12 Years a Slave --- biography narrative by Solomon Northup

[charisstoma]

They interviewed the screenwriter, John Ridley, for the new movie 12 years a Slave , based on the book narrative written by Solomon Northup
Ridley comment:
"For an American who considers himself versed in history, you think you know things about history. The thing I really learned was the evolution of slavery in America, that it wasn’t here fully-formed, the way we always believed it to be. It really went from indentured servitude, to slavery, to slavery predicated on the concept of racial inferiority. To me, that’s where it got painful, in the sense that we as a nation allowed ourselves to really get suckered into these calcified ideas about race and about other people. You look at things that happen now in America, and you think, well, gosh, we’re smart people, why do we have such a difficult time getting over race? It’s because it’s been such a part of our culture, perhaps longer than any other country. Up through the 1890s and even through the civil rights era, that was the law of the land. That was painful to me."

Read more at ONTD: http://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/81353699.html#ixzz2eLwgSXdB


There is a Kindle version of this book available for free as a preorder. Delivered October 1st. It's one of several editions of the title on Amazon but I like free.



http://www.amazon.com/Twelve-Years-Slave-Solomon-Northup/dp/1612931081/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1378687847&sr=1-1&keywords=12+years+a+slave

Comments

[frogs_of_war]

Indentured servitude was indeed slavery. Anything could happen to these people lawfully. Pregnant women weren't considered fit enough to work their time off so some owners raped their girls to keep them perpetually pregnant so they could never leave.

Both ...a boy will do and Going Pirate are about escaped indentured servants (prisoners of war sold to sugar plantations) and one of the picture stories I'm writing for Harmonies, Inches from Paradise will have Kurt as a very young indentured servant and Peregrine buying him off his abusive first owner.

[charisstoma.livejournal.com]

Now I want to know, who got to keep the babies? Were the kids considered legitimate and able to inherit? Where were the wives of these men!?

Couldn't find the books listed here on Amazon.
That's right you were going to have the guys collaborating together on a book. I thought you'd gloss it over like you do when describing Peregrine's art sketches. *grins* You're going to make it more interesting than that.

[frogs_of_war]

The kids were illegitimate and the woman was even worse off because she had to provide for them too, putting her even more into debt. Laws were eventually passed making such schemes illegal, but only because the practice was common enough to cause public outrage.

Because they are posted at S2B2: http://s2b2.livejournal.com/117149.html and http://s2b2.livejournal.com/133540.html.

You should use the default comments page (whatever it's called), much easier to put links in. my HTML is a little lax.

Each painting will get it's own story. The picture book one, in which they are all collaborating, is about when Green Dragon returns to the forest. I'd like to make it like a read picture book, but the summary is 500 words long, which will mean a lot of editing if I want the story under 1500.

[charisstoma.livejournal.com]

THANK YOU for the links! The stories are wonderful.