Born 1808
Solomon Northup (b. 1808) is an American author and abolitionist best known for his harrowing and invaluable firsthand account of American slavery. Born as a free man of color in Minerva, New York, he received an education and worked as a farmer and violinist before his life was upended by deception.
In 1841, Northup was lured to Washington, D.C., by two men under the false pretense of a lucrative musical job. Instead, he was kidnapped, drugged, and sold into slavery in the Bayou Sara region of Louisiana, where he endured twelve brutal years of bondage under various masters, predominantly Edwin Epps. He labored on cotton plantations and suffered immense physical and psychological abuse while desperately seeking a way to communicate with his family in the North.
His captivity finally ended in 1853 when a Canadian carpenter named Bass learned of Northup's true status as a free citizen and helped smuggle letters to New York. Legal intervention by New York Governor Washington Hunt secured his freedom, allowing Northup to reunite with his wife and children in Saratoga Springs. Shortly after his liberation, he collaborated with writer David Wilson to pen his memoir, and he subsequently became an active speaker for the abolitionist movement before eventually disappearing from historical records around 1857.
Essential Reading
- Twelve Years a Slave (1853): This foundational American memoir details Northup's harrowing kidnapping, his twelve years of forced labor on Louisiana cotton plantations, and his triumphant eventual rescue.
