12 Years A Slave

"Having been born a freeman, and for more than thirty years enjoyed the blessings of liberty in a free State—and having at the end of that time been kidnapped and sold into Slavery, where I remained, until happily rescued in the month of January, 1853, after a bondage of twelve years—it has been suggested that an account of my life and fortunes would not be uninteresting to the public." -an excerpt

For more than thirty years, Solomon Northup lived in New York as a free man. But in 1841, while pursuing a job offer in Washington DC, Northup was kidnapped and sold into slavery. After being brutally beaten for insisting on his right to live freely, Northup grew silent about his past. It was not until twelve years later that he shared his story with Samuel Bass, a white abolitionist, setting in motion the chain of events that would finally bring him home in 1853. Penned in his first year of renewed freedom, Northup's memoir unveils the inconceivable cruelties—and rare moments of kindness—he experienced during his enslavement. The revelations in his narrative served as a powerful contribution to the fight against slavery. This unabridged version of Northup's work is taken from an 1855 copyright edition.

DIVMore than 2,000 former slaves provide first-person accounts in blunt, simple language about their lives in bondage. Illuminating, often startling information about southern life before, during, and after the Civil War. /div

After years of fact checking, here is the entire text of Twelve Years A Slave, with annotations throughout and back stories on all of the characters-even the villains other historians have ignored. This is the true story of Twelve Years a Slave, and of David Wilson, the man who really wrote Solomon Northup's story into history.

Dolen Perkins-Valdez’s enchanting and unforgettable novel, based on little-known fact, combines the narrative allure of Cane River by Lalita Tademy and the moral complexities of Edward P. Jones’s The Known World as it tells the story of four black enslaved women in the years preceding the Civil War. wench \'wench\ n. from Middle English “wenchel,”1 a: a girl, maid, young woman; a female child. Situated in Ohio, a free territory before the Civil War, Tawawa House is an idyllic retreat for Southern white men who vacation there every summer with their enslaved black mistresses. It’s their open secret. Lizzie, Reenie, and Sweet are regulars at the resort, building strong friendships over the years. But when Mawu, as fearless as she is assured, comes along and starts talking of running away, things change. To run is to leave everything behind, and for some it also means escaping from the emotional and psychological bonds that bind them to their masters. When a fire on the resort sets off a string of tragedies, the women of Tawawa House soon learn that triumph and dehumanization are inseparable and that love exists even in the most inhuman, brutal of circumstances—all while they bear witness to the end of an era. An engaging, page-turning, and wholly original novel, Wench explores, with an unflinching eye, the moral complexities of slavery. “Readers entranced by The Help will be equally riveted by Wench. A deeply moving, beautifully written novel told from the heart.”—USA Today

This Edition of Twelve Years A Slave is the Original 1853 Edition and Is Annotated. Solomon Northup was born as a free man in either July 10, 1807 or 1808 in Minerva, New York to a father named Mintus, who was a freed slave and a mother who was a free woman of color. He grew up, working on his family farm with his father and older brother, Joseph. He loved reading books and playing music on the violin. On December 25, 1829, he married Anne Hampton and together, they had three children named Elizabeth, Margaret and Alonzo. They owned and worked a farm. Solomon was well-known as an accomplished fiddler and his wife was well-known (and paid) for her cooking. In 1841, while looking for employment, Northup was convinced by two men to travel to Washington D.C. They claimed to be affiliated with a circus. In Washington D.C. Northup was drugged, beaten severely, kidnapped and then sold into slavery. This began 12 of the most challenging years of his life. His name was also changed to Platt Hamilton. He was first sold to a more benevolent slave owner named William Prince Ford. A difficult financial situation forced Ford to sell him to John M. Tibaut, who was extremely brutal to Northup. After almost getting hung by Tibaut, Northup fled to Ford for protection. Tibaut and Ford sold Northup to a man named Edwin Epps, where Northup remained for about a decade. He spent time on Epps' plantation being lent out to others, and also as a driver to help manage other slaves. He spent his 12 years in slavery in Louisiana.

The true story behind the acclaimed movie 12 Years a Slave, this book is based on the life of Solomon Northup, a free black man from New York who was captured in the United States and sold into slavery in Louisiana. Solomon Northup awoke in the middle of the night with his body trembling. Slowly, he realized that he was handcuffed in a dark room and his feet were chained to the floor. He managed to slip his hand into his pocket to look for his free papers that proved he was one of 400,000 free blacks in a nation where 2.5 million other African Americans were slaves. They were gone. This remarkable story follows Northup through his 12 years of bondage as a man kidnapped into slavery, enduring the hardships of slave life in Louisiana. But the tale also has a remarkable ending. Northup is rescued from his master's cotton plantation in the deep South by friends in New York. This is a compelling tale that looks into a little known slice of history, sure to rivet young readers and adults alike. National Geographic supports K-12 educators with ELA Common Core Resources. Visit www.natgeoed.org/commoncore for more information.

"Thirty Years a Slave" by Louis Hughes. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read.

NeoSlave Narratives is a study in the political, social, and cultural content of a given literary form--the novel of slavery cast as a first-person slave narrative. After discerning the social and historical factors surrounding the first appearance of that literary form in the 1960s, NeoSlave Narratives explores the complex relationship between nostalgia and critique, while asking how African American intellectuals at different points between 1976 and 1990 remember and use the site of slavery to represent the crucial cultural debates that arose during the sixties.

"Fascinating.... Lays a foundation for understanding human history."—Bill Gates In this "artful, informative, and delightful" (William H. McNeill, New York Review of Books) book, Jared Diamond convincingly argues that geographical and environmental factors shaped the modern world. Societies that had had a head start in food production advanced beyond the hunter-gatherer stage, and then developed religion --as well as nasty germs and potent weapons of war --and adventured on sea and land to conquer and decimate preliterate cultures. A major advance in our understanding of human societies, Guns, Germs, and Steel chronicles the way that the modern world came to be and stunningly dismantles racially based theories of human history. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science, the Rhone-Poulenc Prize, and the Commonwealth club of California's Gold Medal.

Her Again is an intimate look at the artistic coming-of-age of the greatest actress of her generation, from the homecoming float at her suburban New Jersey high school to her star-making roles in The Deer Hunter, Manhattan, and Kramer vs. Kramer. The book charts Meryl Streep's heady rise to stardom on the New York stage, her passionate, tragically short-lived love affair with fellow actor John Cazale, and her evolution as a young woman of the 1970s wrestling with changing ideas of feminism, marriage, love, and sacrifice. This is a captivating story of the making of one of the most revered artistic careers of our time, offering a rare glimpse into the life of the actress long before she became an icon.

Twelve Years a Slave (1853) is a memoir and slave narrative by Solomon Northup. Northup, a black man who was born free in New York, details his kidnapping in Washington, D.C. and subsequent sale into slavery. After having been kept in bondage for 12 years in Louisiana by various masters, Northup was able to write to friends and family in New York, who were able to secure his release.

The inspiring true story of an enslaved woman who liberated an infamous slave jail and transformed it into one of the nation’s first HBCUs In The Devil’s Half Acre, New York Times bestselling author Kristen Green draws on years of research to tell the extraordinary and little-known story of young Mary Lumpkin, an enslaved woman who blazed a path of liberation for thousands. She was forced to have the children of a brutal slave trader and live on the premises of his slave jail, known as the “Devil’s Half Acre.” When she inherited the jail after the death of her slaveholder, she transformed it into “God’s Half Acre,” a school where Black men could fulfill their dreams. It still exists today as Virginia Union University, one of America’s first Historically Black Colleges and Universities. A sweeping narrative of a life in the margins of the American slave trade, The Devil’s Half Acre brings Mary Lumpkin into the light. This is the story of the resilience of a woman on the path to freedom, her historic contributions, and her enduring legacy.

The author discusses the writings of Richard Allen, Solomon Bayley, Henry Bibb, Henry Box Brown, John Brown, Leonard Black, William Wells Brown, Lewis Clarke, William Craft, Frederick Douglass, Martin R. Delany, Olaudah Equiano, Moses Grandy, Jacob D. Green, William Grimes, James A.U. Gronniosaw, Briton Hammon, Josiah Henson, Harriet Jacobs, John Jea, Lunsford Lane, Jarena Lee, John Marrant, Solomon Northrup, James W. Pennington, James Robert, Moses Roper, Venture Smith, Austin Steward, Nat Turner, Samuel R. Ward, Booker T. Washington, James Watkins, George White, James Williams, and others.