Solomon Northup

Twelve Years a Slave, sub-title: Narrative of Solomon Northup, citizen of New-York, kidnapped in Washington city in 1841, and rescued in 1853, from a cotton plantation near the Red River in Louisiana, is a memoir by Solomon Northup as told to and edited by David Wilson. It is a slave narrative of a black man who was born free in New York state but kidnapped in Washington, D. C., sold into slavery, and kept in bondage for 12 years in Louisiana. He provided details of slave markets in Washington, D. C. and New Orleans, as well as describing at length cotton and sugar cultivation on major plantations in Louisiana.

Full textPerhaps the best written of all the slave narratives, Twelve Years a Slave is a harrowing memoir about one of the darkest periods in American history. It recounts how Solomon Northup, born a free man in New York, was lured to Washington, D. C., in 1841 with the promise of fast money, then drugged and beaten and sold into slavery. He spent the next twelve years of his life in captivity on a Louisiana cotton plantation.

Originally published in 1853, Twelve Years a Slave is a haunting portrayal of stolen freedom and brutal life on the sugar and cotton plantations of the Deep South. Landowner, carpenter, and skilled violinist Solomon Northup is living comfortably with his wife and children in Saratoga, New York, when two circus promoters offer him work as a traveling musician. They then drug and kidnap him, and Northup is sold into slavery and transported to Louisiana, spending twelve grueling years in captivity, at the whim of several ruthless slave owners. With its gripping and horrendous accounts of slave life in the Deep South, Solomon Northup's seminal memoir is now available as an elegantly designed clothbound edition with an elastic closure and a new introduction.

Originally published in 1853, Twelve Years a Slave is a haunting portrayal of stolen freedom and brutal life on the sugar and cotton plantations of the Deep South. Landowner, carpenter, and skilled violinist Solomon Northup is living comfortably with his wife and children in Saratoga, New York, when two circus promoters offer him work as a traveling musician. They then drug and kidnap him, and Northup is sold into slavery and transported to Louisiana, spending twelve grueling years in captivity, at the whim of several ruthless slave owners. With its gripping and horrendous accounts of slave life in the Deep South, Solomon Northup's seminal memoir is now available as an elegantly designed clothbound edition with an elastic closure and a new introduction.

Twelve Years a Slave, sub-title: Narrative of Solomon Northup, citizen of New-York, kidnapped in Washington city in 1841, and rescued in 1853, from a cotton plantation near the Red River in Louisiana, is a memoir by Solomon Northup as told to and edited by David Wilson.

When the editor commenced the preparation of the following narrative, he did not suppose it would reach the size of this volume. In order, however, to present all the facts which have been communicated to him, it has seemed necessary to extend it to its present length. Many of the statements contained in the following pages are corroborated by abundant evidence-others rest entirely upon Solomon's assertion. That he has adhered strictly to the truth, the editor, at least, who has had an opportunity of detecting any contradiction or discrepancy in his statements, is well satisfied. He has invariably repeated the same story without deviating in the slightest particular, and has also carefully perused the manuscript, dictating an alteration wherever the most trivial inaccuracy has appeared. It was Solomon's fortune, during his captivity, to be owned by several masters. The treatment he received while at the "Pine Woods" shows that among slaveholders there are men of humanity as well as of cruelty. Some of them are spoken of with emotions of gratitude-others in a spirit of bitterness. It is believed that the following account of his experience on Bayou Boeuf presents a correct picture of Slavery, in all its lights and shadows, as it now exists in that locality. Unbiased, as he conceives, by any prepossessions or prejudices, the only object of the editor has been to give a faithful history of Solomon Northup's life, as he received it from his lips. In the accomplishment of that object, he trusts he has succeeded, notwithstanding the numerous faults of style and of expression it may be found to contain.

This edition also includes: The illustrations printed in the original book; Contemporary sources (1853—62), among them newspaper accounts of Northup’s kidnapping and ordeal and commentary by Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Thomas W. MacMahon; A Genealogy of Secondary Sources (1880—2014) presents twenty-three voices spanning three centuries on the memoir’s major themes. Contributors include George Washington Williams, Marion Wilson Starling, Kenneth Stampp, Robert B. Stepto, Trish Loughran and David Fiske, Clifford W. Brown, Jr., and Rachel Seligman, among others. The 2013 film adaptation—12 Years a Slave—is fully considered, with criticism and major reviews of the film as well as Henry Louis Gates's three interviews with its director, Steve McQueen. A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included.

"Doce a os de esclavitud" -la narrativa sobrecogedora y reveladora que inspir el largometraje que gan el premio Oscar como mejor pel cula del a o- es la obra de Solomon Northup, un afroamericano libre que fue secuestrado en el capitolio del pa s y vendido como esclavo en Luisiana. Es uno de los relatos m s convincente y detallado que tenemos de c mo era de verdad la esclavitud. Redactada despu s de que Northup hab a pasado doce a os esclavizado, la narrativa -en vez de representar al autor como un h roe- le concede al lector un relato extraordinario de la comunidad esclava. Puesto que era un hombre educado que fue arrancado de la libertad, Northup era capaz de observar las atrocidades de la esclavitud desde un punto de vista nico y logr describirlas de manera espantosa y v vida. Con una claridad imparable, se centra en la vida y los trabajos de los esclavos de las plantaciones del sur estadounidense preb lico, y examina las complejas decisiones econ micas de la posesi n de esclavos, as como tambi n la manera calamitosa que la instituci n de la esclavitud afect la base de la civilizaci n. Inteligente, apasionada, y absolutamente nica en la literatura estadounidense, "Doce a os de esclavitud" es una contribuci n inestimable a la literatura, ahora disponible en espa ol. "Junto con, La caba a de t o Tom, la narrativa sobrecogedora de Solomon Northup es la obra m s destacada que ha salido de la prensa estadounidense." - Detroit Tribune (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 is an 1853 memoir and slave narrative by American Solomon Northup as told to and edited by David Wilson. Northup, a black man who was born free in New York state, details his being tricked to go to Washington, D. C., where he was kidnapped and sold into slavery in the Deep South. After having been kept in bondage for 12 years in Louisiana by various masters, Northup was able to write to friends and family in New York, who in turn secured his release with the aid of the state. Northup's account provides extensive details on the slave markets in Washington, D. C. and New Orleans, and describes at length cotton and sugar cultivation and slave treatment on major plantations in Louisiana.