Twelve Years a Slave

Solomon Northup was a free-born black man who was kidnapped and spent 12 years in slavery in the Deep South. He narrated his memoir to American lawyer and writer David Wilson, who then edited Northup’s accounts into a manuscript that was published in 1853. Solomon Northrup was the son of an emancipated slave, Mintus Northup, who worked alongside him on a farm for several years. After his father’s death, Solomon Northup moved to Saratoga Springs, New York, and worked a series of hard labor jobs, including a job helping construct the Lake Champlain Canal. He was also a skillful musician, and he frequently played the violin at social functions.

At the opening of his memoir, Solomon Northup lives happily with his wife—a cook named Anne Hampton—and his three children, Elizabeth, Margaret, and Alonzo. Though he does not enjoy all the social privileges of a White man in the North, he admits to a certain sheltered perspective regarding the horrors of slavery. In his own words, just prior to his capture, his life consists of “nothing but the common hopes, loves, and labors of an obscure colored man, making his humble progress in the world” (11).