Solomon Northup

author

Solomon Northup

b. 1808

Kidnapped into slavery after being born free in New York, he turned his fight to return home into one of the most powerful memoirs of the 19th century. His story in Twelve Years a Slave still stands as a vivid, deeply human witness to American slavery.

1 Audiobook

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

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

by Solomon Northup

About the author

Born in New York in 1808, Solomon Northup was a free Black man who worked as a farmer, laborer, and skilled violinist. In 1841 he was lured to Washington, D.C., kidnapped, and sold into slavery in the South, where he spent twelve years before regaining his freedom.

After his rescue, he published Twelve Years a Slave in 1853. The book gave readers a clear, personal account of slavery from someone who had known both freedom and bondage, and it quickly became one of the best-known slave narratives of its time.

Northup’s later life is less certain in the historical record, which makes the memoir itself all the more important. It remains a gripping firsthand account of endurance, injustice, and the determination to survive.