05 [Thirty Years a Slave] by Louis Hughes

The story background is American Civil war between the Union and the Confederacy. A black guy called Louis was a slave in a white family called McGee. The family was one of the richest plantation owner in Memphis with hundreds of slaves working in its cotton plantation. The story gives a thorough description on the working and living conditions slaves in plantation during that period of time on American history. Even though slavery was officially abolished after Abraham Lincoln from Illinois was elected as the president but some states at the south didn’t follow the rules the slavery was still prevalent and none of the slaves were given the freedom to live as a freed man and the rights they deserved. Whipping, beating, torturing and even killing are common then as the white family didn’t seem to consider the slaves as human beings but more like tools and perhaps animals that they could control, manipulate to gain whatever they want which justify the price they paid when they first bought the slaves. Any slave who tried to run away from the owners would be punished severely once they were caught and even killed when the war with Union army was going on.

I started thinking what made the white families so ignorant to the right of other people with different skin color and what made them treat the black people differently from the ways they treat their own family members, friends, neighbors and strangers with same skin color. Even though it was well written in the bible that all men are equal in front of God and most people then were somehow more devoted than people today,  but religion seemed so helpless in helping to release the slaves from the bondage to freedom. A good guess would be religion was abused as a tool by the slave owners and traders to manipulate the slaves by instilling whatever ideas that made the slaves easier to be exploited for the benefits of others.

Half way reading the book, I suddenly realized that freedom which is a basic need and something which is taken for granted by most people nowadays is actually something which was so desperately desired by the slaves. They could risk their life to run away from the owners just for the freedom and get rid from all the cruel treatment from the slave owners. Sadly, even though the American Civil war ended with the victory of the Union and slavery was officially abolished in United states but racial discrimination still happened for another 80 years.

As a conclusion, this book is definitely worth a read for those who are interested to know more about the slavery in US especially during the American Civil War period.

(456 words)