Читать книгу Twelve Years a Slave - Solomon Northup - Страница 16

Thousands of books have been written on American slavery. Much less attention has been given to the kidnapping problem. Twelve Years a Slave stands as a reminder that it occurred, but the question of its prevalence has never been fully answered. Incidents that have been discovered come almost entirely from cases where the victims were rescued. Unknown is the number of people who were abducted or fooled into slavery via duplicity (as Northup was) but were never able to contact friends or relatives, and who never became the subject of a rescue mission.

These victims went on “dragging out lives of unrequited toil” (as Northup feared happened to Eliza Berry's two children who were sold away from her, in one of the book's more horrible scenes). Such people remained enslaved until death or emancipation – whichever came first. A correspondent for a Northern newspaper, reporting from Alabama just weeks after the end of the Civil War, came across a man in his seventies who had been born free in a Northern state and kidnapped at the age of 15. In all that time, he had never had the least chance to regain his liberty. (9) Even if a captive was able to read and write, it was virtually impossible to send a letter back home. Slaves were forbidden pen and paper, and if caught reading a book were invariably flogged.

To illustrate how common it was for free blacks to be kidnapped and sold into slavery, consider that among the few dozen African Americans on board the Orleans there were three who'd been kidnapped: Northup, Robert, and Arthur. Newspapers from those days contained many reports of kidnappings. Kidnappers could make substantial sums of money selling free persons as slaves, and for able conmen like Merrill Brown and Abram Hamilton (who got Northup to believe he was joining a travelling music show), it was not especially hard to do. Though victims were sometimes physically seized, criminals more often lured their victims away with promises of employment. Taking their victims to slave trading cities, kidnappers could readily secure a profit. Slave traders were anxious to purchase slaves – sometimes with no questions asked – and kidnappers could easily find buyers since newspapers carried advertisements crying “Cash for Negroes.” Once they were converted into slaves, there were plenty of ships ready to transport victims to the deep South, where prices were high for healthy men, women and children.

Adding to the ease with which kidnappers operated were the laws regarding fugitive slaves, especially the notorious Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. Blacks could be seized with minimal evidence that they were runaways, declared to be such at hearings in which they had no rights, and sent to slave states where their insistence that they were free usually fell on deaf ears.

The slave system was powered by deep, unquestioning racism. Many whites believed those of African descent belonged to an inferior race. Though there were some cases of whites being sold into slavery, it was rare. In many Southern slave states, blacks were generally assumed to be slaves, unless they possessed sufficient paperwork proving otherwise. A white woman named Abby Guy contested her enslavement in court, claiming to have been kidnapped when young. The court sessions, rather than investigating her claim, dwelled instead on whether she was black or white, with testimony from various experts on the matter. It was decided that she was white, and she and her children were set free.