Unit 3: The Secret Road to Freedom (1ère G6)

 

The Reverse Underground

The document under study is a trailer for a movie entitled “12 Years a Slave” released in 2013. It deals with the real life story of Solomon Northup. He was a free black man who was born in 1841 in the state of New York, a free state. He was a married man with children. Moreover, he was a praised professional musician, a violinist. Unfortunately, he was betrayed/deceived by two white men who drugged him in order to kidnap him and sale him into slavery.  On top of that, he was wrongly accused of being a Georgian runaway and was sold to a plantation. We can see him standing against his slave master because he knew the situation was too unfair. Nevertheless, he receives words of advice from the other slaves who advise him to obey and submit to the master so that he will not get into trouble and save his life. Unlike the other characters, he never seems to accept the identity of a slave – for 12 years.