Twelve Years a Slave

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. The word “antebellum,” meaning “before the war,” commonly refers to the American Civil War. What date range does this period refer to? What were some of the notable features of American life at this time? What might the term “antebellum slavery” refer to in this context?

Teaching Suggestion: The year 1841, when Brown and Hamilton abducted Solomon Northup and sold him into slavery, was during the antebellum period. Understanding the unique social and political forces that shaped life for Black individuals during this period—chiefly, the social and political forces surrounding the institution of slavery—is important to understanding Twelve Years a Slave. These and similar resources might help students to understand the primary reasons that white Americans were fighting so feverishly to retain this institution, the tenuous situation African Americans held in US society at that time, and the tensions in American life that culminated in the Civil War.

• PBS provides an overview of this historical period and the function of slavery during this time in this article, “Conditions of Antebellum Slavery.”
• “Free Blacks in the Antebellum Period” is an article that is part of the Library of Congress’s online exhibition entitled The African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship. The article focuses on what life was like for free Black individuals during this period in America. 

2. According to new research from the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, enslaved workers in antebellum America were responsible for roughly one-fifth of the growth in commodity output per capital between 1839 and 1859. Why do you think academics in the 21st century seek to quantify precisely how much enslaved workers contributed to the American economy? What do you know about how the institution of slavery affected American economic growth and development in the period before and after the Civil War?

Teaching Suggestion:  Many historians, economists, and other academics agree that slavery’s system of violence and forced labor was central to America’s economic growth. Indeed, much of what animates Northrup’s journey in Twelve Years a Slave is purely economic. As they read about Northup’s initial abduction to his transfer from one enslaver to the next, students can connect the powerful economic forces that bolstered the institution and Social Construction of Slavery in place in 19th-century America.

• “How Slavery Became the Economic Engine of the South” is an article from History.com discussing the economics of slavery.
• “The Barbaric History of Sugar in America” is a discussion of the book Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market in the New York Times, which explains how the sugar industry and antebellum slavery were intertwined.

Differentiation Suggestion: For learners who can engage meaningfully with sensitive or controversial topics, you might consider extending this prompt to connect the concept of reparations, or compensation for the descendants of enslaved people. Discuss this concept as a class—do students agree with the concept of reparations? If so, why? Before engaging in this conversation, students might read the Brookings Institution's “Why We Need Reparations for Black Americans,”  The Guardian’s “More Than Money: The Logic of Slavery Reparations,” or similar resources.

Personal Connection Prompt

This prompt can be used for in-class discussion, exploratory free-writing, or reflection homework before reading the text.

1. Though it’s been over a hundred years since the abolition of slavery, the deleterious effects of this institution still linger in American life today. What does the term “institutionalized racism” mean to you?

Teaching Suggestion: Racist Systems of Power, Control, and Punishment are woven into the fabric of American society. This prompt will give students the opportunity to make a connection between their experiences, observations, and/or studies to the historical events, people, and concepts described in the book. Depending on the overall goals of your curriculum, you might consider sharing these resources for reflection or using them to establish talking points for discussion.

• Written in the wake of the 2020 murder of George Floyd, Time’s “The Many Ways Institutionalized Racism Kills Black People” explains how racism lies at the heart of systems vital to American life, such as healthcare and criminal justice.
• PBS’s “Annual Report Shows Systemic Racism Continues to Bring Down Black People’s Quality of Life” from April 2022 is a summary of the National Urban League’s annual report on the state of Black America, to help quantify (via their Equality Index) precisely the effect systemic racism has on the community.