Solomon Northup

Solomon Northup was a free black man living in upstate New York when, in 1841, he was kidnapped and forced into slavery. Lured to Washington, DC, by a pair of unscrupulous slave catchers who promised him a lucrative job, Northup was captured and transported south to New Orleans, Louisiana, where he was sold at a slave auction. He endured brutal conditions and abuse by his master for more than a decade, until he finally managed to get word of his location to his family. With assistance from a white lawyer who enlisted the help of the governor of New York, Northup was rescued from bondage in 1853. Just months after he regained his freedom, he published Twelve Years a Slave,...