Twelve Years a Slave

“Such dupes are men to custom, and so prone / To reverence what is ancient, and can plead / A course of long observance for its use, / That even servitude, the worst of ills, / Because it is delivered from sire to son, / Is kept and guarded as a sacred thing.”

Twelve Years a Slave opens with an epigraph written in 1785 by British poet William Cowper that repeatedly attacks several subjects Cowper finds reprehensible, including the frivolity of fashion, the hypocrisy of the clergy, and the evils of slavery. By opening his book with a quote from a canonically established White poet, Solomon Northup elevates his own slave narrative, framing it alongside a figure his educated White readers will understand. Northup pointedly highlights Cowper’s reflections on the ways a father passes down his “reverence” of servitude to his son. Thus, Northup establishes his book’s interest in investigating the normalization and social enforcement of slavery. 

“I can speak of Slavery only so far as it came under my own observation—only so far as I have known and experienced it in my own person. My object is, to give a candid and truthful statement of facts: to repeat the story of my life, without exaggeration, leaving it for others to determine, whether even the pages of fiction present a picture of more cruel wrong or a severer bondage.” 

Solomon Northup begins his book with this affirmation of its truthfulness and objectivity, making it clear that none of the cruelty or mistreatment he details has been “exaggerat[ed].” In this way, Northup primes the reader to accept his memoir as a factual historic document and a collection of verifiable evidence—one that can be used to bolster the abolitionist movement.