Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} by 12 Years a Slave by Solomon Northup. Solomon Northup, b. 1808 : Narrative of Solomon Northup, a Citizen of New-York, Kidnapped in Washington City in 1841, and Rescued in 1853 Auburn [N.Y.]: Derby and Miller, 1853. Solomon Northup was born a free man in Minerva, New York, in 1808. His father, Mintus, was originally enslaved to the Northup family from Rhode Island, but he was freed after the family moved to New York. As a young man, Northup helped his father with farming chores and worked as a raftsman on the waterways of upstate New York. He married Anne Hampton and they had three children together. During the 1830s, Northup became locally renowned as an excellent fiddle-player. In 1841, two men offered Northup generous wages to join a traveling musical show, but soon after he accepted, they drugged him and sold him into slavery. After years of bondage, he came into contact with an outspoken abolitionist from Canada, who sent letters to notify Northup's family of his whereabouts. An official state agent was sent to Louisiana to reclaim Northup. After he was freed, Northup filed kidnapping charges against the men who had defrauded him, but the lengthy trial that followed was ultimately dropped because of legal technicalities, and he received no remuneration. Little is known about Northup's life after the trial, but he is believed to have died in 1863. Twelve Years a Slave was recorded by David Wilson, a white lawyer and legislator from New York who claimed to have presented "a faithful history of Solomon Northup's life, as [I] received it from his lips" (p. xv). Northup's book was published in 1853, less than a year after his liberation. It sold over thirty thousand copies. It is therefore not only one of the longest North American slave narratives, but also one of the best- selling. The first two chapters of Twelve Years a Slave relate the Northup family history, Solomon's marriage to Anne, his employment as a raftsman, a farmer, and a fiddle-player, and his abduction. Promised "one dollar for each day's services" and three dollars for every show that he played, Northup travels willingly with the two con artists to New York City and then to Washington, D.C. (p. 30). The men offer Northup a drink that causes him to become "insensible," and when Northup awakens, he is "alone, in utter darkness, and in chains" (p. 38). Northup is sold to the notorious Washington-based slave trader James H. Burch, who brutally whips him for protesting that he is a free man. While in the slave pen, he makes the acquaintance of several other slaves, including Eliza, whose sad history he relates in detail (pp. 50-54). The slaves are handcuffed and transported together via cars and steamboats to Richmond and then to New Orleans. He is delivered to Theophilus Freeman, a New Orleans slave trader who informs Northup that his new name is "Platt" (p. 75). Northup is purchased by a Baptist preacher named William Ford, and is put to work stacking and chopping logs at Ford's lumber mill. Realizing that Ford ships his lumber by land at great expense, Northup devises a set of rafts to deliver them by canal, greatly increasing Ford's profits. Despite (or perhaps because of) his value as a laborer and de facto engineer, Northup is sold in the winter of 1842 to John Tibeats, a "quick- tempered" carpenter to whom Ford had become indebted (p. 103). When Tibeats attempts to whip Northup for a dubious offense, Northup fights back, and with his foot on the master's neck, he whips Tibeats "until my right arm ached" (p. 111). Later, when he attacks Northup with a hatchet, the slave again bests the master, and this time he flees from the plantation, chased by hounds. Northup escapes by running and swimming through the "Great Pacoudrie Swamp," evading water moccasins and alligators (p. 139). He makes his way back to Ford's plantation, where he is protected from harm. The second half of Northup's narrative is chiefly devoted to describing life on a cotton and sugar plantation. Though his account reveals the misery and despair of field slaves, like many other slave narratives, it also reflects the wry humor with which Northup endured his situation. For example, in describing the meager rations allotted for each week's subsistence, he quips that "no slave of ['s] is ever likely to suffer from the gout, superinduced by excessive high living" (p. 169 ) Twelve Years a Slave occasionally ventures into nature writing and ethnography, as Northup describes southern flora, fauna, and culture from the perspective of a northern traveler. Northup seems to find the talk and behavior of Southerners equally interesting; he frequently quotes and explains colloquialisms, such as the verbs "allowed" (p. 153) and "toted" (p. 167. He also repeatedly notes the abilities of female slaves in a manner that suggests a sort of proto-feminist sensibility. Whether his subject is the Southern landscape or the Southerners themselves, Northup frequently writes with the bemused curiosity of an intellectual tourist. Northup's first attempt to write a letter home is thwarted when the white field-laborer in whom he confides exposes the plan to Edwin Epps. Later, he meets a Canadian carpenter named Mr. Bass, who agrees to mail several letters for him. After a lengthy delay that causes Northup to despair of ever being rescued, he is found and liberated by Henry B. Northup, a member of the same white family that his father had served years before. The final chapter outlines the legal proceedings that followed. The narrative concludes with Solomon's reunion with Anne, his daughters, and a grandson whom he had never met. Works Consulted : Born, Brad S., Northup, Solomon, in The Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature , via the Oxford African American Studies Center," referenced 15 November 2010; Olney, James, "'I Was Born': Slave Narratives, Their Status as Autobiography and as Literature," in The Slave's Narrative, ed. Charles T. Davis and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (New York: Oxford UP, 1985); Smith, David L., "Northup, Solomon," in African American National Biography,, via the "Oxford African American Studies Center," referenced 15 November 2010; Stepto, Robert Burns, "I Rose and Found My Voice: Narration, Authentication, and Authorial Control in Four Slave Narratives," in The Slave's Narrative, ed. Charles T. Davis and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (New York: Oxford UP, 1985). Biography of Solomon Northup, Author of Twelve Years a Slave. Solomon Northup was a free Black resident of New York State who was drugged on a trip to Washington, D.C. in the spring of 1841 and sold to a dealer of enslaved people. Beaten and chained, he was transported by ship to a New Orleans market and suffered more than a decade of servitude on Louisiana plantations. Northup had to hide his literacy or risk violence. And he was unable, for years, to get word to anyone in the North to let them know where he was. Fortunately, he was eventually able to send messages which prompted legal action that secured his freedom. The Narrative's Impact on North American 19th-Century Activism. After regaining his freedom and miraculously returning to his family in New York, he collaborates with a local attorney to write a shocking account of his ordeal, Twelve Years a Slave , which was published in May 1853. Northup’s case and his book attracted considerable attention. Most such narratives were written by those born into enslavement, but Northup’s perspective of a free man kidnapped and forced to spend years toiling on plantations was especially disturbing. Northup’s book sold well, and on occasion, his name appeared in newspapers alongside such prominent North American 19th-century Black activist voices as Harriet Beecher Stowe and Frederick Douglass. Yet he did not become an enduring voice in the campaign to end enslavement. Though his fame was fleeting, Northup did make an impact on how society viewed enslavement. His book seemed to underscore activist arguments advanced by people such as William Lloyd Garrison. And Twelve Years a Slave was published at a time when the controversy over the Fugitive Slave Act and events such as the Christiana Riot were still on the minds of the public. His story came to prominence in recent years thanks to a major film, “12 Years a Slave,” by British director Steve McQueen. The film won the Oscar for Best Picture of 2014. Northup's Life as a Free Man. According to his own account, Solomon Northup was born in Essex County, New York, in July 1808. His father, Mintus Northup, had been enslaved from birth, but his enslaver, a member of a family named Northup, had freed him. Growing up, Solomon learned to read and also learned to play the violin. In 1829 he married, and he and his wife Anne eventually had three children. Solomon found work at various trades, and in the 1830s the family moved to Saratoga, a resort town, where he was employed driving a hack, the horse-drawn equivalent of a taxi. At times he found employment playing the violin, and in early 1841 he was invited by a pair of traveling performers to come with them to Washington, D.C. where they could find lucrative work with a circus. After obtaining papers in New York City establishing that he was free, he accompanied the two White men to the nation’s capital, where enslavement was legal. Kidnapping in Washington. Northup and his companions, whose names he believed to be Merrill Brown and Abram Hamilton, arrived in Washington in April 1841, just in time to witness the funeral procession for William Henry Harrison, the first president to die in office. Northup recalled watching the pageantry with Brown and Hamilton. That night, after having drinks with his companions, Northup began to feel sick. At some point, he lost consciousness. When he woke, he was in a stone basement, chained to the floor. His pockets had been emptied and the papers documenting that he was a free man were gone. Northup soon learned he was locked inside a pen for enslaved people which was within sight of the U.S. Capitol building. A dealer of enslaved people named James Burch informed him that he had been purchased and would be sent to New Orleans. When Northup protested and asserted he was free, Burch and another man produced a whip and a paddle, and savagely beat him. Northup had learned it was extremely dangerous to proclaim his status as a free man. Years of Servitude. Northup was taken by ship to Virginia and then onward to New Orleans. In a market for enslaved people, he was sold to an enslaver from the region of the Red River, near Marksville, Louisiana. His first enslaver was a benign and religious man, but when he got into financial difficulty Northup was sold. In one harrowing episode in Twelve Years a Slave , Northup recounted how he got into a physical altercation with a violent white enslaver and was nearly hanged. He spent hours bound with ropes, not knowing if he would soon die. He recalled the day spent standing in the broiling sun: Northup survived that early brush with hanging, mainly because it was made clear that he was valuable property. After being sold again, he would spend ten years toiling on the land of Edwin Epps, an enslaver who treated his enslaved people brutally. It was known that Northup could play the violin, and he would travel to other plantations to perform at dances. But despite having some ability to move about, he was still isolated from the society in which he had circulated prior to his kidnapping. Northup was literate, a fact he kept hidden as enslaved people were not allowed to read or write. Despite his ability to communicate, he was unable to mail letters. The one time he was able to steal paper and manage to write a letter, he was unable to find a trustworthy soul to mail it to his family and friends in New York. Freedom. After years of enduring forced labor, under threat of whippings, Northup finally met someone he believed he could trust in 1852. A man named Bass, who Northup described as a “native of Canada” had settled in the area around Marksville, Louisiana and worked as a carpenter. Bass had been working on a new house for Northup’s enslaver, Edwin Epps, and Northup heard him arguing against enslavement. Convinced he could trust Bass, Northup revealed to him that he had been free in New York State and was kidnapped and brought to Louisiana against his will. Skeptical, Bass questioned Northup and became convinced of his story. And he resolved to help him obtain his freedom. He wrote a series of letters to people in New York who had known Northup. A member of the family which had enslaved Northup’s father when enslavement was legal in New York, Henry B. Northup, learned of Solomon’s fate. An attorney himself, he took extraordinary legal steps and obtained the proper documents that would allow him to travel into the South and retrieve a free man. In January 1853, after a long trip which included a stop in Washington where he met with a Louisiana senator, Henry B. Northup reached the area where Solomon Northup was enslaved. After discovering the name by which Solomon was known as an enslaved person, he was able to find him and initiate legal proceedings. Within days Henry B. Northup and Solomon Northup were traveling back to the North. Legacy of Solomon Northup. On his way back to New York, Northup visited Washington, D.C. again. An attempt was made to prosecute a dealer of enslaved people involved in his kidnapping years earlier, but the testimony of Solomon Northup was not allowed to be heard as he was Black man. And without his testimony, the case collapsed. A lengthy article in the New York Times on January 20, 1853, headlined “The Kidnapping Case,” told the story of Northup’s plight and the thwarted attempt to seek justice. In the next few months, Northup worked with an editor, David Wilson, and wrote Twelve Years a Slave . No doubt anticipating skepticism, Northup and Wilson added extensive documentation to the end of Northup’s account of his life as a an enslaved person. Affidavits and other legal documents attesting to the truth of the story added dozens of pages at the end of the book. The publication of Twelve Years a Slave in May 1853 attracted attention. A newspaper in the nation’s capital, the Washington Evening Star, mentioned Northup in a blatantly racist item published with the headline “Handiwork of Abolitionists”: Solomon Northup did not become a prominent figure in the North American 19th-century Black activist movement, and he seems to have lived quietly with his family in upstate New York. It is believed he died sometime in the 1860s, but by that time his fame had faded and newspapers did not mention his passing. In her non-fiction defense of Uncle Tom’s Cabin , published as The Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin , Harriet Beecher Stowe referred to Northup’s case. “The probability is that hundreds of free men and women and children are all the time being precipitated into slavery in this way,” she wrote. Northup’s case was highly unusual. He was able, after a decade of trying, to find a way to communicate with the outside world. And it can never be known how many other free Black people were kidnapped into enslavement and were never heard from again. Solomon Northup. Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Solomon Northup , (born July 10, 1807, Schroon [now Minerva], New York, U.S.—died after 1857), American farmer, labourer, and musician whose experience of being kidnapped and sold into slavery was the basis for his book Twelve Years a Slave: Narrative of Solomon Northup, a Citizen of New York, Kidnapped in Washington City in 1841, and Rescued in 1853, from a Cotton Plantation near the Red River in Louisiana (1853). Why is Solomon Northup important? Solomon Northup wrote Twelve Years a Slave (1853), a memoir of his kidnapping and enslavement. Immensely popular upon its release, it remains one of the most important American slave narratives and is a valuable source of information regarding the daily lives of slaves in central Louisiana. What was Solomon Northup’s childhood like? Solomon Northup was born a free person of colour. His father, who had been born into slavery but freed when his master died, acquired a farm and enough land to fulfill the property ownership requirement that African Americans faced in order to vote. Solomon received some education and worked on his family’s farm as a child. How did Solomon Northup become enslaved? In 1841 Solomon Northup was recruited by two men, supposedly to join their circus act as a fiddler. The three traveled from New York to Washington, D.C., where Northup was drugged and awoke in shackles. He was sold at a slave market in New Orleans and spent 12 years in slavery in central Louisiana. What was Solomon Northup’s occupation? Solomon Northup worked odd jobs and established a reputation as a talented fiddler. Following his kidnapping and 12 years of enslavement, he wrote a best-selling memoir. From 1853 to 1857 Northup, now a national celebrity, engaged in extensive speaking tours. He subsequently disappeared from public view and, the best evidence indicates, joined the Underground Railroad. Northup was born a free person of colour in what is now Minerva, New York. Though he claimed to have been born in July 1808 in Twelve Years a Slave , a later deposition in which he specified his birth date and age indicates that he was likely born a year earlier. His father, Mintus, had been born into slavery but was freed following the death of his master, Capt. Henry Northup, whose will contained the stipulation that his slaves be manumitted. Mintus eventually acquired his own farm and enough land to fulfill the property ownership requirement that African Americans faced in order to vote. Solomon received some education and worked on his family’s farm as a child.He married Anne Hampton in 1828. In 1834, after selling their farm, the couple moved to Saratoga Springs, New York, where they worked odd jobs to support their three children. Northup also established a reputation as a talented fiddler. In March 1841 he was recruited by two men who claimed to be circus performers and offered him money to join their act as a fiddler, traveling south from New York. Upon their arrival in Washington, D.C., in early April, Northup was drugged, lost consciousness, and awoke to find himself in shackles in an underground cell. He was conveyed to Richmond, Virginia, and then delivered by ship to New Orleans, where in June he was sold at a slave market under the name Platt Hamilton. He spent the ensuing 12 years in slavery in the Bayou Boeuf plantation region of central Louisiana’s Red River valley. Northup was owned first by William Prince Ford, whom he praised for his kindness. Ford was, however, forced by financial exigency to sell him to the brutal John M. Tibaut (referred to as John M. Tibeats in 12 Years a Slave ) in 1842. (Ford retained 40 percent ownership of him, as the sale was for the repayment of a debt not judged to be worth as much as Northup.) Northup was Tibaut’s only slave. When Tibaut attempted to whip him, Northup resisted and prevailed in the ensuing fight. Infuriated, Tibaut sought help from neighbouring overseers in attempting to lynch Northup, who was rescued by Ford’s overseer, Anderson Chafin (referred to as Chapin in 12 Years a Slave ). Northup also prevailed in a second fight and fled to the protection of Ford, who then demanded that Tibaut sell or lease him. In April 1843 Northup was sold by Ford and Tibaut to Edwin Epps, under whose ownership he remained for the next decade. Epps used Northup both as an artisan slave and as a field hand, occasionally leasing him out to sugar planters and processors. Throughout this time, Northup was often a “driver” in charge of other slaves. Epps, who was proud of his expertise with a lash, had a sadistic streak. Northup contrived to escape several times during that period but was unsuccessful. It was not until an abolitionist carpenter from Canada named Samuel Bass visited Epps’s farm in June 1852 that Northup was able to arrange to have letters delivered to friends in New York to alert them of his situation and set in motion his rescue. One letter was forwarded to Anne Northup, who enlisted the help of Henry B. Northup, a lifelong friend of Solomon and the grandnephew of the person who had manumitted Mintus. Henry mobilized widespread support for Solomon among the leading citizens of Sandy Hill (now Hudson Falls) and Fort Edward, New York, and, under an 1840 statute designed to rescue New York citizens sold into slavery, in November 1852 Gov. Washington Hunt made him an agent of the State of New York to find Solomon. Armed with this array of documentation, along with letters from a senator and a Supreme Court justice, Henry traveled to Louisiana and hired local counsel. With the help of Bass, they were able to locate Solomon, and his freedom was legally obtained on January 4, 1853. Northup was reunited with his family later that month. His rescue was widely publicized. Stopping in Washington, D.C., en route to New York, he brought charges against James H. Birch (referred to as James H. Burch in Northup’s narrative), the slave dealer who had incarcerated him. Because of his race, though, he was not permitted to testify, and the case was dismissed after two other slave dealers testified on behalf of Birch. That same year, together with local writer David Wilson, Northup penned his memoir, Twelve Years a Slave . The book sold some 30,000 copies in the ensuing three years, and Northup used the proceeds to purchase property in upstate New York, where he lived with his family. From 1853 to 1857 Northup, now a national celebrity, engaged in extensive speaking tours. As a result of the story’s widespread notoriety, the New York kidnappers were identified, arrested, and indicted in 1854. After much legal maneuvering, the case reached the state supreme court and then the court of appeals, but the charges were ultimately dismissed in May 1857. Northup subsequently disappeared from public view and, the best evidence indicates, joined the Underground Railroad and spent several years in New England helping escaped slaves reach Canada. The time and circumstances of his death, as well as his place of burial, are unknown. His last public appearance was in Streetsville, Ontario, Canada, in August 1857. He was not accounted for in the U.S. census of 1860 and almost certainly predeceased Anne, who died in 1876. Twelve Years a Slave remains one of the most important American slave narratives. It is a valuable source of information regarding the daily lives of slaves in central Louisiana, including the Christmas celebratory practices in slave culture. Its shrewd but nonpolemical judgments of people described in the narrative have been commented on from the time of the book’s publication. Twelve Years a Slave went out of print before the turn of the century. However, Louisiana researchers Sue Eakin and spent several decades researching Northup’s life before, in 1968, releasing an annotated reprint that substantiated many of his claims. An annual celebration known as Solomon Northup Day was established in Saratoga Springs in 1999. Northup’s memoir also provided the basis for director Gordon Parks’s television docudrama Solomon Northup’s Odyssey (1984) and director Steve McQueen’s film 12 Years a Slave (2013). The Cultural Significance of Solomon Northup’s Twelve Years a Slave. Drugged and beaten, Solomon Northup was illegally kidnapped from his hometown in Saratoga Springs in upstate New York and taken to Washington, D.C. in 1841. He woke up in the slave pen where he was sadistically remade from a black free man in the North into a slave in the South. Questioning his fate, Northup asked, “could it be possible that I was thousands of miles from home—that I had been chained and beaten without mercy—that I was even herded with a drove of slaves, a slave myself? 1 Detailing his transformation into “chattel” property, Northup recollected that the slave trader, “would make us hold up our heads, walk briskly back and forth, while customers would feel our hands and arms and bodies, turn us about, ask us what we could do, make us open our mouths and show our teeth, precisely as a jockey examines a horse which he is about to barter for or purchase.” 2 Forced to accept his new-found status as a captured slave, Solomon Northup was sold “down river” to Louisiana and labored for twelve years, toiling on cotton and sugar plantations in the South. HIRE US. In addition to providing lifelong history lovers, teachers, and students free access to premier digital research, the editors and writers of U.S. History Scene are available for freelance or consulting work. DONATE. Help us continue to bring you the best of the archives. without the dust! Solomon Northup After His “12 Years a Slave” The sensational story blared from the front page of the January 20, 1853, edition of the New York Times. Shocked New Yorkers read the incredible tale of Solomon Northup, a free black man who had been lured from upstate Saratoga Springs to the slave territory of Washington, D.C. by a pair of white men who promised him employment as a fiddler in a traveling circus. There, the two men drugged the married father of three, who awoke to find himself bound in chains inside a dark underground cell of the Williams Slave Pen. From there, he was transported to Louisiana, where he toiled for a dozen years as a slave on cotton and sugar plantations before proof of his status as a freeman resulted in his emancipation. Three months later, Northup was back in the Times with news of his impending memoir, “Twelve Years a Slave: Narrative of Solomon Northup, a Citizen of New-York, Kidnapped in Washington City in 1841, and Rescued in 1853, From a Cotton Plantation Near the Red River, in Louisiana.” With the searing memories still fresh in his mind, Northup recounted the brutality he experienced and witnessed during his years in bondage. In antebellum America, the slave narrative was a case of life imitating art. Readers couldn’t help but notice that the real-life horrors exposed in Northup’s expansive book, written with the assistance of lawyer turned writer David Wilson, echoed those in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s bestselling anti-slavery novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” published just the year before. The novelist also saw the unmistakable similarities—even in the settings for both stories. In “A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” which Stowe published in 1853 in response to critics who had said she exaggerated and sensationalized slavery’s brutality, she wrote, “It is a singular coincidence, that Solomon Northup was carried to a plantation in the Red River country, that same region where the scene of Uncle Tom’s captivity was laid; and his account of this plantation, his mode of life there, and some incidents which he describes, form a striking parallel to that history.”