12 Years a Slave: A Harsh History Lesson

One of the first big cultural events I remember from my childhood, after the U.S. bicentennial celebration, was the airing of the miniseries “Roots” on television. Since I was 8 years old at the time it aired, I did not watch it, but it became a part of the cultural discussion around me for years to come. Though I still have not seen the whole series (why?!), I have a pretty good idea of how the narrative goes. A whole generation of young Americans got a fresh look at how horrible the legal slave trade in the United States really was.

12 Years a Slave  is sort of a “Roots” for the new generation, with the major difference being that “Roots” was based on a novel, while 12 Years is based on a real person’s story. While slavery has been addressed in other movie forms (Amistad, Django Unchained), 12 Years approaches it with more heart than Amistad and more earnestness than the stylized Django.

Director Steve McQueen (not that Steve McQueen; the actor has long since passed away) and screenwriter John Ridley have adapted the biography of 19^th-century American Solomon Northrup. Northrup, a free man living with his family in Saratoga Springs, NY, is offered a two week job in Washington D.C., but it's a trap. Under this ruse, he is taken captive and transported south, where he is sold as a slave.

Many scenes include brutally violent mistreatment of human beings—whippings, beatings, a near-hanging and rape. It is very difficult to watch. The horror, heightened by the fact that Mr. Northrup has always known freedom, is interspersed with gorgeous images of the natural south—Spanish moss curtaining golden light through the trees, swamps teeming with life, lovely plantation homes, even a glorious field of white cotton waiting to be harvested. Of course, these images are haunted by our knowledge of the travesty that undergirds the way of life there. Seeing this natural beauty through the eyes of a man living in fear and degradation brought home to me once again the myriad ways that we corrupt the creation which God intended for delight.

And then there is God’s written Word, which is also corrupted by slaveowners for their own purposes.

The first slaveowner, played by the ubiquitous Benedict Cumberbatch, seems to feel he’s doing his best, trying to stay on a high moral ground in spite of the messy matter of owning slaves. He’s the “nice” slaveowner, the one who feels he is treating his slaves well, the one who stages Sunday services for them on his plantation. He stands reading Scripture in his lovely garden as the slaves sit, a truly captive audience that includes a grieving mother who has been separated from her children by his purchase.

Another, more vile slaveowner, played by McQueen’s favorite actor Michael Fassbender, reads to his slaves as well. He reads this (in a different translation): “The servant who knows the master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what the master wants will be beaten with many blows.” That verse from Luke 12, in context, is a difficult enough passage, but when snatched away from surrounding verses, it is a cruel power the master lords over his slaves.

On the other hand, Northrup finds some solace in singing spirituals on the death of a fellow slave, showing the way that the spiritual life of slaves gave them hope for the future, in the next life if not here on earth.

McQueen ably portrays the complete loss of dignity and the inhumanity that Northrup and other slaves suffer. Chiwetel Ejiofor is amazing in the roll of Solomon Northrup, as is Lupita Nyong'o's portrayal of another slave named Patsey; all of the acting is excellent. The cinematography is stunning. And there are some unusually long pauses in the action that leave us suspended in time (and sometimes in horror) in a way that helps us enter into the character’s feeling of being powerless to leave a horrible situation.

My initial reaction to it was a mixture of being deeply affected (and brutalized, as the director must have hoped) by the story, and at the same time feeling that there were no surprises. I have seen these characters before, though more often in books than in movies. That is in part due, as a friend explained to me, that Northrup's story was published in the same time period as a number of slave narratives, and many were written as part of the abolitionist movement's campaign. A George Mason University website has an article about why this story is a little different and considered more reliable than most.

But perhaps it is time for a new generation to look closely and deeply into the terrible history of slavery in our country. We cannot face present problems without looking at the way we came to them, and ignorance of our past systemic inhumanity will serve to continue misunderstanding and hate. If you want to take the next step, read about what happened after slavery was officially ended and the subsequent struggles faced by freed slaves and their descendants in the book The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson. Our collective past sins affect many generations, including the current one.

And our uncanny ability to justify our sin, with or without the misuse of God's Word, is a trap every one of us should be watching for.