The United States 1852 vs India 2020 — A Story of How the Law is Applied

President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared “that all persons held as slaves” within the rebellious states “are, and henceforward shall be free.”

In the period before 1863, most blacks were slaves and as such merely property. Then there were those who had been freed by their masters and were now freemen and their descendants. There were also those blacks who were not of American extraction, free blacks from other countries. To each, different laws applied. Some American states had laws saying that those freemen who resided more than ten days therein automatically reverted to being slaves once again.

I recently read “Twelve Years a Slave”, the autobiography of Solomon Northup, a black free man in the years before President Abraham Lincoln announced his Proclamation of Emancipation.

Northup was a free black who was illegally sold into slavery in 1841, but was able to regain his freedom thanks to the interest taken in his case by some public spirited gentlemen, senators and justices of the US Supreme Court, some twelve years later.

What is striking is that they interested themselves in the case of a black man when slavery was still legal in the United States, when most blacks were still slaves. But they were upset by the fact that the law had been flouted to enslave a free black man. The law could not be flouted. The full force of the law was used to set him at liberty. It was not important that he was black. What was important was that the law be upheld. At this date free black men could not be full citizens of the United States. That came later in 1866 after the Civil War.

Solomon Northup was born in the town of Minerva in Essex County New York in the year 1808, a free black. His grandfather had been a slave and had been freed on his owner’s death. He chose to retain his former owner’s surname. As a freeman, he was free to travel, choose his occupation and place of residence. This was contingent on production of a permit certifying his free status. This document was thus very important.

Northup’s family continued to have cordial relations with their former owners family. Prominent among these was a Mr Henry B Northup, an attorney at law.

Solomon Northup was a farmer but was also interested in books and played the violin rather well, for which reason he was much in demand at neighbourhood events. In 1829 he married Anne Hampton, also a black freewoman. After marriage he took up a job as a small contractor, ferrying rafts of timber down Lake Champlain to nearby lumber mills. Then in 1834 he moved to Saratoga Springs in New York state. Here he worked at the United States Hotel and used to make regular purchases at the stores run by Cephas Parker and William Perry, both white. He soon became fairly friendly with them.

By this time Solomon and Anne had become parents to three children, two girls and a boy.

One particular day in March 1841, Solomon was met by two people who told him that they wished to engage him as a violin player. Their names were Hamilton and Brown. They were part of a circus now camped near Washington and promised him good wages for going with them to Washington.

The day after they reached Washington happened to be the funeral of President Harrison, the ninth president of the US. So Northup could not go back home, but accompanied Hamilton and Brown to see the funeral procession and later on rounds of various saloons where they both pressed drinks on him. After one of these drinks that evening, he started feeling increasingly unwell and later became unconscious. When he woke up he was seated on a bench in a small shabby underground room, handcuffed and shackled to a ring in the floor. He had no idea of where he was. His money and papers relating to his freeman status had all disappeared.

When his captors appeared, he did not recognise them. Northup realised that he had been abducted. He was told he would now be sold as a slave. When he protested his free status, he was brutally beaten and told to keep quiet. He was also told to forget the name Northup. From now on he would be known as Platt. On any attempt to claim that he was a freeman, he would be killed. The building in which Northup was held was a slave pen and within sight of the Capitol building, the legislature of the United States,

And thus he began his journey south. He was sold several times more, going further and further south towards Louisiana. The further south you went, the worse you were treated. Eventually he found himself on a farm owned by an Edwin Epps at a place called Bayou Boeuf. He was two thousand kilometres from home.

Epps raised cotton on a large scale and in the off season corn. The work was hard and the slaves were always busy.

Then in June 1852, Epps hired a group of carpenters to build himself a proper house. Since Northup used to do carpentry chores himself and was quite skilled, he was attached to the group. Among these carpenters was a man called Bass.

Bass was a large, good-natured man between forty and fifty years old. His many acts of kindness made him popular wherever he went, despite his contrary stands on the popular issues of the day. During these arguments, Northup often heard him talking about slavery as an evil.

Northup was extremely intrigued to hear a white man express such opinions and this tempted him to confide in Bass. He cautiously revealed his background. Bass put many searching questions to him, but was eventually convinced and promised to help him.

Northup gave Bass the names of William Perry, Cephas Parker and Judge Marvin, all of Saratoga Springs, Saratoga county, New York. He had been employed by Judge Marvin in the United States Hotel in Saratoga and had had business transactions with Perry and Parker. Bass would write to them and inform them of Northup’s plight. Since there was no post office nearby Bass would post the letters at Marksville.

The letters were posted in August 1852. For several months there was no reply. In any case, Northup would not have known, since as a slave he could not receive any mail.

Then on the third of January, 1853, when the slaves were early in the fields for the cotton picking, the local sheriff appeared with a stranger and asked for Solomon Northup or Platt as he was now known. Northup identified himself. He was asked several questions about his background, family and acquaintances in his previous life. Eventually, the sheriff was satisfied that he was indeed who he said he was.

The stranger who had accompanied the sheriff had stood aloof a little distance away during the interrogation. Northup was then asked whether he knew him. When he looked closely he recognised Mr Henry Northup of Sandy Hill. He was understandably overcome by emotion and for some time was unable to speak. Mr Northup then told him that his family were all in good health but that his mother had passed away.

They then met the owner of the plantation, Epps. He was shown the documentation and told of Northup’s true identity and that he was not a slave. Epps was upset at the financial loss he would incur and said that had he known, he would have secreted Solomon away where he would not have been found. But he would talk to his lawyer. Eventually the next day after a short legal proceeding where the legal documents were shown to and accepted by Epps’ lawyer, Northup was on his way home to his family after twelve years of slavery.

So what had happened? What did I find so striking about this story?

India is a country where the law is practically flouted everyday by anyone who can get away with it. We have VVIPs, cars with red lights, ‘aapko pata hai ki mera baap kaun hai?” or “aapko nahi pata ki mera baap kaun hai” or words to that effect and that sort of thing. Everyone who is anyone is above the law. The Supreme Court periodically parrots, “Be you ever so high, the law is above you.” But we know how seriously the courts themselves view this dictum. If you are somebody, you can commit any crime, get anticipatory bail or not appear in court in response to a summons. In fact, you can get bail, in a personal hearing in the judge’s house at midnight. And of course we all know that it takes a minimum of thirty years to get a judgement through the courts, that the police will not register First Information Reports and so on. We know of encounters and the pathetic stories the police cook up to justify some killing in custody. Of course the criminal tried to snatch a weapon and escape, but our valiant policemen shot him dead. Fortunately our criminals are always inveterately bad marksmen. Thanks to their bad marksmanship, our valiant policemen usually receive only some grazing wounds on the arm or leg and will be out of hospital in a day to resume their valiant efforts on behalf of our law abiding zillions. Very rarely is a policeman killed in an encounter. Whether this is testimony to poor marksmanship on the part of the criminal element or an obvious setup, I leave it to the reader to judge. I could go on and on.

So this is the year 1852. Two white men (Parker and Perry) get a letter saying that a black man (Solomon Northup) that they used to know a while ago (twelve years to be exact), a servant in a nearby hotel, had been kidnapped and is now imprisoned falsely in a distant part of the United States, where slavery is the prevailing order for black people. These white people apparently have little else to do and so they hasten to inform his family. His wife, whom one cannot blame for being interested in the outcome, meets a lawyer (Henry B Northup) who knows the family and shows him the letter. The lawyer is white, the man black. Most black men are slaves and are property. They have no rights. But this case is different. A free black man has been enslaved. This is a crime. There is a law specifically to deal with this.

Reminds me of similar laws that we have in India against dowry, rape, child marriage etc. and how eager we and our authorities are to prosecute infractions against these laws. We read about them every day — of BJP MP KK Sengar accused of rape, who then kills the rape victim’s father and remains scot-free. There is no FIR in the local police station. In fact the rape victim’s father is arrested and then beaten to death in the local jail. He was arrested for forgery or some such offence, true no doubt, and beaten to death in jail by KK Sengar’s brother, who is not a policeman, but a public-spirited citizen interested in upholding the law. KK Sengar is now in jail, but no thanks to the police. And we still have deaths in police custody every day and no one is punished.

But this is not India. This is the United States in the Year of Our Lord 1852.

The lawyer consults the lawbook. It says that by virtue of statute passed in 1840, on receipt of information that a free man has been enslaved, the governor of the state “shall take such measures as he shall deem necessary to procure such person to be restored to his liberty and returned to this State.”

Accordingly, Mr Northup makes his way to New York to meet the Governor of New York State, Mr Washington Hunt, who is convinced by the production of various proofs that a black freeman has indeed been abducted and enslaved, whereupon he issues the following order:-

State of New York

Executive Department

Washington Hunt, Governor of the State of New York

“To whom it may concern, greeting:

Whereas, I have received information on oath, which is satisfactory to me, that Solomon Northup, who is a free citizen of this State, is wrongfully held in slavery, in the State of Louisiana:

And whereas, it is made my duty, by the laws of this State, to take such measures as I shall deem necessary to procure any citizen so wrongfully held in slavery, to be restored to his liberty and returned to this State: Be it known, that in pursuance of chapter 375 of the laws of this State, passed in 1840, I have constituted, appointed and employed Henry B. Northup, Esquire, of the county of Washington, in this State, an Agent, with full power to effect the restoration of said Solomon Northup, and the said Agent is hereby authorized and empowered to institute such proper and legal proceedings, to procure such evidence, retain such counsel, and finally to take such measures as will be most likely to accomplish the object of his said appointment.

He is also instructed to proceed to the State of Louisiana with all convenient dispatch, to execute the agency hereby created.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto subscribed my name, and affixed the privy seal of the State, at Albany, this 23d day of November, in the year of our Lord 1852.

(Signed,)

Washington Hunt.

James F Ruggles, Private Secretary.”

My God! All this fuss over a black man who has been kidnapped? What nonsense! Today we have Dalits being killed every day in India, Dalits being beaten for wearing chappals in a caste Hindu area, for riding a horse during a marriage ceremony. And yes, there are laws banning untouchability. You cannot call someone a Chamar. And yes we know what really happens.

But this is not India. This is the US in 1852.

Not satisfied with meeting the governor of New York, the tireless and I daresay the tiresome Mr Northup proceeds to the Capitol, meets Mr Pierre Soule, the Senator for Louisiana, one of the major slave owning states. Senator Soule, probably a slave holder himself, is outraged — a black man kidnapped and imprisoned in Louisiana, his own state! He immediately writes a letter asking all citizens to assist Mr Northup, the agent of the Governor of New York in this case, in order to set at liberty the said Solomon Northup appealing to their sense of honour and justice.

Next Mr Northup meets Mr Conrad, the Secretary of War and then Justice Nelson of the Supreme Court of the United States. They all furnish letters similar to Senator Soules. Don’t the Secretary for War in the President’s cabinet and the Supreme Court justice have anything better to do? Show me one Indian Supreme Court justice and one Union Cabinet minister who would respond to anything like this.

All this fuss for one black man. And that too by high constitutional functionaries. Unbelievable!

A few weeks ago, two men, a father and son, were tortured to death over two days in a police station in Tuticorin for merely keeping their shop open slightly past Covid curfew timings. They were beaten, sexually assaulted, had rods inserted up their rectal passages causing grave trauma and injury. They were then wrapped in bloody lungis and taken to a nearby magistrate to press for further custody. The magistrate was supposed to see them physically up close to ensure that they had not been tortured. It being dark, he viewed them from his first floor window. They were on the road outside, obscured by the police vehicle they had been brought in. He certified to their physical well being and allowed the police some more time for interrogation in custody. They died the next day, whereupon they were moved to a hospital for post mortem examination. The doctor promptly certified that they had died due to cardiac arrest. In any case everyone knows that in India, all post-mortems are done not by doctors, but by the Class IV staff in the hospital. But give the doctor his due. He would have certified that they died in childbirth if that was what the policemen had asked for. The magistrate continues in office, on call for more service to the police when necessary, an upright servant of the government of India and of the law as it is applied in this country. He will get further promotions and draw his pension in time. Why, he might even become a judge of the Supreme Court and issue those diktats for which it is well known — deploring falling standards in public life and the poor state of administration etc. etc. But about the pendency of cases in the courts and the fact that it takes thirty years to get a judgement and that to date no bureaucrats or politicians have been convicted, it will keep quiet. It will also be silent on venal judges who misuse office and retire to the comfort of palacious homes on a full pension.

And what about the esteemed policemen, placed over the inspector and constables who carried out this atrocity? Who or what were they supervising, these esteemed officials of the All India Service, covenanted members of the Indian Police Service? What were they doing those two weeks when an outraged public was demanding answers? In popular parlance, they were doing some heavy lifting, in vulgar Haryanvi ‘tatta lifting’ to mollify their political bosses. So nothing happened. Then the press chimed in. The victims belonged to a Christian OBC group, who are politically powerful. This was grist to the mill. Thank God they were not Muslims, in which case all hell would have broken loose. The Organisation of Islamic Conference would probably have weighed in on the story, Imran Khan would have had things to say about secular India’s treatment of its minorities and so on. Since they were probably Protestant, the Pope did not express his concern. Some two weeks later a special probe was constituted and then the case handed over to the CBI, which has successfully buried many crimes, political and otherwise. The matter will now be left to our memories. Fortunately Indians in general and the Indian body politic in particular has Alzheimer’s, otherwise life would be difficult to bear. I strongly recommend contracting it.

Then there are all the other people involved, the local attorney Mr Waddill and the local sheriff. Mr Waddill believes whatever twaddle Mr Northup feeds him and sides with an outsider against a local man, Mr Epps, all because Northup claims that Solomon Northup has been kidnapped from up North to be made slave. Where is his sense of belonging, supporting an outsider? Wasn’t he worried about the local economy, about the financial loss an upright local would suffer if he lost his property?

Then that sheriff. His name is not mentioned in Northup’s book, perhaps deservedly so. A villain if I know one! A disgrace to the Indian Police Service, were he to have been born here. Of course he wouldn’t have met the high standards we require. He wouldn’t last five minutes in an Indian thana. Imagine believing someone you had just met five minutes ago and agreeing to accompany him to free someone, a black person that too. He would probably be the type that would insist on FIRs being recorded any time someone landed up in the police station to report some minor crime. Imagine the way the crime statistics would shoot up in that area. How could you investigate all those FIRs? With all the policemen on VIP duty and guard duty at various criminal MLA’s houses or taking their daughters to school. That sheriff would probably have been ‘encountered’ by his own station house walas. So it is only just that he rest in obscurity.

And that judge in Marksville, who was willing to listen to an application to free a slave at midnight and even signs an order for bail at such an unearthly hour. What possessed him? Clearly unfit for the Indian judiciary! But these Americans have always had low standards, Felix Frankfurter and Learned Hand notwithstanding.

And lastly Mr Northup again, the villain of the piece. What a fool he must have been! Taking all this trouble for one black man. He runs around from Saratoga to New York to Washington and then all the way to Bayou Boeuf in Louisiana a matter of some two thousand kilometres as the crow flies and two thousand five hundred otherwise, at a hazard. It’s 1852, remember. No trains and aircraft or telephones or email then. He travels personally by carriage and horseback, by ship and steamer. Really uncomfortable on those unpaved roads. Dunlop and Macadam come later in the century — pneumatic tyres and tarred roads. And he travels all that distance from home forsaking a jolly Christmas at home for a trip down to the Godforsaken South in search of a black man, formerly known to his family. The connection? Merely that his family had formerly owned the black man’s grandfather. Is that a good enough excuse for missing Christmas with your family? But for him, Mr Edwin Epps wouldn’t have sustained such material loss in the purchase of a slave who turned out not to be one. What a waste of good money! Why couldn’t Northup have stayed up North and celebrated his Christmas with his family? But no! He had to come down south and disturb the peace. Our policemen would have known what to do with him. They would have called him an activist or a Naxalite or an urban Naxal, locked him up and thrown away the key.

Could you see yourself making such a trip? Or your great grandfather, in the year 1852 for a local chamar, who had got himself in trouble, probably deservedly so. And he had the temerity to appeal to you for help? The bloody idiot! He probably deserved whatever he was getting. These chamars! What is the world coming to? Could you see yourself in the year 2020 taking this trouble for someone you barely knew, say your servant?

There are kilns in Bangalore not far from where I stay, where bonded labour generally from Tamil Nadu, men, women and children are employed. We frequently hear of them being freed by the police thanks to activists like Swami Agnivesh or Kailash Satyarthi. They work all day, are fed little, paid nothing and are locked up at night, working off debts of a few thousand or so. For which they are condemned to a life time of imprisonment and misery. Do the local police know? You bet they do. So why don’t they free them? This is the India of 2020, not the United States of 1853?

I rest my case.