Twelve Years a Slave

Twelve Years a Slave: book

Twelve Years a Slave is a memoir.

Twelve Years a Slave is a memoir written from the perspective of Solomon Northup. It details his traumatising experiences as an enslaved person, captured against his will. The text is somewhat unusual as Northup did not physically write it. His story was told to and edited by the lawyer and politician David Wilson. Wilson's preface details that he made only minor changes to the text. Today, editions of Twelve Years a Slave typically only contain Solomon Northup's name on the cover. The story is in Northup's own words.

Twelve Years a Slave: analysis

Twelve Years a Slave was an important text upon its publication in 1853. It was a first-hand account of an enslaved person's experiences in a time when slavery had not yet been abolished. Slavery was not officially abolished in America until 1865. Northup's story is a detailed description of the abuses enslaved people faced on a daily basis. This educated many people on the realities of slavery. White Americans were often ignorant to the plight of enslaved people or accepted what they suffered as normal.

However, Northup's depictions of the brutality he and other enslaved people faced made it much harder to ignore. One instance of this cruelty is quoted below. While working on Epps's plantation, Northup oversleeps. He states that he never typically did this, and to modern readers, oversleeping may seem something very minor. However, to a cruel enslaver like Epps, it was simply another excuse to inflict racially motivated abuse on Northup.

The preface put in Twelve Years a Slave by David Wilson is also important. Wilson was a respected white lawyer and politician. Because of the deeply racist society of nineteenth-century America, having Twelve Years a Slave edited by a white man would have given the text validity. As seen in the many discriminatory experiences Northup details in his book, black people in America at this time were often not believed or trusted. However, the words and stories detailed in Twelve Years a Slave remain Northup's own.

Twelve Years a Slave: facts

Read on for some further facts about Northup's text.

• Upon its release, Twelve Years a Slave proved very popular, selling many copies.
• Northup's account goes into great detail in describing his experiences, making it much harder for him to be accused of exaggerating or being inaccurate. This was a real risk in 1850s America.
• Northup includes the real names of those who traded and tortured him, forcing accountability.
• During Northup's initial trip to Louisiana, he and other enslaved people caught smallpox, with many of them becoming dangerously ill from it.
• Northup kept up his violin playing while an enslaved person, sometimes being permitted to go to other enslavers' houses and play. This was his only source of comfort.

Twelve Years a Slave: narrative of Solomon Northup

Solomon Northup was born the son of a free mixed-race woman and a free, formerly enslaved man. Because of his parents' free status, Northup received quite a good education for a black man at this time. He was able to live a relatively peaceful life, marrying Anne Hampton in either 1828 or 1829 and having three children. This all changed upon his kidnap. Northup's turbulent and traumatic experiences as an enslaved person are recorded in full in Twelve Years a Slave.

After Solomon Northup was finally freed, he and Henry Northup attempted to sue the men, namely the ringleader James H. Birch, who originally kidnapped Northup. The trial took place in Washington, D.C. but fell through because a black man was not legally permitted to testify against a white man in this state. This meant Northup could not fight for himself in court. However, Northup and his legal representatives also began a court case against Birch in New York.

Northup was able to testify in this case, but it also failed as the court was unable to prosecute someone for something that had happened outside the state. Despite these failures, the court cases brought Northup and his experiences widespread attention. It made white Americans more aware of the true inhumanities of slavery.

Northup then became an Abolitionist and spent time lecturing about his experiences. He was a relatively well-known figure by this point. Little is known about Northup's life beyond this. It is possible he assisted in freeing enslaved people through the Underground Railroad during the American Civil War (1861-1865), but this is not certain. Even today, no one knows where Northup was buried or when he died. Historians have theorised that it was sometime in the mid-1860s and was likely due to natural causes.

While it fell out of popularity for a period in the twentieth century, today, Twelve Years a Slave is considered one of the most influential and honest non-fiction texts ever written about slavery. Solomon Northup shared his true experiences and, in doing this, contributed to the fight for other black Americans to never have to share these experiences.