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Chapter 14
Explanation and Analysis—Ford and Epps:
As the two white men who enslave Solomon for the longest periods of time, Ford and Epps act as foils to each other, meaning their juxtaposition reveals aspects of each of their characters. For example, Ford is kind and sympathetic to the people he enslaves—treating them as if they were members of his family—whereas Epps is needlessly cruel and self-serving. He whips, tortures, and sexually abuses the people he enslaves. It is only because of Solomon’s initial positive experience with Ford that Solomon so acutely experiences Epps’s cruelty.
Interestingly, Solomon notes that—despite their differences—both Ford and Epps were created by an unjust system, and slaveowners as individuals raised in a racist society cannot be blamed for their participation:
It is true there are many kind-hearted and good men in the parish of Avoyelles—such men as William Ford—who can look with pity upon the sufferings of a slave, just as there are, over all the world, sensitive and sympathetic spirits, who cannot look with indifference upon the sufferings of any creature which the Almighty has endowed with life. It is not the fault of the slaveholder that he is cruel, so much as it is the fault of the system under which he lives. He cannot withstand the influence of habit and associations that surround him.
Solomon’s analysis is important in that he is telling his (primarily white) readers that just because an enslaver is kind does not mean that he is not also participating in a cruel system. It’s not a matter of Ford being a “good” enslaver and Epps being a “bad” one, but of slavery as an institution seducing all enslavers into certain forms of brutality. Solomon also names how God (or “the Almighty”) created all creatures equally, one of the many times that he invokes Christianity in his arguments against slavery.
Related Themes:
