So, I saw the movie “12 Years a Slave” this past weekend… excellent, fantastic acting, moving story, go see it, etc., etc.
As in most historical dramas, after the movie ends there was a series of cards sharing the eventual fates of a number of people depicted in the film.
One key person’s fate was missing, however: that of slaveholder Edwin Epps (played in the film by Michael Fassbender).
What happened to him?
Some time on Google & Bing didn’t turn up much-- apparently, his house still exists as a historical site:
(Interesting aside: the real home was quite modest in comparison to the film version; it’s still no surprise that Hollywood can’t resist portraying a plantation house in a way audiences have come to expect rather than what was historically accurate).
So… anyone know what eventually happened to the man? Did he finally get his comeuppance, perhaps at the end of a Union bayonet? Or did he die in his own bed, like most evil men sadly do?
As of the 1860 census, he had assets of about $20,000. Apparently, during the Civil War, when Lousiana was occupied, Union soldiers who had read the book sought out Epps to get his opinion on it. Epps commented that the book was mostly true, and that Northrup was, in his words, “an uncommonly smart nigger.” Epps and his wife both died in 1867, although I’m not sure of what, but there was a yellow fever outbreak in Louisiana in 1867, so maybe that. He was 59. His kids moved to Texas, and he still has living descendants.
The 1860 Census is online at sites like Ancestry.com. I see that he was living with his wife Mary, and his six children at that time in Avoyelles. Born 1808 in North Carolina.