Warning: This post contains major spoilers for Apple TV+’s EmancipationWill Smith’s movie Emancipation is inspired by the true story of a former slave, Gordon, who became known as “Whipped Peter” after a photograph of his scarred back was seen around the world during the latter stages of the American Civil War. As with most dramatic adaptations of true historical events, Emancipation uses considerable artistic license with Gordon’s story, but the important historical facts remain at the core of the movie. Directed by Training Day‘s Antoine Fuqua and written by Assassin’s Creed screenwriter Bill Collage, the movie tells the story of Peter (Will Smith) as he escapes a Confederate slave camp with the hope of being reunited with his family.
Will Smith famously turned down Django Unchained, which is a far more fictionalized account of a similar period in American history. However, Emancipation does feel similar to the opening of the Tarantino movie, with Smith’s Peter, like Foxx’s Django, on the run from slave hunters. In Emancipation, Peter is chased by a group of hunters led by Jim Fassel (Ben Foster), but this doesn’t quite match up with the true story of the real “Whipped Peter”.
The True Story Of Emancipation’s Peter’s Escape
Will Smith’s character is called Peter, but the real-life man’s given name was Gordon, and was only dubbed “Whipped Peter” by abolitionists. In naming Will Smith’s character Peter, Emancipation risks erasing Gordon’s identity by turning him into the “Whipped Peter” character. There is another Emancipation character named Gordon, who escapes the Confederate camp with Peter, before they’re separated. The two men reunite at the Union camp in Baton Rouge, and it’s tempting to see them as two sides of the real-life Gordon – Peter is the myth, while Gordon is the man. The mythical Peter wrestles and kills an alligator, while the real Gordon did not. However, both men did use onions to mask their scent from the bloodhounds.
The real Gordon wasn’t interred at a Confederate slave camp but worked on John and Bridget Lyons’ plantation where he was brutally treated. In Emancipation, Peter makes the decision to escape the camp after witnessing the brutal treatment of his fellow slaves, and burying their corpses. In real life, Gordon decided to escape the plantation after a whipping so brutal that he was put in a coma for two months, during which his scars had salt water repeatedly poured across them by the plantation overseer, Artayou Carrier.
Was Ben Foster’s Jim Fassel A Real Person?
3:10 to Yuma‘s Ben Foster plays Jim Fassel, the overseer at the Confederate slave camp, and the man who hunts Peter through the Louisiana bayou. Fassel is a fictional character created by Bill Collage to reflect the racist attitudes of the time, and the immense cruelty meted out to slaves across the United States. In the scenes at the slave camp where he chains Peter to a post and has a dog bark into his face repeatedly, he effectively reflects the brutality of the real-life Artayou Carrier.
In the fireside chat that Fassel has with his fellow hunters, he explains how his father brutally murdered his Black housekeeper to demonstrate his belief that Black and White people were not equal. It’s a dramatized monologue that taps into how racial prejudice is handed down through the generations. Something emphasized by the chilling scene in Antoine Fuqua’s movie in which a small girl rings the bell to alert the hunters to Peter’s presence as he escapes through her family’s garden.
Abraham Lincoln Did Not End Slavery Overnight
One of the driving forces for Peter’s escape in Emancipation is the fact that Abraham Lincoln has recently signed the Emancipation Proclamation. At the start of the American Civil War’s third year, on January 1, 1863, President Lincoln’s proclamation declared that “all persons held as slaves” in the rebel states “shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free“. However, as depicted in Emancipation this didn’t mean that slavery ended overnight, especially in the Confederate states, which were explicitly exempted from the Emancipation Proclamation.
As depicted in Steven Spielberg’s Civil War movie Lincoln, the war was far from over in 1863, and it would continue for another two years. The only way, therefore, for Black men in the Confederate states to earn their freedom was to join the Union army. This is what drives Peter’s journey to Baton Rouge, as he hopes to join the Union troops there, in the hope of eventually being reunited with his family. Gordon, Peter’s real-life counterpart, stumbled into the Union camp after his grueling chase, and was then inspired to join the Union Army, in which he’s said to have fought valiantly.
What Battle Is Will Smith’s Peter Fighting At The End Of Emancipation?
Peter joins the Union Army in their fight against the Confederate Army in an expansive battle sequence that forms the climax of Emancipation. This is the siege of Union Port, which began in July 1863 and helped to divide the Confederacy (via American Battlefield Trust). Gordon was present at the siege of Union Port, serving alongside the Louisiana Native Guard, a regiment made up of free Black recruits. This is broadly what’s depicted on-screen in Emancipation, with Peter’s platoon fighting a grueling battle along the Mississipi River.
Emancipation’s Real Peter May Not Have Been Reunited With His Family
After the successful siege of Union Port, the story of Emancipation and the real story of Gordon ends. At the end of the movie, Will Smith’s Peter is reunited with his wife and children, however it’s unclear what happened to his real-life counterpart, Gordon. According to historians, there are no records of what happened to Gordon after Union Port, and only the photo of “Whipped Peter” and the accompanying newspaper articles remained to tell his story. It’s unclear if the real Gordon even had a wife or children waiting for him elsewhere in Louisiana.
The True Story Of The “Whipped Peter” Photograph And Its Legacy
The photograph becomes quite a small part of the end of Emancipation‘s story. As in real-life, Will Smith’s character, Peter removes his shirt to reveal the horrifying scars of the repeated brutality of his slave owners. One of the photographers makes a comment about the photo’s power to show the horrors of the slave trade to the world, but Emancipation is focused on the man behind the image, rather than the political impact of the photograph. In real-life, the photo of “Whipped Peter” was used by abolitionists, who sold prints of the image to raise money for their efforts to completely abolish slavery in the Confederate states.
The American Civil War was the earliest conflict to be documented through photography, as referenced by Peter’s unfamiliarity with the camera in Emancipation. However, a line can be drawn from the widespread revulsion that greeted the photo of “Whipped Peter” to the photo of young Emmet Till nearly a century later. Academics today have argued that the image is another way that the camera objectifies Black bodies and Black pain in a way that salved the conscience of White abolitionists more than it ever improved the life of freed Black slaves.
This argument is backed up by the fact that the story of “Whipped Peter” after his photograph was taken by New Orleans-based photographers William McPherson and J Oliver. The photo became known as “The Scourged Back” and caused an outcry when it was published in Harper’s Magazine. The image and its statement became better known than the man in the photo, a failing that Emancipation attempts to make up for, with some hefty dramatic license.