Oh, the stupidity, it hurts!

[sp23]

I have Penguin Classics 'liked' on Facebook, and today they posted about Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northrup, a free black man from New York who was lured to Washington, D.C. in 1841 where he was drugged, kidnapped, and sold into slavery. In going to Amazon to see if there was a free download for Kindle of this book, I found this review:

Comments

[enigmaticblues]

I keep saying that stupidity should hurt. As in, there should be a clue by four that comes down and smacks some sense into people. :P

[sp23]

So true. As I said, I can only hope this is a kid who can still catch the clue train, because if he's an adult, it's probably too late. :-(

[shipperx]

Not to mention such incidents were a deliberate byproduct of fugitive slave laws. They really had no recourse (were they even allowed to testify in court?)

Worse it didn't end with the end of slavery. Check out PBS's Slavery by Another Name. It's still on free video on their website.

http://m.video.pbs.org/video/2250200562/

[jordan179]

The Fugitive Slave Acts (and their support by the Dred Scott decision) were one of the major causes of the American Civil War, because they created a state of proto-war raiding between Northern and Southern state authorities and their agents.

[sp23]

Well, this happened in 1841, before the Fugitive Slave Act was enacted (1850). Also, Solomon was born a free man in New York City, so it was a pure case of kidnapping and illegal slavery (not that slavery should have *ever* been legal). And no, blacks weren't allowed to testify in court against whites at this time.
I'll check out that video when I get home tonight. Thanks!

[jordan179]

Ah, so the commenter missed that point that he had stopped being free at the moment that he was successfully dragged onto slave state soil. Yes, he was of course by legal right free (even in the antebellum South) but he had no ability to prove this at law: indeed, as a presumed slave, his only way of proving this at law would have been to get a sympathetic known free man (white or black) to take his case on; and it would have been unlikely to work unless his patron had been white.

It's not as if he were an American held as a slave abroad today who might hope to get help from the US Embassy. He had no Great Power supporting him.

Some people don't really get what it means to be living in a different age and one with different social and legal assumptions.

[sp23]

I haven't read the book yet, but from what I understand in reading about it, that is exactly what happened for him to regain his freedom. A white man who knew him redeemed him. Such injustice!

The poor man was taken to a plantation in Louisiana surrounded by swamps. I don't know how the hell he was even supposed to escape in those circumstances since between the swamps and the dogs, he probably would have been a dead man.

And no, some people just don't get the differences in our times and times. They just don't understand that getting away from slavery wasn't like quitting a job.

[petzipellepingo]

So, what, he was just supposed to shout, "Hey, I was born a free man!" and walk off the plantation?

Yeah, 'cause that should have worked...

[sp23]

Totally! Because as we all know, slavery wasn't a bad this with injustices at all!