The Fulfillment of Basic Needs
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Solomon describes the place where he is confined as a place with poor light. Even he can observe the room after the door is opened. It can be seen in this
quotation: The light admitted through the open door enabled me to observe the
room in which I was confined. It was about twelve feet square – the walls of solid masonry. The floor was of heavy plank. There was
one small window, crossed with great iron bars, with an outside shutter, securely fastened.
Northup, 2014:19 The quotation above shows how isolated Solomon is from outside world. He
does not know anything about outside of their room but the darkness. In addition, the room in which he is confined consists of a wooden bench and neither bed, nor
blanket, nor anything whatever .While underneath the roof, there is a crazy loft all around, where slaves, if so dispose, may sleep at night, or in inclement weather seek
shelter from the storm. These conditions show how awfully the slaves are treated. It was like a farmer’s barnyard in most respects, save it was so
constructed that the outside world could never see human cattle that were herded here.
Northup, 2014:19 The awful condition of place where the slaves live in is not only found in the
slave pen. It is also found in the cabin where the slaves live with the master after they are purchased. It is portrayed in the quotation below:
The cabin is constructed of logs, without floor or window. The latter is altogether unnecessary, the crevices between the logs admitting
sufficient light. In stormy weather the rain drives through them, rendering it comfortless and extremely disagreeable. The rude door
hangs on great wooden hinges. In one end is constructed an awkward fireplace.
Northup, 2014:118
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In addition, the slaves sleep in uncertain place. Solomon conveys his experience as a slave how they sleep in the cabin as quoted below:
Depositing our blankets in one of the small buildings in the yard, and having been called up and fed, we were allowed to saunter
about the enclosure until night, when we wrapped our blankets round us and laid down under the shed, or in the loft, or in the
open yard, just as each one preferred.
Northup, 2014: 46
This quotation shows the poor condition to sleep for slaves. They sleep without any pedestal. They just sleep right upon the ground. In addition, Solomon in
Chapter 12 gives explanation about his condition of living as quoted below: The softest couches in the world are not found in the log mansion of
the slave. The one whereon I reclined year after year, was a plank twelve inches wide and ten feet long. My pillow was a stick of wood.
The bedding was a coarse blanket, and not a rag or shred beside. Moss might be used, were it not that it directly breeds a swarm of
fleas.
Northup, 2014: 118 Slaves are free to choose where they want to sleep, even though all of the
choices are not good and comfort enough for them. The place that has been mentioned by Solomon shows how they are treated like: they have to live and sleep
in a shed, or in the loft, or in the open yard. Shed is a simple roofed structure used for garden storage, to shelter animals, or as a workshop. Loft is a room or space
directly under the roof of a house or other building, used for accommodation or storage. In other words, there are differences which separate the white masters and
the black slaves. It can be concluded that the slave’s shelters – both slave pen and cabin – are not suitable for themselves. It is because the slave shelters do not provide
the suitable condition for human to sleep: dark, comfortless, no furniture, floor or
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window and so on. There is a level or position separation among them. The black slaves are treated as cattle.
b. Clothes
Slaves are provided with clothes for their daily activities. Their clothes are simple clothes as quoted in the quotation below:
We were then furnished with a new suit each, cheap, but clean. The men had hat, coat, shirt, pants, and shoes; the women frocks of calico,
and handkerchiefs to bind about their heads. Northup, 2014: 48
All of their old clothes are thrown away. All of their past glorious has been thrown away with their clothes and then they wear the slaves clothes to emphasize
their status at the time as a slave that are ready to be sold and purchased by their master.
On their journey from one state to another, the slaves are only given a blanket for their belongings. This blanket is used just for sake to keep they warm on
their journey, on winter and when they sleep in the cabin. This blanket is not as soft and fluffy as they imagine. It is used upon animals Solomon states in the quotation
below: Finally we were each provided with blankets, such as are used
upon horses – the only bedding I was allowed to have for twelve years afterwards.
Northup, 2014: 25
This is one of examples of how the slave’s life is. Their blankets are their only belongings on their journey from one state to another state until they reach the
destination.
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He is furnished with a blanket before he reaches there, and wrapping that around him, he can either stand up, or lie down upon
the ground, or on a board, if his master has no use for it.
Northup, 2014:136
In the winter when they are with their master, the slaves are provided with winter garments as quoted below:
One day the mistress was urging Ford to procure a loom, in order that Sally might commence weaving cloth for the winter garments of the
slaves. Northup, 2014: 67
From the quotation above, it is clear that the mistress is intended to make the winter garments for slaves so that they are not getting cold of winter. Goodell 1853:
153 also gives the similar statement as Northup’s in the quotation below: The slave who shall not have, on the property of his owner, a lot of
ground to cultivate on his own account, shall be entitled to receive from said owner one linen shirt and pantaloons for the summer, and a
linen shirt and woolen greatcoat and pantaloons for the winter.
c. Foods
Slaves are fed twice a day, at ten and five o’clock – always receiving the same kind and quantity of fare, and in the same manner. They always receive corn
bread or hoecake and bacon for their breakfast or dinner: I retired to the cabin extremely tired, and having cooked a supper of
bacon and corn cake. Northup, 2014: 71
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All that is allowed them is corn and bacon, which is given out the corn crib and smoke-house every Sunday morning.
Northup, 2014: 116-117 During the journey we were fed twice a day, boiling our corn-cake
at the fires in the same manner as in out huts. Northup, 2014: 134
These quotations show that whenever and wherever they are, they always get the same manner and foods for them to eat. They should cook their bacon and corn
cake not only in the cabin, but also in the steamboat and on their journey notwithstanding they are extremely tired.
Not only the lack of foods, they are also lack of eating utensils. Most of them do not have any complete eating utensil such as knife and fork. This is shown in the
quotation below: The use of plates was dispensed with, and their sable fingers took
the place of knives and forks. Northup, 2014: 39
The quotation above shows that the slaves do not use any plate, knife and fork to eat their foods. They eat by using their bare hand and without any plate to
place their bacon and corn cake. The majority of slaves have no knife, much less a fork. They cut
their bacon with the axe at the wood-pile. Northup, 2014: 117
The quotation above gives an additional explanation that not all slaves have both knife and fork. There are only a few slaves that have a fork. Moreover, they
have to cut their food by using something unusual tool such as axe. They cut their foods which are something important for them by using a tool that is used in a field.
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An axe is improper to use to cut foods. It shows that the slaves are humiliated. The master seems do not care too much about it.
When a slave, purchased, or kidnapped in the North, is transported to a cabin on Bayou Beouf, he is furnished with neither knife, nor
fork nor dish, nor kettle, nor any other thin in the shape of crockery, or furniture of any nature or description.
Northup, 2014:135
The quotation above shows the condition of slave who is transported from North to south without equipped with anything to support his life. They just bring
themselves. That is why they eat by their own bare hands. The masters do not provide them with such equipment. Moreover, if the slaves ask for it, they only
receive bad treatment for its respond as quoted below: To ask the master for a knife, or skillet, or any small convenience
of the kind, would be answered with a kick, or laughed at as a joke.
Northup, 2014: 136
This shows that slaves have no any rights to ask something to their masters even for a small thing. Whatever is expressed by the slaves is regarded as a joke by
the masters. Schneider gives the same point as Solomon describe. He describes the
condition of slaves living in the large plantation as in Louisiana: what, when and how they do eat everyday as quoted below:
On the larger plantations, the overseer typically distributed the slaves’ food to heads of families or to unmarried adults once a
week, perhaps on Saturday nights—or perhaps in midweek, to prevent them from selling it for whiskey on Sunday. Every night
the slaves took the next day’s portion to a cookhouse, where a
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cook prepared two of their daily meals. The slaves ate where they could, near their work, from troughs or gourds, with spoons, shells,
or their bare hands. Slave wives and mothers, after a day’s hard labor in the fields, might cook their families’ evening meal in their
cabins: “a bit of bacon fried, often with eggs, corn-bread baked in the spider [frying pan] after the bacon, to absorb the fat, and
perhaps some sweet potatoes roasted in the ashes.” Diets consisting mainly of rice, fatback, cornmeal, and salt pork
rendered slaves vulnerable to blindness, sore eyes, skin irritations, rickets, toothaches, pellagra, beriberi, and scurvy.
Schneider, 2007: 80