Twelve Years a Slave (African American)

Solomon Northup

Dover Publications

The best firsthand account of the slavery experience, this autobiographical story, originally published in 1853, has been rewritten to make it accessible to younger readers. Northup, a family man and hack driver in upstate New York, was kidnapped, whisked away from his home, and sold into slavery.

Solomon Northup's Twelve Years a Slave: 1841-1853

Sagebrush Education Resources

Solomon Northup was a free man, the son of an emancipated Negro Slave. Until the spring of 1841 he lived a simple, uneventful life with his wife and three children in Upstate New York. Then, suddenly, he fell victim to a series of bizarre events that make this one of the most amazing autobiographies ever written. Northup accepted an offer from two strangers in Saratoga, New York, to catch up with their traveling circus and play in its band. But when the chase ended, Northup had been drugged, beaten, and sold to a slave trader in Washington, D.C. Subsequently, he was shipped to New Orleans, where he was purchased by a planter in the Red River region of Louisiana. For the next twelve years Northup lived as a chattel slave under several masters. He might well have died a slave, except for another set of bizarre circumstances which enabled him to get word to his family and finally regain his freedom. These elements alone -- the kidnapping, enslavement, and rescue -- are sufficient for a sensational story. But Northup provides more. He was a shrewd observer of people and events. His memory was remarkable. He described cultivation of cotton and sugar in the Deep South. He detailed the daily routine and general life of the Negro slave. Indeed, he vividly portrayed the world of slavery -- from the underside. Originally published in 1853, Northup's autobiography is regarded as one of the best accounts of American Negro slavery ever written by a slave. It is reprinted in full here for the first time, as the initial volume in The Library of Southern Civilization. Northup's account has been carefully checked by the editors and has been found to be remarkably accurate. To his own narrative of a long and tragic adventure, Professors Eakin and Logsdon have added significant new details about Northup and the plantation country where he spent most of his time as a slave. Heretofore unknown information about the capture and trial of Northup's kidnappers has been included, adding still another fascinating episode to an already astounding story.

Twelve Years a Slave (Library of Southern Civilization)

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

LSU Press

Twelve Years a Slave

Kidnapped into slavery in 1841, Northup spent 12 years in captivity. This autobiographical memoir represents an exceptionally detailed and accurate description of slave life and plantation society. "A moving, vital testament to one of slavery's 'many thousand gone' who retained his humanity in the bowels of degradation." — Saturday Review. 7 illustrations. Index.

Leaders & Notable People

Miller Orton and Mulligan

Ridgeway Publishing, Medina, NY

"In a stunning reversal of stereotype, he is often a man among beasts."-Eric Ashley Hairston, from the IntroductionTwelve Years a Slave, a chronicle of the amazing ordeal of Solomon Northup, a free African American kidnapped in the North and impressed into slavery in Louisiana, is one of the most compelling and detailed slave narratives in existence. "There must have been some misapprehension-some unfortunate mistake," writes Northup. "It could not be that a free citizen of New York, who had wronged no man, nor violated any law, should be dealt with thus inhumanly."As an educated man, torn from freedom and plunged into slavery, he brings into exact clarity the life and labor of slaves in the antebellum American South, the complex economic choices and ironic moral concessions of slaveholding, and the calamitous effect of slavery on the foundations of civilization. Throughout his horrific imprisonment, Solomon Northup resists the urge to laud himself as an exemplary character or focus solely on his own experience, giving contemporary readers a remarkable and complex account of the lives of the slave community as a whole.A bestseller when it was first published, Twelve Years a Slave remains today a stunning American odyssey.

Historical

Barnes & Noble Signature Editions

In this riveting landmark autobiography that reads like a novel, Academy Award and Emmy winner Louis Gossett, Jr., masterfully transports us to 1840s New York, Louisiana, and Washington, DC, to experience the kidnapping and twelve-year bondage of Solomon Northup, a free man of color. Twelve Years a Slave, published in 1853, was an immediate bombshell in the national debate over slavery leading up to the Civil War. It validated Harriett Beecher Stowe s fictional account of Southern slavery in Uncle Tom s Cabin, which had become the best-selling American book in history a few years earlier, and significantly changed public opinion in favor of abolition. A major motion picture based on the book and starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Brad Pitt, Paul Giamatti, and Michael Fassbender released in 2013.
Hard working Solomon Northup, an educated free man of color in 1841, enjoys family life with his wife and three children in Saratoga, New York. He delights his community with his fiddle playing and antic spirit and has positive expectations of everyone he meets. When he is deceived by circus promoters who ask him to accompany them to a musical gig in Washington, DC, his joyful life takes an unimaginable turn. He awakes in shackles to find he has been drugged, kidnapped, and bound for the slave block in the nation s capital.
After Solomon is shipped a thousand miles to New Orleans, he is assigned his slave name and quickly learns that the mere utterance of his true origin or rights as a freeman are certain to bring severe punishment, maybe even death. While he endures the brutal life of a slave in Louisiana s isolated Bayou Boeuf plantation country, he must learn how to play the system and plot his escape home.
For twelve years, his fine mind captures the reality of slavery in stunning detail, and listeners learn about the characters that populated plantation society and the intrigues of the bayou from the collapse of a slave rebellion resulting in mass hangings due to traitorous slave Lew Cheney to the tragic abuse of his friend Patsey, brought about by Mrs. Epps jealousy of her husband s sexual exploitation of the pretty young slave.
When Solomon finally finds a sympathizing friend who risks his life to secret a letter to the North, a courageous rescue attempt ensues that could either compound Solomon s suffering or get him back to the arms of his family.
 [Screenwriter John] Ridley said he decided simply to stick with the facts in adapting Northup s book for the film...[and] he was helped by voluminous footnotes and documentation that were included with Dr. Eakin s edition of the book. New York Times (September 22, 2013) on the making of the film 12 Years a Slave

Eakin Films

Read the book that will soon become an Oscar Nominated movie this Fall. In addition to the original book by Solomon Northop, Included in this book are interviews with former slaves. They tell us in their own words what their daily lives were like as they worked in the fields and kitchens of the southern slave holders. Rarely seen images of slavery are also included.You will come away with a very comprehensive outlook on slavery in North America. "Twelve Years a Slave" tells the amazing story of a free Black man who in 1841 is taken away from his family and sold into slavery in the deep south of the United States. Solomon Northop takes us with him on his most unfortunate Journey through the days of slavery. A journey no human being should ever endure. We feel his pain as he wakes up with his arms and legs bound in the chains of slavery. Will he ever get to see his wife or hold his children in his arms again? Included in this book are interviews with former slaves. They tell us in thier own words what thier daily lives were like as they worked in the fields and kitchens of the southern slave holders. Rarely seen images of slavery are also included.

12 Years A Slave: includes interviews of former slaves and illustrations

History

Americas

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

Twelve Years A Slave

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Solomon Northup. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Solomon Northup

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Solomon Northup. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Twelve Years a Slave (African American)

Solomon Northup's Twelve Years a Slave: 1841-1853

Twelve Years a Slave (Library of Southern Civilization)

Twelve Years a Slave

Twelve Years a Slave

Twelve Years a Slave

Twelve Years a Slave

Twelve Years a Slave

12 Years A Slave: includes interviews of former slaves and illustrations

Twelve Years A Slave