[The following is an excerpt from Solomon Northup’s chilling memoir, 12 Years a Slave. Solomon Northup was a free man living in the Northern states, who was kidnapped by black-market slave traders and illegally sold in the deep south as a “runaway slave from Georgia,” named Platt. After 12 years in captivity, he was eventually freed after getting word out to friends and acquaintances in the North, about his whereabouts and condition. Here, Solomon has just defended himself from a carpenter who attempted to beat him for doing little more than following directions. After successfully defending himself, the man, Tibeats, ran off to get two nearby plantation overseers and returned to lynch Solomon. After getting him tied up and the noose around his neck, the kindly overseer of the plantation they were on came to intervene.]
At length, as they were dragging me towards the tree, Chapin, who had momentarily disappeared from the piazza, came out of the house and walked towards us. He had a pistol in each hand, and as near as I can now recall to mind, spoke in a firm, determined manner, as follows:
”Gentlemen, I have a few words to say. You had better listen to them. Whoever moves that slave another foot from where he stands is a dead man. In the first place, he does not deserve this treatment. It is a shame to murder him in this manner. I never knew a more faithful boy than Platt. You, Tibeats, are in the fault yourself. You are pretty much of a scoundrel, and I know it, and you richly deserve the flogging you have received. In the next place, I have been overseer on this plantation seven years, and, in the absence of William Ford, am master here. My duty is to protect his interests, and that duty I shall perform. You are not responsible – you are a worthless fellow. Ford holds a mortgage on Platt of four hundred dollars. If you hang him he loses his debt. Until that is canceled you have no right to take his life. You have no right to take it anyway. There is a law for the slave as well as for the white man. You are no better than a murderer.”
”As for you,” addressing Cook and Ramsay, a couple of overseers from neighboring plantations, “as for you – begone! If you have any regard for your own safety, I say, begone.”
Cook and Ramsay, without a further word, mounted their horses and rode away. Tibeats, in a few minutes, evidently in fear, and overawed by the decided tone of Chapin, sneaked off like a coward, as he was, and mounting his horse, followed his companions.
Source:
Northup, Solomon. “Chapter 8.” Twelve Years a Slave. Graymalkin Media, 2014. 76-7. Print.
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