From 1853 to 1857 Northup, now a national celebrity, engaged in extensive speaking tours. He subsequently disappeared from public view and, the best evidence indicates, joined the Underground Railroad.
Who was Solomon Northup and what did he do?
- Solomon Northup. Solomon Northup (July 10, 1807 or 1808 – c. 1863) 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 Hebron, New York.
Did Solomon Northup help with the Underground Railroad?
Northup, who was part of the family from which Mintus and his clan took their name, travelled south and facilitated Solomon’s release in 1853. Northup subsequently gave lectures on his experiences and worked with the Underground Railroad in helping those fleeing slavery to reach Canada.
What was Solomon Northup’s job?
In a column published on March 31, 1946, Snell informed that his uncle “was a man who had, in his life, seen many sights and played many parts.” He had traveled around the world, gone west during the 1849 Gold Rush, and was a lieutenant during the Civil War.
How old was Solomon Northup when he was kidnapped?
Kidnapped and sold into slavery. In 1841, at age 32, Northup met two men, who introduced themselves as Merrill Brown and Abram Hamilton. Saying they were entertainers, members of a circus company, they offered him a job as a fiddler for several performances in New York City.
Was Edwin Epps real?
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.
What happened to Nat Turner wife?
After his slave rebellion, she was beaten and tortured in an attempt to get her to reveal his plans and whereabouts.” In a report by James Trezvant immediately following the uprising, Cherry was mentioned as having admitted to Nat “digesting” a plan for the revolt “for years.”
How many masters did Solomon Northup have?
Northup was shipped south to New Orleans, along with other slaves, where he was sold in a slave market. He spent the next 12 years as a slave, working for three masters. Northup worked hard and endured much cruelty, but he was always looking for the chance to escape or contact his family and friends in New York.
Who are the descendants of Solomon Northup?
He went away with the men, expecting to be home before long and with a pocketful of money. Instead, he was sold to a slave trader in the city of Washington, D.C., and shipped to Louisiana and sold again at the very active slave market in New Orleans.
History Mystery: What Happened To Solomon Northup?
Following his providential release from slavery in 1853, Solomon Northup, who had been led away from Saratoga Springs and into slavery before the Civil War, published a book, Twelve Years a Slave, about his experiences. It is possible to trace some aspects of his post-slavery existence back to property records, court documents, and newspaper articles. This includes the fact that he acquired an apartment in Glens Falls for his family, that he went on a lecture tour around the Northeast, and that he was engaged in the arrest and prosecution of the two men who had abducted him in the first place.
His last known location was Vermont, when he was working on the Underground Railroad with an antislavery clergyman and another freed slave, Tabbs Gross.
However, from 1863 on, Northup’s life is once again shrouded in obscurity.
His wife is listed as a married lady (and as having only been married once) in the 1865 New York State Census, and she is listed as a widow in the 1875 New York State Census.
- So, what may Northup have been up to throughout these two time periods is a mystery.
- Some newspaper stories from the late 1850s indicate that he was going through a difficult period.
- However, in 1855, a few newspapers issued an alert to the public, informing them that Northup and a group of performers had abandoned many cities without paying their expenses.
- Northup was unable to complete a planned speech in an Ontario, Canada town the next summer due to the actions of a tense crowd.
- Northup, was even mentioned in a newspaper in 1858 as claiming that Northup had been intoxicated and had been abducted and sold into slavery a second time.
- Perhaps his engagement with the Underground Railroad began earlier than that, if he was, in fact, a member of the organization at the time.
- “He is generous and sympathetic to his runaway compatriots,” according to an 1854 article in the Syracuse, New York, newspaper.
Then there were the years later reunions of Northup’s daughter-in-law and her sister, who recalled the days when Northup and Harriet Tubman assisted fugitives on their journey through central New York State.
Aiding fugitives was a violation of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law, albeit its enforcement in New York was almost non-existent, making concealment unnecessary in this situation.
When a Wisconsin sheep farmer announced in various agricultural newspapers that he bred his stock with a ram purchased from “Solomon Northup” in Vermont in 1858, it was a watershed moment in the history of sheep breeding.
That is a bit uncommon, given that farmers are often closely associated with their property and are therefore simple to identify in census statistics.
It would not be unreasonable to assume that Northup had returned to his previous career as a pastoral worker.
He also comments, “How different things would have been for us if we had stayed on the farm at Kingsbury.” he continues, Even as a slave, Northup’s interest was drawn to agriculture, as seen by his book, which is replete with details about Louisiana planting methods.
The Underground Railroad was still in existence at the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861.
In that law, one provision stated that “no slave escaping into any State, Territory, or the District of Columbia from any other State shall be delivered up, or in any way impeded or hindered of his liberty.” if the slave’s owner was a supporter of the rebellion, which was unquestionably true of most slaveholders in the Confederate States.
- Those who have read Northup’s book are aware that he was a courageous and daring individual.
- For the sake of argument, let us assume that his life had not been entirely taken over by whatever drinking issue he may or may not have had.
- Given that the exhilarating business of supporting fugitives was no longer accessible to him, did he move to another occupation – maybe one that was somehow tied to the war?
- Son Alonzo enrolled in one of the United States Colored Troops regiments and served in South Carolina during World War II.
- In Northup’s book, he is never modest about his accomplishments, and in one paragraph, he extols the virtues of his leadership.
- Knowing that any attempts at insurrection would almost definitely fail, he constantly advised people to stay away from the situation.
- In particular, he was familiar with the lay of the terrain in central Louisiana, was acquainted with some of the locals, and was knowledgeable about how to appear like a slave, all of which would have been beneficial to someone operating as a scout or spy.
Of course, Harriet Tubman, who was granted a government pension for her service as a scout, is the most well-known of these individuals, but there were many more as well.
Markle, has a chapter on a number of black spies and spymasters.
or at the very least have come to light to the researcher.” If Northup’s desire to assist Union forces were not enough to persuade him to return to Louisiana, his fondness – possibly even affection – for Patsey, one of the other slaves on the Epps farm, served as an additional motivator.
Patsey raced from behind a cottage and flung her arms around his neck as he was leaving the Epps plantation, just as his rescue was getting underway.
my God, my God!
To the extent that Northup had a desire to participate in the fight and that he might be of assistance to the cause, the groundwork had already been set.
An inconsequential piece of evidence was brought to the writer’s attention a few months ago.
Nonetheless, despite its flaws, there is some reason to suppose that there may be some truth to it hidden beneath the surface.
An article written under the pen name Bertrande in a regular column titled “Just Around the Corner” recalls a story he heard as a child from his uncle Noel, which was published in The New York Times.
Throughout the entire scuffle, he threw a fuss and yelled at us.
Someone, somewhere, when he was a young feller, had taught him how to read and write, and from that day forward, he studied anything and everything he could get his hands on.
After the war, he returned to Albany and wrote a book titled, “Twenty Years A Slave”– which became a successful business venture for him.” He then described how, in the spring of 1865, while the northern forces waited in Richmond, Virginia in anticipation of news of a Confederate surrender, he and Northup went for a stroll about the camp grounds with General John Bell Hood.
- Northup burst through the door, having spotted something in the tree and rushing up.
- Grant was thrown to the ground almost instantly.
- In the end, Northup’s bullet brought down the sniper, and the sniper’s bullet hit General Noel in the leg – but missed the general entirely.
- The story is far from being accurate.
- As Bertrande was recording Noel’s rendition of the incident, his wife interrupted him from time to time, attempting to keep his embellishments to a minimum.
- “.
- Snell was the author of the column, and he had previously worked as a telegrapher for the New York Central Railroad as well as for the Western Union office in Syracuse, New York.
- His actual uncle was Noel A.
On March 31, 1946, in a piece published in the New York Times, Snell wrote that his uncle “was a man who, over his life, had seen many places and performed many parts.” He had traveled across the world, had gone west during the 1849 Gold Rush, and had served as a lieutenant during the American Civil War, among other accomplishments.
- But in other essays, he implied that this was not the case with Noel’s situation.
- For example, one such story involved a sea serpent in Oneida Lake.
- Despite the fact that he served as a Second Lieutenant in Company K of the New York 110th Infantry Regiment, his time in the army was limited.
- In October of 1862, he resigned from his commission.
- Snell has stated that the pain in his leg was not caused by the minie ball, but rather was a symptom of the rheumatism that was indicated in his pension file, which may have been a contributing factor.
- It appears that he occasionally embellished, if not outright fabricated, some of his stories.
- It’s possible that he had read Twelve Years a Slave at some time and decided to include Northup in his novel since he was aware of the existence of an African American during the Civil War era.
- However, there is another possibility for the origin of Uncle Noel’s reference of Northup.
- In fact, they were in the same neighborhood where Northup had spent the majority of his time as a slave.
- Devendorf on May 11, 1863, in its issue of June 13, 1863.
- Devendorf was a member of Company D of the 110th Infantry Regiment.
While scavenging for supplies, he came across a slave named Bob, and he approached him and inquired, “With whom do you live?” When Bob stated that it was Master Epps, Devendorf immediately thought of Solomon Northup, and he inquired as to whether Bob had ever heard of a slave named Platt (the name which Northup had been given as a slave).
- ‘He was the one who raised me.
- The troops were unable to persuade Bob to accompany them since he desired to remain in order to care for his ailing mother.
- Had Uncle Noel heard tales from troops in his previous unit that he had included into his story of rescuing Grant near Richmond?
- Or it’s possible that he was just informed about troops’ encounter with slaves from the Epps property and decided to include Northup in one of his stories as a matter of convenience.
- If Northup had in fact been involved in the war – whether in Louisiana or some other southern state – there are easily one-hundred different ways he could have met his end, all of which were unrecorded in the official records.
Illustrations: A young Harriet Tubman, who worked as a spy and scout during the Civil War (credit Library of Congress) and a newspaper cut from the Uncle Noel column.
Solomon Northup
Solon Northup was an African-American farmer and musician who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1841 after being taken captive. The film ’12 Years a Slave’ tells the narrative of his plight.
Who Was Solomon Northup?
Solomon Northup grew up as a free man, supporting himself and his family by working as a farmer and musician. In 1841, he was led south and abducted, and he was held captive for more than a decade, experiencing horrendously brutal living circumstances. Northup was released from prison in 1853, thanks to the efforts of colleagues and friends. His life and experiences are the basis of the book and film 12 Years a Slave, which was released in 2012.
Early Life
Northup was born in the town of Minerva, New York, in July 1808. The fact that his father Mintus was formerly enslaved but was released following the death of his former owner means that Solomon and his elder brother Joseph grew up experiencing the joys of freedom. As a child, Northup helped his father on the family farm and developed an interest in reading and playing the violin.
Establishes Family and Farm
When Northup and Anne Hampton were married on Christmas Day in 1829, they were of mixed racial heritage. They had three children, named Elizabeth, Margaret, and Alonzo, after their marriage ended in divorce. As a result of their farming endeavors, Solomon and Anne Northup acquired a farm near Kingsbury, where they earned a reputation as some of the best fiddlers in the area. The marriage prospered as a result of his wife’s in-demand culinary abilities, and in 1834, they relocated to Saratoga Springs, where Northup worked at the United States Hotel, among other places of employment.
Taken Captive
In March 1841, while looking for work, Northup came across two men who claimed to be associated with a traveling circus. Northup had originally intended to follow the guys just as far as New York, where he would give violin accompaniment for their performance. However, he was persuaded to accompany them even further south, to Washington, DC. There, he was drugged by the men, held hostage, physically abused, and eventually sold into slavery in the Louisiana plantation system.
Horrors of Slavery
Northup was compelled to perform a variety of duties while in captivity, and he never revealed to his fellow prisoners that he had previously lived in freedom for fear of being transferred to a more remote location. Other people’s plights, such as Eliza’s, were witnessed and subsequently related by him. Eliza’s small son Randall was sold and taken away from her during an auction in New Orleans. Northup was finally sold in 1843 to Edwin Epps, who lived in Bayou Beouf at the time of the transaction.
Northup also got to know Patsey, who had been targeted by the sexually abusive Epps while also having to worry about being attacked by his hate-filled wife; her narrative symbolized the ordeals of many women who were oppressed by the slavery system, and Northup became friends with her.
Freed in 1853 and Death
While on a visit to the Beouf plantation, Samuel Bass, an anti-slavery Canadian carpenter, became friends with Northup and sought out to acquaintances of the musician back in Saratoga Springs, seeking confirmation that he had been a free member of the community. In 1853, a lawyer named Henry B. Northup, who belonged to the same family as Mintus and his clan, traveled to the southern United States and negotiated Solomon’s release from captivity. The novel/memoirTwelve Years a Slave was released the same year as Northup’s novel.
Northup went on to give talks on his experiences and to participate with the Underground Railroad, which assisted individuals escape slavery in their efforts to reach Canada.
Legacy and Films
Years later, filmmaker/photographer Gordon Parks made a documentary film on Northup’s life, titled Solomon Northup’s Odyssey, which was distributed by American Playhouse. In addition, near the end of the millennium, Saratoga Springs resident Renee Moore organized the event “Solomon Northup Day: A Celebration of Freedom,” which was officially recognized by the city in 2002 and established as an annual occurrence. The film12 Years a Slave, based on the novel by Toni Morrison and directed by British filmmakerSteve McQueen, was released in the United Kingdom in 2013.
Solomon Northup After His “12 Years a Slave”
The New York Times published a spectacular article on the front page of its January 20, 1853, edition, which went viral online. New Yorkers were taken aback when they heard the incredible story of Solomon Northup, a free black man who had been lured from his home in upstate Saratoga Springs to the slave territory of Washington, D.C. by a pair of white men who promised him work as a fiddler in a traveling circus. Solomon Northup was a free black man who had been lured from his home in upstate Saratoga Springs to the slave territory of Washington, D.C.
The next year, he was sent to Louisiana, where he labored as a slave on cotton and sugar plantations for a dozen years before proving his legal position as a free man resulted in his freedom.
He recalled his experiences and seen the violence he endured and witnessed throughout his years in bondage, his recollections of which were still vivid in his mind.
A number of readers noted that the real-life atrocities depicted in Northup’s enormous book, which was written with the assistance of lawyer turned writer David Wilson, resembled those in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s anti-slavery classic “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” which had been released just a year before.
“It is a singular coincidence, that Solomon Northup was carried to a plantation in the Red River country, that same region where the scene of Uncle 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 which occurred in Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” Stowe wrote in “A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” which she published in 1853 in response to critics who had claimed she ex ex A bestseller, “Twelve Years a Slave,” like “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” became an essential piece of anti-slavery literature in the decade leading up to the American Civil War, and was adapted into a major motion picture.
- Three years after its publication, Northup’s description of his suffering sold 30,000 copies, with the second edition being dedicated to Stowe.
- It’s a terrible situation.
- In addition to stirring the nation, “Twelve Years a Slave” sparked the memory of Thaddeus St.
- in 1841.
- John was a New York county judge who had witnessed Northup along with two boyhood friends, Alexander Merrill and Joseph Russell, while traveling to Washington, D.C.
- John came across the two men a few days later, they were dressed in new clothing and sporting sparkling watches and ivory canes.
- Despite St.
Northup was able to identify Merrill and Russell as his kidnappers after following St.
An investigation into the couple’s whereabouts was launched in July 1854, with a hearing conducted in the Saratoga County Courthouse.
Efforts to bring criminal charges against the slave trader who purchased Northup in the nation’s capital were also unsuccessful since the victim of abduction was denied the right to speak in court because of the color of the black man’s skin.
One of the final instances of his being mentioned in the newspapers happened in 1857, when the Toronto Star reported that he had been had to leave an engagement as a guest lecturer in Streetsville, Ontario, when audience members taunted him with racial epithets.
After the Civil War’s cannons went silent, “Twelve Years a Slave” disappeared from the public’s attention, much like Northup’s own life.
Their scholarly research and voluminous footnotes attested to the truth of an incredible life story that was all too real, one that Northup wrote he would leave “for others to determine, whether even the pages of fiction present a picture of more cruel wrong or a severer bondage.” Northup wrote he would leave it “for others to determine, whether even the pages of fiction present a picture of more cruel wrong or a severer bondage.” Take a look at the revolutionary series as it has been reinvented.
ROOTSnow may be seen on HISTORY.
Twelve Years a Slave: Who Was Solomon Northup?
Solomon Northup was formally awarded his freedom on 4 January 1853, twelve years after he was kidnapped and sold into slavery in the United States. Northup’s narrative, titledTwelve Years a Slave, was first published in 1853 in the magazine Harper’s Weekly. Northup was born a free person of color in Upstate New York in 1807 or 1808, and he was the first of his family to do so. His father, Mintus, was a slave who was emancipated after his master, Captain Henry Northup, was killed in battle. A native of the Hudson Valley, Solomon grew up on his family’s farm before marrying Anne Hampton in 1828 and settling in Saratoga Springs, where they had three children and Solomon pursued his career as a professional violinist.
Abducted and enslaved
Solomon Northup was formally awarded his freedom on January 4, 1853, twelve years after he was kidnapped and sold into slavery. ‘Twelve Years A Slave’ was the title of Northup’s tale, which was first published in 1853. During the years 1807-1808, Northup was born in Upstate New York as a free person of color. Originally a slave, Mintus was released after the death of his owner, Captain Henry Northup, who had owned him. Originally from a farm in upstate New York, Solomon and his wife Anne Hampton relocated to Saratoga Springs in 1828, where they had three children and Solomon pursued a career as a professional musician.
A chance encounter
Solomon Northup was formally released on 4 January 1853, twelve years after he had been kidnapped and sold into slavery. Twelve Years a Slave, Northup’s tale, was first published in 1853. Northup was born in Upstate New York in 1807 or 1808 as a free person of color. His father, Mintus, was a slave who was emancipated after his master, Captain Henry Northup, died. Solomon grew up on his family’s farm and married Anne Hampton in 1828, settling in Saratoga Springs, New York, where they had three children and Solomon pursued a career as a professional musician.
Free again
Solomon Northup’s story became a national sensation once it was published in the New York Times. He filed charges against one of his abductors, James H Burch, once he was apprehended. However, due of the color of Northup’s skin, the law in Washington precluded him from testifying, and the charges were withdrawn. Immediately following the release of his memoir, Northup embarked on a series of lecture engagements around the United States. Later, he vanished from public view and it is possible that he joined the Underground Railroad, assisting escaped slaves in their journey to Canada.
It was nominated for three Academy Awards.
How did Solomon Northup die?
Historians are aware of Solomon Northup’s birthplace, his residence, and his place of employment. They are aware of his marital status and the number of children he has. They are aware that he played the violin and that he was enslaved in the South for 12 years before being released. There are some things historians don’t know about the author of “12 Years a Slave,” including the date and circumstances of his death, as well as the location of his burial site. A mystery remains in the final chapter of the life of a free-born African-American from the nineteenth century, whose gripping tale of enforced slavery in pre-Civil War Louisiana was transformed into the Academy Award-winning film of the same name.
- The Academy Award nominations for the film ’12 Years a Slave,’ which is based on the novel of the same name, have inspired renewed interest in Northup’s life story, which had been little known until recent years until the film’s success this month.
- In 1836, his father, who had been a former slave, relocated the family to Washington County, where they finally settled in the settlement of Fort Edward, located 40 miles north of Albany on the Hudson River.
- He helped his father farm and rafted timber on the Champlain Canal, which runs between Fort Edward and the southern end of Lake Champlain.
- Eventually, Northup got work as a musician, and in 1841, two white men enticed him to Washington, D.C., with the promise of better opportunities.
- Northup was enslaved on a cotton plantation in Louisiana for the next 12 years beginning in 1841, until he was released by friends in Saratoga, New York, in 1848.
- As a result, he became active in the Underground Railroad, assisting fugitive slaves in their attempts to achieve freedom in the Northeast and Canada.
- Even at the end of the film, it is stated that “the date, place, and circumstances” of Northrup’s death are still unclear, despite the fact that the film is set in the present day.
He might be kidnapped and murdered while working as a spy for the Union Army, according to one possible scenario.
Another possibility is that Northup died in an area where no one recognized him or cared to bury an African-American in a dignified manner at a time when a conflict over slavery was tearing the country apart.
According to Brown, “there is no paper trail for him.” As a result, Fiske said, Northup’s descendants were unable to give any documentation or concrete facts, leading him to pursue a number of different leads in his quest to determine where Northup may have been buried.
Northup’s wife and children later moved away from the area.
As Fiske, a former state librarian, points out, death records in New York weren’t organized and maintained in a systematic manner until the 1880s.
The study of history, she explained, is “what keeps historians going.” “It’s simply a problem that has to be solved.” – According to the New York Times News Service
“Twelve Years A Slave” by Solomon Northup
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’12 Years a Slave’: Trek From Slave to Screen
In October 2013, the cast of “12 Years a Slave” and director Steve McQueen (far right) attended the New York Film Festival. Risa Korris captured this image. My role as a historical consultant on Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave was an honor. As a literary scholar and cultural historian who has dedicated her professional life to uncovering the stories of African Americans who have been lost, forgotten, or otherwise unheralded, I was thrilled to be asked to contribute to one of the most vivid and authentic depictions of slavery ever captured in a feature film.
Despite the fact that their modes of storytelling are diametrically opposed, both of these films provide compelling interpretations of the horrific experience of human bondage, providing viewers — and especially teachers and students — with a rare opportunity to consider how the ways in which an artist chooses to tell a story — the forms, points of view, and aesthetic stances she or he selects — affects our understanding of the subject matter.
Solomon Northup, the narrator and protagonist of 12 Years a Slave, was eager only to get his narrative out to the world — and to have people believe that what had happened to him was real — one hundred and sixty years before Steve McQueen made any aesthetic decisions.
Imagine what it must have been like for Solomon during those first disorienting hours in the pitch black of Williams’ Slave Pen off Seventh Avenue in Washington, D.C., when “I found myself alone, in complete darkness, and chained,” Northup wrote, and “nothing broke the oppressive quiet, save the clinking of my chains, if I happened to move,” Northup continued.
The fact that all of this took place in the shadow of the United States Capitol — that Northup was escorted down Pennsylvania Avenue, where Dr.
would be heard delivering his “Dream” speech just over a century later, and a few decades before President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle would parade in hopes of fulfilling it — must have made Northup’s imposed odyssey taste all the bitterer.
Unlike Dante’s Inferno, however, the region to which Solomon Northup was compelled to descend was not a metaphysical area packed with multiple circles containing the damned, but rather the swamps, woodlands, and cotton fields of the Deep Southern United States.
“I never knew of a slave who managed to get out from Bayou Boeuf with his life,” Northup wrote. In the aftermath, the driving force behind his existence — and tale — might be summarized in a single question: Would he be the exception? Here are the realities of the situation.
Who Was Solomon Northup?
Spoiler alert: This portion of the column — and just this section — contains some material that is also covered in the film, so proceed with caution. Solomon Northup grew up in upstate New York and lived his first 33 years as a free man there. On July 10, 1807, he was born in the Adirondack village of Schroon (later Minerva), in the Adirondack Mountains (his memoir says 1808, but the evidence suggests otherwise). He first learned to read and write while working with his father, Mintus, a former slave who finally acquired enough farmland near Fort Edward to be eligible to vote in the American Civil War (a right that in many states, during the early days of the Republic, was reserved for landowners).
- In Solomon’s words, “playing the violin was his reigning love,” and he was right.
- They were married at the age of twenty-one and had three children.
- In 1835, they married and settled in Saratoga Springs (for a time, he and his wife both lived and worked at the United States Hotel).
- During the month of March 1841, Northup was enticed away from his house by two white men who went by the identities Merrill Brown and Abram Hamilton and claimed to be members of a traveling circus stationed in Washington, D.C.
- While in New York City, Brown and Hamilton persuaded Northup to accompany them on their trek further south, and after arriving in Washington, D.C., on April 6, 1841, the trio stayed at Gadsby’s Hotel for the remainder of the month.
- In fact, when Northup awoke, he found himself “in shackles” in Williams’ Slave Pen, where his money and free newspapers were nowhere to be found, according to his account.
- Birch (sometimes written “Burch”), he was assaulted and informed that he was actually an escaped slave from Georgia, according to Northup.
Northup was shipped by Birch on the Orleans under the alias “Plat Hamilton” (also written “Platt”), and he landed in New Orleans on May 24, 1841, when he was sold by Birch’s accomplice, Theophilus Freeman, for $900.
Northerner Northup was sentenced to 12 years in servitude (in reality, it was 11 years, 8 months, and 26 days) in Louisiana’s Bayou Boeuf district, which would be his last destination.
He was the son of William Prince Ford and his wife Elizabeth (1843-1853).
Northup and Tibaut had come to blows twice over labor, with the second incident resulting in Northup coming dangerously close to strangling Tibaut to death (Tibaut had swung an ax at him), prompting Northup to flee into the Great Cocodrie Swamp.
The construction of Epps’ mansion began in 1852, when he recruited a Canadian carpenter called Samuel Bass to do the job.
When the merchants William Perry and Cephas Parker in Saratoga received theirs, they immediately alerted Solomon’s wife and attorney Henry Bliss Northup, who happened to be a relative of Solomon’s father’s previous master.
Washington Hunt to designate him as an agent of rescue, thanks to bipartisan backing, which included a petition and six affidavits from citizens.
There was no need to interrogate the subject.
The proof was in the way they held each other.
However, because Solomon had no legal authority to testify against a white man, Birch escaped with no charges.
The book, 12 Years a Slave, was written by Northup and his white editor, David Wilson, an attorney from Whitehall, New York, over the course of the following three months.
In The Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature, Brad S.
The authenticity of slave narratives has been established since then by “a large number of scholars who have investigated judicial proceedings, manuscript census returns, diaries and letters of whites, local records, newspapers, and city directories,” according to John W.
Northup’s book, published in 1854, resulted in the arrest of his initial captors, Brown and Hamilton.
The case in Saratoga County, New York, dragged on for three years before being dropped by the prosecution in 1857, the same year that the Supreme Court of the United States issued its decision in Dred Scott v.
A free man who had been released from slavery, Solomon Northup remained active in the abolitionist movement, giving lectures throughout the Northeast, staging and performing in two plays based on his life (the second, in 1855, was titled “A Free Slave”), and assisting fugitive slaves on the Underground Railroad.
The exact date, place, and circumstances of his death have remained a mystery to this day.
The last time he was seen or heard from was during a visit to the Rev.
Smith, a Methodist preacher and fellow Underground Railroad conductor, in Vermont shortly after the Emancipation Proclamation, most likely in the summer of 1863.
Approximately fifty-five of the 100 Amazing Facts will be published on the website African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross. On The Root, you may find all 100 facts.
On Display: Record of the Kidnapping of Solomon Northup
The slave manifest of the brig Orleans, dated April 27, 1841, is on exhibit in the East Rotunda Gallery of the National Archives Building in Washington, DC, from February 21 to March 30. Corinne Porter, a curator, is the author of today’s piece. The abduction of free black people in the United States for the purpose of selling them into slavery was a persistent menace from the founding of the American republic until the abolition of slavery. At the age of 19, Solomon Northup, a free-born African American from New York, was abducted by two white men in 1841 and enslaved for 12 years in the deep South before being rescued and able to show his legal claim to freedom.
In the slave manifest for the ship Orleans, Solomon Northup, also known as Plat Hamilton, is listed as number 33 as a slave.
” data-medium-file=” ssl=1″ data-large-file=” ssl=1″ loading=”lazy” alt=”The slave manifest for the brig Orleans contains Solomon Northup, listed as Plat Hamilton, at number 33.
” src=” is-pending-load=1 038;ssl=1;src=” is-pending-load=1 038;ssl=” ” width=”524″ height=”410″ ” width=”524″ height=”410″ ” data-recalc-dims=”1″ data-lazy-src=” is-pending-load=1 038; ssl=”” srcset=”data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAP” data-recalc-dims=”1″ data-lazy-src=” is-pending-load=” is-pending-load=1 038; ssl=”” data-recalc On line 33 of the slave manifest for the brig Orleans, Solomon Northup, also known as Plat Hamilton, is recorded as a slave.
(Source: National Archives.) The practice of abducting free blacks for the purpose of selling them into slavery was illegal in most of the United States.
Kidnappers give their victims nicknames in order to conceal their genuine identity from the authorities.
Victims who argued that they were free were frequently subjected to severe beatings, if even fatalities.
The reader can learn about her life by reading her own tale or seeing how she followed in the footsteps of her great-great-great-grandfather Solomon Northup.
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“Do you have a year of your life to spare?” says the interviewer. This was the third time I’d heard a variation of this remark after presenting the subject of my essay, and it wasn’t until my third day in central Louisiana that I genuinely began to believe it. This one came from John Lawson, a local historian and patron of the Alexandria Genealogical Library, which is a venue bursting to the seams with information and staffed by skilled volunteers who are all enthusiastic about the subject matter.
It seems to me that no one else I’d spoken with at the time thought it was conceivable.
Sue Eakin, the LSU of Alexandria professor and historian who devoted her life to investigating Northup’s narrative).
He worked with Patsey and six other slaves (Abram, Wiley, Phebe, Bob, Henry, and Edward), all of whom had come to Louisiana from adjacent estates in Williamsburg County, South Carolina.
According to what has been discovered, piecing together the ancestry of a slave is usually often accomplished through recreating the genealogy of his or her owners.
That owner, named in the book as James Buford (but more likely named William J.
Williams of Rapides Parish, Louisiana, which is close to Alexandria.
He worked as an overseer on the Oakland Plantation, which was located near Alexandria and patented by Williams, and he was given the slaves as compensation for his earnings in that position.
In any case, we know Patsey had been with Epps since at least 1843, when he acquired Northup and leased the Bayou Huffpower plantation of his wife’s uncle Joseph B.
Patsey is referred to be 23 years old in Northup’s book, yet his declaration of that age may have occurred at any point over his ten years with her, making it a sliding scale of a fixed age (most likely, he was referring to her age when he left her in 1853).
Regardless, no names were given with each slave registration, and ages were frequently estimated rather than stated explicitly.
As a result of all of these evidence, it is reasonable to assume that she was born around 1830 in South Carolina.