney with a fire below. The juice falls into a conductor below as it burns and is collected in a reservoir. It then goes to filters, and then to coolers. Molasses and sugar are separated at this point, and the molasses is converted to brown sugar.
The only respite slaves get from work is Christmas. They get a few days; Epps gives them three, while some other planters give up to six, and old and young alike delight in it. It is a time to feast and frolic. Slaves wear their best attire and go to one planter’s meal that is provided for all the slaves in the region. The table is spread with glorious provisions and everyone seats themselves on benches. Many love matches are made, and laughter is frequent. After the food comes the Christmas dance, and, as Solomon was quite famous by then, he always played his fiddle. He believes that this instrument was essential to his surviving slavery.
Solomon describes one Christmas where two men try to woo the pretty Lively, and the uproarious dancing and “patting” of hands to the beat.
In the remaining days after Christmas, slaves get passes to go where they please within a limited distance. Slaves are ebullient to have this "freedom." Solomon reminds his readers that this lasts for only three days per year: the other three-hundred and sixty-two are full of unrelenting labor and sorrow.
Chapter XVI
Solomon explains that Epps is considered a smaller planter and that he must hire during some seasons. Plantations with fifty or one-hundred slaves need an overseer, whose qualifications are “heartlessness, brutality, and cruelty” (147). Overseers also keep dogs and pistols with them. Under the overseer are drivers, who are slaves themselves and must whip their brethren if they are not working hard enough.
Solomon is appointed driver. When Epps is around, Solomon knows he cannot show any leniency, and it seems like Epps is always lurking. However, Solomon learns to use the whip so precisely that it looks as if it were touching the slaves without actually hurting them.
One day, Epps comes near Patsey and Solomon. Solomon whispers to her not to look up; when Epps nears, he drunkenly sneers that “Platt” whispered something. He grabs his knife and begins to totter about, chasing Solomon. Solomon keeps a respectful distance as he eludes him; he knows that when Epps is sober he will laugh at himself.
Solomon recounts a time when Epps asked Solomon if he could read or write, and Solomon admitted he’d had some training. Epps warned him threateningly to never be caught with any paper or pen.
Solomon’s main goal during this time is to get a letter out, but the obstacles in the way are massive. First, it is hard to procure the materials. Second, a slave cannot leave without a pass and a postmaster will not take it. Solomon is a slave for nine years before he finds an opportunity. A stranger named Armsby comes into the region. He applies for an overseer position at Epps' and then works at the neighboring Shaw’s for a bit. Armsby has to work in the fields along slaves because he is so poor, and Solomon does his best to cultivate his friendship. Finally, he asks about Armsby taking a letter, and Armsby promises to do so. Solomon has a letter on him, having made ink with bark, but he does not trust Armsby yet, so he returns to his cabin to see what happens.
That night, Epps enters with a rawhide in his hand and announces to Solomon that he hears that he has a slave who can write and asks white men to deliver letters for him. Solomon knows that his only recourse is to lie, so he says that he has no paper or pencil, has no friends to write to, and Armsby is a drunken, lying man who clearly wants to make Epps think that one of his slaves is going to run away so he will have to hire an overseer. Epps is compelled by this and becomes angry with Armsby.
After Epps leaves, Solomon burns his letter—and, with it, all of his hopes. He does not know where to look for deliverance. The hope of rescue is a flame that is quickly being distinguished.
Chapter XVII
Solomon recounts the sufferings of Wiley, who goes for a nocturnal visit without a pass. He is caught by a band of slave patrollers and is brought back. The patrollers whip him, and Epps does as well. His sufferings are so bad that he decides to run away. He tells no one and sets out. The search for him is fruitless; days and weeks pass. The slaves wonder if he survived.
Three weeks later, Wiley appears. He had tried to make it back to his former master, Buford, but he was captured again without a pass and was thrown in prison in Alexandria. Joseph B. Roberts, uncle to Mistress Epps, happened to recognize him there, and he was sent back. Wiley is whipped again, and he never tries to run away after that.
There are countless obstacles in the way of the fleeing slave. Solomon is always thinking of ways to escape, but he is aware of these obstacles. Every white man’s hand is against him; everyone is looking for him. Solomon does manage to terrify Epps’s dogs into never attacking him and he even learns to control them, just in case he is able to escape.
Slaves who do escape are often caught and occasionally lose their lives. A boy named Augustus was mutilated by the dogs and died. A woman named Celeste once showed up at Epps’s plantation and talked to Solomon in the field, telling him her story. She explained that her master’s dogs would not touch her either, and that she was living in a space made between the tall trees at the edge of the swamp. She came to Solomon’s cabin many times for food, but eventually her fear of the all the wild things in the swamp sent her back to her master, where she was scourged and sent into the field again.
Solomon also mentions Lew Cheney, a slave plotting a rebellion and a fight all the way to Mexico. He became notorious, but he decided to turn in his fellow slaves to curry favor with his master. The white men in the region became so frightened and angry that they indiscriminately began hanging slaves until a regiment of soldiers from Texas shut this down.
This march to Mexico is not a new idea, Solomon writes. He mentions how, during the Mexican-American War, many of the slaves cherished hope that an invading army would come for them. He adds that the master who thinks that the slave does not understand the magnitude of his situation does not understand the truth: that one day, vengeance will come for him.
Chapter XVIII
Any trivial cause could lead Epps to whip one of his slaves, including Solomon. Solomon relates how one day, Phebe came to him and told him that a Mr. O’Niel, a tanner, wanted to buy Solomon. Solomon replies that he would be glad to go there. Mistress Epps hears this and tells her husband, and Epps comes to Solomon, enraged that he would say that. He brutally whips him.
Epps also whips the elderly and confused Abram, but the figure who bears the brunt of the whipping is Patsey. Mistress Epps often has her husband whip the unfortunate slave, but Epps takes this a step further one day when jealousy enters his heart.
It seems that Patsey has gone to visit the black wife, Harriett, of a neighboring planter, Mr. Shaw. A suspicion enters Epps’s mind that she has gone to see Shaw himself, as the man is a notorious libertine. When Patsey returns, she defiantly tells Epps that Harriet gave her soap since Mistress Ford does not let her wash with soap anymore and she smells awful. Epps will not be mollified and yells that she is a liar.
He rapidly sets up four stakes, tells Patsey to disrobe, and ties her wrists and feet to the stakes. He orders Solomon to whip her. Solomon cannot refuse, but he is disgusted by the demonic exhibition. Mistress Epps stands and watches from the piazza with her children.
Solomon whips her thirty times and hopes Epps is satisfied, but Epps delivers bitter oaths and threats and orders more. Finally, Solomon throws the whip down; Epps picks it up and whips Patsey even more. Her screams fill the air, and her back is “literally flayed” (171). Solomon thinks she is dying, and he notes with bitter irony what a beautiful Sabbath day it is.
Finally, Epps ceases his whipping. The slaves bring Patsey into the cabin and tend to her grotesque wounds. It would have been a blessing if she had died. She lives, though, and her spirit is broken. She is consistently melancholy; she no longer has a buoyant step. She is always silent and has a careworn expression. She truly is her master’s beast. Solomon writes that some people think that slaves do not understand freedom, and he vociferously corrects this: they know its meaning, and they constantly observe the contrast between their condition and their master’s.
The children of slaveholders soon take on their parents’ attitudes. Solomon sees how Epps’s oldest son is intelligent but loves to play with the whip and evinces delight in punishing the slaves. There is no reasoning that could convince him that there is no difference between those of different skin colors. It is no wonder, Solomon writes, that “the oppressors of my people are a pitiless and unrelenting race” (175).
Analysis
Throughout his narrative, Northup takes pains to correct assumptions people have about slaves. He writes, “they are deceived who flatter themselves that the ignorant and debased slave has no conception of the magnitude of his wrongs. They are deceived who imagine that he arises from his knees, with back lacerated and bleeding, cherishing only a spirit of meekness and forgiveness” (165) and “It is a mistaken opinion that prevails in some quarters, that the slave does not understand the term—does not comprehend the idea of freedom. Even on Bayou Bœuf, where I conceive slavery exists in its most abject and cruel form—where it exhibits features altogether unknown in more northern States—the most ignorant of them generally know full well its meaning. They understand the privileges and exemptions that belong to it—that it would bestow upon them the fruits of their own labors, and that it would secure to them the enjoyment of domestic happiness. They do not fail to observe the difference between their own condition and the meanest white man's…” (173). One of the other things that Northup does frequently is depict a culture among the slaves, even those who labor for such controlling and soul-sucking monsters as Epps. He seeks to show how slaves create meaning in their lives, how they maintain their dignity, and how they strive to improve their conditions even infinitesimally.
Critic William Nichols identifies Northup’s evocation of slave culture as early as the slave pens, where Northup finds “communities of shared emotion” and “the frequent exchange of autobiographies and reflections on injustice.” It is notable that despite the slaves’ isolation from family and friends, these separations “[do] not seem to have destroyed their willingness to risk ne human relationships.” Northup befriends Clem, Arthur, and Robert, and he also works with the latter and other slaves to foment mutiny (though this does not get carried out, unfortunately). Once on the plantations, Northup recounts slaves telling stories, giving advice, delighting in a white person getting their comeuppance, helping each other, and rehashing interesting events. Nichols sees these as “reminiscent of folk tales in their tough humor and masked resentment.”
Northup reveals how slaves also supplemented their meager rations in a variety of ways. He builds himself a fish trap while some try to catch possums and coons. Slaves are allowed to keep money that they make on Sundays and buy small luxuries. Ira Berlin explains that “plantation hands have been depicted as cogs In a great machine, marching mindlessly up and down the rows of cotton or through fields of cane, driven by an overseer’s lash. Northup reveals that even on the great plantations, slaves were often jacks-of-all-trades, laboring on a multitude of tasks…In the interstices of these many tasks, slaves created their own economy and their own life.” Northup is keen to note the small bits of rebelliousness that slaves evince, and “emphasizes how slaves found satisfaction and pride in their daily accomplishments, even knowing they gained few benefits from the labor that made their masters rich.” He explains that many masters think beating their slaves and instilling fear in them makes them more productive, but that the truth is it makes them less productive. The plantation system is inefficient and wasteful; free labor is far more productive and profitable.
During the holidays, Northup writes, slaves forge romantic relationships, dance, dress up, celebrate, and travel from plantation to plantation. Northup is aware of the problematic nature of the holidays: slaveowners consider themselves benevolent in "giving" these days to slaves, while the rest of the year, their slaves toil and suffer; yet he does acknowledge how much slaves delight in these days. Ultimately, as Berlin states, Northup “understands the essential truth that while slavery may define black people, it is not who they are.”
