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.