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If you study history and understand how difficult it would've been to be an abolitionist in Avoyelles Parish in the 1850s, it makes me respect him that much more.
— Charles Riddle, Avoyelles Parish District Attorney [1]
They met secretly on the plantation late at night in the summer of 1852 to make plans. They agreed that Bass should write the letters at his room at Marksville to avoid being caught. Northup provided the names of three individuals in Saratoga Springs, New York—Judge Marvin, Cephus Parker, and William Perry—who could vouch for his free status. They chose to write to three men, allowing that some people could have moved away or died. They figured that it might take six weeks for the letters to be received and for word to be sent back to Louisiana. To be safe, they agreed to avoid one another after the letters were sent. [7]
There was no response to the three letters for months. [2] [6] Bass had decided on a backup plan to travel to Saratoga and deliver the message personally if needed. Bass and Northup were unaware of what was occurring in New York. [2] Two of the letters were sent to Cephas Parker and William Perry from Saratoga, New York, who notified Northup's wife of her husband's whereabouts. [6] Henry Bliss Northup, a lawyer and a relative of Northup's father's former slaveholder, was notified of his childhood friend's plight. [1] [2] [6] With six affidavits and a petition, Henry Northup obtained a letter from Governor Washington Hunt of New York that declared that Solomon Northup was a free man and he appointed Henry an agent of rescue. [1] [6] Henry carried the letter with him as he traveled to Louisiana to meet with Waddill, who then wrote in an affidavit that Northup was "violently and fraudulently kidnapped." Waddill filed a lawsuit against Edwin Epps, after which Judge Ralph Cushman provided the paperwork for Epps to release Northup. [1] [8]
Henry arrived at the Epps' plantation on January 3, 1853, with the sheriff of Avoyelles Parish to free Northup. [6] The New York Times published an article about Northup's years of slavery and emancipation, but Bass was not mentioned in the article. This may have been a means to protect him. [1]
Among them was one to whom I owe an immeasurable debt of gratitude only for him in the all probability, I should have ended my days in slavery. He was my deliverer - a man whose true heart overflowed with noble and generous emotions. To the last moment of my existence, I should remember him with feelings of thankfulness. His name was Bass.
Bass lived in Marksville, where he had a relationship with a free woman of color, Augustine Tournier. Commonly called Justine, she had a daughter with Bass called both Ellen and Helena. Bass prepared a will with Waddill the night before he died of pneumonia on August 30, 1853 [1] [8] at the home of Justine Tournier. [4] Bass had owned property in Illinois and Upper Canada, which he left to his children. He left what money he had to William Sloat, a friend, to arrange for a "decent Christian burial". [1]
Solomon Northup was an American abolitionist and the primary author of the memoir Twelve Years a Slave. A free-born African American from New York, he was the son of a freed slave and a free woman of color. A farmer and a professional violinist, Northup had been a landowner in Washington County, New York. In 1841, he was offered a traveling musician's job and went to Washington, D.C. ; there he was drugged and kidnapped into slavery. He was shipped to New Orleans, purchased by a planter, and held as a slave for 12 years in the Red River region of Louisiana, mostly in Avoyelles Parish. He remained a slave until he met Samuel Bass, a Canadian working on his plantation who helped get word to New York, where state law provided aid to free New York citizens who had been kidnapped and sold into slavery. His family and friends enlisted the aid of the Governor of New York, Washington Hunt, and Northup regained his freedom on January 3, 1853.
Avoyelles is a parish located in central eastern Louisiana on the Red River where it effectively becomes the Atchafalaya River and meets the Mississippi River. As of the 2020 census, the population was 39,693. The parish seat is Marksville. The parish was created in 1807, with the name deriving from the French name for the historic Avoyel people, one of the local Indian tribes at the time of European encounter.
Marksville is a small city in and the parish seat of Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 5,702 at the 2010 census, an increase of 165 over the 2000 tabulation of 5,537.
The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 was an Act of the United States Congress to give effect to the Fugitive Slave Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which was later superseded by the Thirteenth Amendment, and to also give effect to the Extradition Clause. The Constitution’s Fugitive Slave Clause guaranteed a right for a slaveholder to recover an escaped slave. The subsequent Act, "An Act respecting fugitives from justice, and persons escaping from the service of their masters", created the legal mechanism by which that could be accomplished.
The pre-American Civil War practice of kidnapping into slavery in the United States occurred in both free and slave states, and both fugitive slaves and free negroes were transported to slave markets and sold, often multiple times. There were also rewards for the return of fugitives. Three types of kidnapping methods were employed: physical abduction, inveiglement of free blacks, and apprehension of fugitives. The enslavement, or re-enslavement, of free blacks occurred for 85 years, from 1780 to 1865.
Joseph Barton Elam, Sr., was a two-term Democratic U.S. representative for Louisiana's 4th congressional district, whose service corresponded with the administration of U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes.
Twelve Years a Slave is an 1853 memoir and slave narrative by Solomon Northup as told to and written by David Wilson. Northup, a black man who was born free in New York state, details himself being tricked to go to Washington, D.C., where he was kidnapped and sold into slavery in the Deep South. He was in bondage for 12 years in Louisiana before he was able to secretly get information 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.
James Madison Marvin was a businessman and U.S. Representative from New York during the latter half of the American Civil War.
12 Years a Slave is a 2013 biographical drama film directed by Steve McQueen from a screenplay by John Ridley, based on the 1853 slave memoir Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup, an African American man who was kidnapped in Washington, D.C. by two conmen in 1841 and sold into slavery. He was put to work on plantations in the state of Louisiana for 12 years before being released. The first scholarly edition of David Wilson's version of Northup's story was co-edited in 1968 by Sue Eakin and Joseph Logsdon.
Solomon Northup's Odyssey, reissued as Half Slave, Half Free, is a 1984 American television film based on the 1853 autobiography Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup, a free black man who in 1841 was kidnapped and sold into slavery. The film, which aired on PBS, was directed by Gordon Parks with Avery Brooks starring as the titular character. It was the second film to be funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, following A House Divided: Denmark Vesey's Rebellion in 1982. Parks returned to direct the film after years of absence. He chose to work in the Deep South and to collaborate with a crew of mixed races. The film first aired on PBS on December 10, 1984 and as part of PBS's American Playhouse anthology television series in the following year. It was released on video under the title Half Slave, Half Free.
William Prince Ford was an American Baptist minister, preacher and planter in pre-Civil War Louisiana. He was the slave owner who first bought Solomon Northup, a free African-American, after Northup had been kidnapped in Washington, D.C., and sold in New Orleans in 1841. He resided in the "Great Pine Woods", Avoyelles, Red River Parish, Louisiana, and he ran a farm there. At the same year, Ezra Bennett, a Bayou Boeuf storekeeper and planter, lived near the plantation of Prince Ford and gave him instructions to his factors.
Patsey was an African-American enslaved woman. Solomon Northup wrote about her in his book Twelve Years a Slave, which is the source for most of the information known about her. There have been two adaptations of the book in film, Solomon Northup's Odyssey in 1984 and the better known 12 Years a Slave, in 2013. In the latter Patsey was portrayed by Lupita Nyong'o, who won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance.
David Wilson was an American lawyer, writer and politician from New York. He is best known for his role in publishing Twelve Years a Slave, as told to him by Solomon Northup, in 1853.
Edwin Epps was a slaveholder on a cotton plantation in Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana. He was the third and longest enslaver of Solomon Northup, who was kidnapped in Washington, D.C. in 1841 and forced into slavery. On January 3, 1853, Northup left Epps's property and returned to his family in New York.
James H. Birch was an American slave trader in the District of Columbia.
Francis Jackson, also known as Frank Jackson, was an African-American victim of kidnapping into slavery. He was born free, but enticed into helping to drive horses to Virginia, a slave state, and was sold into slavery in early 1851. Besides escaping a number of times over seven years, there were three legal cases fought in Virginia and North Carolina. It seemed to be settled with the Francis Jackson vs. John W. Deshazer case when he was ruled to be free in 1855, but he was held as a slave until 1858. Jackson lived a continual cycle of being sold to new slaveholders, running away, getting caught, and then being returned to his latest owner.
Bayou Huffpower is a stream in Avoyelles Parish between Cottonport and Bunkie, Louisiana, named for an old settler. Bayou Hoffpauir was the name of a United States post office in the area. Pitt's Mill was located on Bayou Huffpower at Evergreen-Holmesville Road and Layou du Lac Road, two miles west of Evergreen, Louisiana.
Edwin Epps House is a Creole cottage built in 1852 in part by Solomon Northup on Bayou Boeuf near Holmesville in Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana. It was built for Edwin Epps, a slaveholder. The house was a "double-sided, wood frame house with one chimney, and a tin roof" of mid-sized farmers. The Edwin Epps Plantation Site, where the house originally stood, is located off of LA 1176 on Carl Hunt Road. It is one of the historic sites of Solomon Northup's enslavement on the Northup Trail.
Sue Eakin (1918–2009) was an American history professor at Louisiana State University of Alexandria. She received a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship and was made a Fellow of American Association of University Women. Eakin researched the story of Solomon Northup, Twelve Years a Slave, and published a version of the book that corrected historical inaccuracies.
David Fiske is an author, local historian, and a retired librarian residing in Ballston Spa, New York. He has written several books related to Solomon Northup.