Twelve Years a Slave

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Twelve Years a Slave
Solomon Northup 001.jpg
Illustration from Twelve Years a Slave (1855)
Author David Wilson
LanguageEnglish
Subject slave narrative as told by Solomon Northup
GenreAutobiography, slave narrative
Publisher Derby & Miller, Auburn, New York [1]
Publication date
1853 [2]
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1843914716
301.45
Text Twelve Years a Slave at Wikisource

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.

Contents

The work was published by Derby & Miller of Auburn, New York [1] eight years before the American Civil War and soon after Harriet Beecher Stowe's best-selling novel about slavery, Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), to which Northup's book lent factual support. Northup's book, dedicated to Stowe, sold 30,000 copies, making it a bestseller in its own right. [3]

Although the memoir was published in several editions in the 19th century and later cited by scholarly works on slavery in the United States, it fell into public obscurity for nearly 100 years. It was re-discovered on separate occasions by two Louisiana historians, Sue Eakin (Louisiana State University at Alexandria) and Joseph Logsdon (University of New Orleans). [4] In the early 1960s, they researched and retraced Solomon Northup's journey [5] and co-edited a historically annotated version that was published by Louisiana State University Press (1968). [6]

The memoir has been adapted as two film versions, produced as the 1984 PBS television film Solomon Northup's Odyssey and the 2013 film 12 Years a Slave , which won multiple Oscars including Best Picture. [7]

Synopsis

In his home town of Saratoga Springs, New York, Solomon Northup, a free negro and a skilled carpenter and violinist, was approached by two circus promoters, Brown and Hamilton. They offered him a brief, high-paying job as a musician with their traveling circus. Without informing his wife, who was away at work in a nearby town, he traveled with the strangers to downstate New York and Washington, D.C. Soon after arriving in the capital, he awoke to find himself drugged, bound, and in the cell of a slave pen. When Northup asserted his rights as a free man, he was beaten by slave trader James H. Birch and warned to never again mention his free life in New York.

Transported by ship to Theophilus Freeman's slave jail in New Orleans, Northup and other enslaved black people contracted smallpox and one died. In transit, Northup implored a sympathetic sailor to send a letter to his family. The letter arrived safely, but, lacking knowledge of his final destination, Northup's family was unable to effect his rescue.

Northup's first owner was William Prince Ford, who ran a lumber mill on a bayou of the Red River. [8] Northup subsequently had several other owners, less humane than Ford, during his twelve-year bondage. At times, his carpentry and other skills contributed to his being treated relatively well, but he also suffered extreme cruelty. On two occasions, he was attacked by John Tibeats, a white man he was leased to, and defended himself, for which he suffered severe reprisals. After about two years of enslavement, Northup was sold to Edwin Epps, a notoriously cruel cotton planter. Epps held Northup enslaved for 10 years, during which time he assigned the New Yorker to various roles from cotton picker, to hauler to driver, which required Northup to oversee the work of fellow slaves and punish them for undesirable behavior. While on Epps' plantation, Northup became friends with a slave girl named Patsey, whom he writes about briefly in the book.

After being beaten for claiming his free status in Washington, D.C., Northup in the ensuing 12 years did not reveal his true history again to a single person, slave or owner. Finally he confided his story to Samuel Bass, a white carpenter and abolitionist from Canada working at the Epps plantation (to build the Edwin Epps House). Bass, at great risk to himself, sent letters to Northup's wife and friends in Saratoga. Parker, a white shopkeeper, received one of the letters and sought assistance from Henry B. Northup, a white attorney and politician whose family had held and freed Solomon Northup's father and with whom Solomon had a longtime friendship. Henry contacted New York state officials. As the state had passed a law in 1840 to provide financial resources for the rescue of citizens kidnapped into slavery, the Governor appointed Henry Northup as an agent to travel to Louisiana and work with law enforcement to free Solomon. Once in Louisiana, Henry Northup hired a local Avoyelles Parish attorney, John P. Waddill, to assist in securing Solomon Northup's freedom. [9] After a variety of bureaucratic measures and searches were undertaken, the attorney succeeded in locating Solomon and freeing him from the plantation. Northup later filed charges against the men who sold him into slavery but was unsuccessful in his suit. He returned to New York and reunited with his family there.

Northup concludes his narrative with the following statement:

My narrative is at an end. I have no comments to make upon the subject of Slavery. Those who read this book may form their own opinions of the "peculiar institution." What it may be in other States, I do not profess to know; what it is in the region of Red River, is truly and faithfully delineated in these pages. This is no fiction, no exaggeration. If I have failed in anything, it has been in presenting to the reader too prominently the bright side of the picture. I doubt not hundreds have been as unfortunate as myself; that hundreds of free citizens have been kidnapped and sold into slavery, and are at this moment wearing out their lives on plantations in Texas and Louisiana. But I forbear. Chastened and subdued in spirit by the sufferings I have borne, and thankful to that good Being through whose mercy I have been restored to happiness and liberty, I hope henceforward to lead an upright though lowly life, and rest at last in the church yard where my father sleeps.

— Solomon Northup [10]

Reception and historical value

Questions were often raised about accuracy or authenticity of books about slavery, including slave narratives. Similarities between Northup's book and Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin have been noted by critics. Stowe's book was published a year before Northup's memoir but by the time she published her rebuttal to critics about accuracy in her A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin , she referred to his story, which had been publicized in newspaper accounts. Stowe wrote,

It is a singular coincidence that this man was carried to a plantation in the Red River country, that same region where the scene of Tom's captivity was laid; and his account of this plantation, his mode of life there, and some incidents which he describes, form a striking parallel to that history. [11]

Northup's account confirms Stowe's fictional portrayal of conditions in Louisiana, as the area where Northup was enslaved was close to the fictional setting of Simon Legree's plantation on the Red River. Northup expresses other arguments against slavery. For instance, Uncle Tom's Cabin focuses on how the legal system prevents even kind owners from treating slaves well and how it releases cruel owners from liabilities for their treatment of slaves. [12]

Such themes appear in Northup's narrative, too. Writing about this work, Eric Herschtal noted that "Slave narratives were never intended to give an unbiased view. They were antislavery polemics meant to bring down the institution." [13] The fact that these works had a purpose was similar to other published works. [13]

Herschtal emphasizes that Northup expressed compassion in his account, quoting him: "It is not the fault of the slaveholder that he is cruel," Northup writes, "so much as it is the fault of the system under which he lives." [13] Northup's first-person account of his twelve years of bondage captured attention in the national political debate over slavery that took place in the years leading up to the Civil War. It drew endorsements from major Northern newspapers, anti-slavery organizations, and evangelical groups. It "sold three times as many copies as Frederick Douglass's slave narrative in its first two years." [13]

Northup's account describes the daily life of slaves at Bayou Boeuf in Louisiana, their diet and living conditions, the relationship between master and slave, and the means that slave catchers used to recapture runaways. His account shares some details similar to those of authors who were escaped slaves, such as Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, and William Wells Brown. However, Northup was unique in documenting his being kidnapped as a freeman from the North and sold into slavery. His perspective was always to compare what he saw to what he knew before while living as a free man in a free state. While there were hundreds of such kidnappings, he was among the few persons who gained freedom again. [3]

Early and mid-twentieth century historians of slavery, Kenneth Stampp, Stanley Elkins, and Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, endorsed the historical accuracy of the book. Eakin and Logsdon in 1968, wrote: "In the last analysis, [the] narrative deserves to be believed, not simply because [Northup] seems to be talking reasonably, not merely because he adorns his tale with compelling and persuasive details. At every point where materials exist for checking his account, it can be verified." These materials include trial records, correspondence, diary, and slave sale records. [14]

While Twelve Years a Slave is the best-known example of someone who was kidnapped and later freed – albeit through extraordinary efforts – historians have begun to research and present other cases. Most of the known court cases of freedom suits related to kidnapping victims were filed in New Orleans, although some were in border states such as Missouri. One such suit took place in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where Cornelius Sinclair, a free black man from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, had been sold after being kidnapped in August 1825 and transported South with some younger free blacks. [15] A total of about 20 young blacks disappeared from the Philadelphia area that summer, some survivors sold into slavery in Mississippi. [15] [16] Helped by the intervention of Philadelphia mayor Joseph Watson, most of those kidnapped were returned free to Philadelphia by June 1826, but Sinclair's odyssey was longer. He was freed in 1827 by a unanimous verdict of an all-white jury. [16]

Reissue

After additional printings in the 19th century, the book went out of print until 1968, [6] when historians Joseph Logsdon and Sue Eakin restored it to prominence. Eakin discovered the story as a child growing up in Louisiana plantation country –the owner of a first edition showed her the book, after finding it in a former plantation home.

Years later, Logsdon had a student from an old Louisiana family who brought a copy of the original 1853 book to class; her family had owned it for more than a century. Together Logsdon and Eakin studied Northup's account, documenting it through the slave sales records of Washington, D.C., and New Orleans, by retracing his journey and bondage in Bayou Boeuf plantation country in central Louisiana and through its records, and documenting his New York State origins. They found his father's freeman's decree, and the case files for the legal work that restored Northup's freedom and prosecuted his abductors. In 1968, Eakin and Logsdon's thoroughly annotated edition of the original book was published by Louisiana State University Press, shedding new light on Northup's account and establishing its historic significance. That book has been widely used by scholars and in classrooms for more than 40 years, and is still in print.

In 1998, Logsdon was invited by scholars in upstate New York to participate in a search for Solomon's grave. However, bad weather prevented the search that year, and Logsdon died the following June 1999. In 2007, shortly before her death at age 90, Eakin completed an updated and expanded version of their book; it includes more than 150 pages of new background material, maps, and photographs. In 2013, e-book and audiobook versions of her final definitive edition were released in her honor. With permission, scholars may use Eakin's lifetime archives through The Sue Eakin Collection, Louisiana State University at Alexandria, Louisiana. The Joseph Logsdon Archives are available at the University of New Orleans.

Historian Jesse Holland noted in a 2009 interview that he had relied on Northup's memoir and detailed description of Washington in 1841 to identify the location of some slave markets in the capital. Holland has also researched the roles of African American slaves who, as skilled laborers, helped build some of the important public buildings in Washington, including the Capitol and part of the original Executive Mansion. [17]

Editions and adaptations

His Master's Voice.jpg
Scene at the New Orleans slave pen.
Excerpt from Ch. 6, via LibriVox
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Text

Film

Audiobook

Related Research Articles

The slave narrative is a type of literary genre involving the (written) autobiographical accounts of enslaved persons, particularly Africans enslaved in the Americas, though many other examples exist. Over six thousand such narratives are estimated to exist; about 150 narratives were published as separate books or pamphlets. In the United States during the Great Depression (1930s), more than 2,300 additional oral histories on life during slavery were collected by writers sponsored and published by the Works Progress Administration, a New Deal program. Most of the 26 audio-recorded interviews are held by the Library of Congress.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Solomon Northup</span> Free-born African American kidnapped by slave-traders

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. Northup was a professional violinist, farmer, and 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 enslaved 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fugitive Slave Act of 1793</span> Act of the United States Congress

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kidnapping into slavery in the United States</span> Practice of kidnapping people for slave labour in the United States

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph Barton Elam</span> American politician (1821–1885)

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James M. Marvin</span> American politician

James Madison Marvin was a businessman and U.S. Representative from New York during the latter half of the American Civil War.

<i>12 Years a Slave</i> (film) 2013 film directed by Steve McQueen

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.

<i>Solomon Northups Odyssey</i> 1984 American television film by Gordon Parks

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter (enslaved man)</span> Man in 1863 photograph

Peter was an escaped American slave who was the subject of photographs documenting the extensive scarring of his back from whippings received in slavery. The "scourged back" photo became one of the most widely circulated photos of the abolitionist movement during the American Civil War and remains one of the most notable photos of the 19th-century United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Prince Ford</span> American Baptist minister, preacher, and planter (1803 – 1866)

William Prince Ford was an American Baptist minister, preacher, and planter in pre-Civil War Louisiana. Ford was the enslaver who first bought Solomon Northup, a free African-American, after Northup was kidnapped in the District of Columbia, and sold in New Orleans in 1841. Ford resided in the "Great Pine Woods", Avoyelles, Red River Parish, Louisiana, and 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patsey</span> African American enslaved woman, written about in 12 Years a Slave

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 (1984), and the better known 12 Years a Slave (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 an enslaver on a cotton plantation in Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana. Epps 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James H. Birch (slave trader)</span> American slave trader (1803–1870)

James H. Birch was an American slave trader in the District of Columbia. He was most active as a trader in the 1830s and 1840s and was infamously involved in the imprisonment of Dorcas Allen and Solomon Northup. He later became involved in municipal maintenance governance, and the Washington city watch, and was involved in running Potomac-region hotels and resorts. He died at his home "on the Island" at age 67 in 1870 and is buried at the Congressional Cemetery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Francis Jackson (kidnapping victim)</span> Slave who worked in Virginia

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Samuel Bass (1807–1853) was a white Canadian abolitionist who helped Solomon Northup, author of Twelve Years a Slave, attain his freedom. Northup was a free black man from New York who was kidnapped and forced into slavery in the Deep South. At risk of injury and conviction in default of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, Bass mailed letters to friends of Northup that initiated a series of events to save him.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edwin Epps House</span> Creole cottage built in 1852 in Avoyelles Parish, 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Theophilus Freeman</span> 19th-century American slave trader

Theophilus Freeman was a 19th-century American slave trader of Virginia, Louisiana and Mississippi. He was known in his own time as wealthy and problematic. Freeman's business practices were described in two antebellum American slave narratives—that of John Brown and that of Solomon Northup—and he appears as a character in both filmed dramatizations of Northup's Twelve Years a Slave.

References

  1. 1 2 J.C. Derby (1884), "William H. Seward", Fifty Years Among Authors, Books and Publishers, New York: G.W. Carleton & Co., pp. 62–63
  2. ↑ The Picayune , 6 February 1853, p. 6
  3. 1 2 Northup, Solomon. Twelve Years a Slave: Summary, online text at Documenting the American South, University of North Carolina, accessed 19 July 2012
  4. ↑ "'12 Years a Slave' prompts effort to recognize work of UNO historian in reviving tale". Nola.com. Retrieved 27 September 2013.
  5. ↑ Cieply, Michael (23 September 2013). "An Escape From Slavery, Now a Movie, Has Long Intrigued Historians". The New York Times . Retrieved 26 September 2013.
  6. 1 2 "Twelve Years A Slave by Solomon Northup". Lsupress.org. Retrieved 26 September 2013.
  7. ↑ Cieply, Michael; Barnesmarch, Brooks (2 March 2014). "'12 Years a Slave' Claims Best Picture Oscar". The New York Times .
  8. ↑ Ford became a leader of the Restoration Movement in Louisiana as he and his Baptist congregation were influenced by the writings of Alexander Campbell.
  9. ↑ Melancon, Meredith. "Avoyelles Parish Courthouse, Marksville". Acadiana Historical. Robert Carriker. Archived from the original on 28 February 2014. Retrieved 28 February 2014.
  10. ↑ Northup, Solomon. Twelve Years a Slave (First ed.). p. 321.
  11. ↑ Stowe, H. B. A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin, Inkling Books, 2005 (reprint), p. 245
  12. ↑ Alfred L. Brophy (1995–1996). "Over and above ... There Broods a Portentous Shadow, – The Shadow of Law: Harriet Beecher Stowe's Critique of Slave Law in Uncle Tom's Cabin" (PDF). Journal of Law and Religion. 12 (2): 457–506. doi:10.2307/1051590. JSTOR   1051590. S2CID   159994075.
  13. 1 2 3 4 Eric Herschtal, "The Passion of Solomon Northup" The New York Times
  14. ↑ Northup, Solomon (1968). Eakin, Sue & Logsdon, Joseph (eds.). Twelve Years a Slave. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. pp. x and xvi. ISBN   0807101508.
  15. 1 2 Judson E. Crump and Alfred L. Brophy, "Cornelius Sinclair's Odyssey: Freedom, Slavery, and Freedom Again in the Old South", Social Science Research Network, July 2014, UNC Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2469529, accessed 16 April 2015.
  16. 1 2 John Henderson, Joseph Watson, Job Brown, Thomas Bradford Junr., R. L. Kennon, Joshua Boucher, H. V. Somerville and Eric Ledell Smith, Notes and Documents: "Rescuing African American Kidnapping Victims in Philadelphia as Documented in the Joseph Watson Papers", Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 129 (2008), pp. 317, 330–332
  17. ↑ "Jesse Holland on How Slaves Built the White House and the US Capitol". Democracynow.org. Retrieved 9 April 2012.
  18. ↑ Sharkey, Richard P. "Noted Louisiana historian Sue Eakin of Bunkie dead at 90". The Town Talk. Retrieved 21 September 2009.[ dead link ]
  19. ↑ Ebiri, Bilge (11 November 2013). "A Tale Twice Told: Comparing 12 Years a Slave to 1984's TV Movie Solomon Northup's Odyssey". Vulture.com . Retrieved 2 January 2018.
  20. ↑ Maltin, Martin (17 October 2013). "12 Years A Slave – The Second Time Around". Indie Wire . Retrieved 2 January 2018.
  21. ↑ Hannaford, Alex (4 June 2016). "12 Years A Slave: the true story of Solomon Northup". The Daily Telegraph . Retrieved 2 January 2018.
  22. ↑ Sergio (13 January 2013). "What About That OTHER '12 Years A Slave' Movie?". Indie Wire . Retrieved 2 January 2018.
  23. ↑ Morgan, Jennifer Wilde (2016). Come to the Garden: A Novel. Simon and Schuster. p. 200. ISBN   978-1501131332.
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