With an Introduction by Colin Harrison, Lecturer in American Literature at Liverpool John Moores University. ‘I was sitting upon a low bench, made of rough boards, and without coat or hat. I was handcuffed. Around my ankles also were a pair of heavy fetters. One end of a chain was fastened to a large ring in the floor, the other to fetters on my ankles … Then did the idea begin to break upon my mind, at first dim and confused, that I had been kidnapped.’ Solomon Northup’s kidnap in 1841 tore him away from a life of relative comfort as a free-born African-American farmer and violinist in New York, and marked the beginning of twelve years enslavement in the plantations of the Deep South. His narrative, published on his escape, was an important testimony for the abolitionist movement and became a bestseller before falling into obscurity for a century. Recovered in 1968, the book is valued by historians for its rare insights into the slave economy and by readers of all kinds for its moving account of the struggle against a dehumanizing system. ‘Twelve Years’ is combined in this volume with the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, social reformer, orator, writer and statesman, who was for many the living disproof of the argument that slaves lacked the intellectual capacity to function as American citizens. AUTHOR: Solomon Northup (July 1808 1863) was an American abolitionist and the author of the memoir ‘Twelve Years a Slave’. He was born a free African American in New York, however, at the age of 33, he was kidnapped by slave traders, having been enticed to Washington D.C. (where slavery was legal) with a job offer as a violinist with travelling entertainers.
In his first year of freedom, Northup wrote and published his memoir, Twelve Years a Slave (1853). He lectured on behalf of the abolitionist movement, giving more than two dozen speeches throughout the Northeast about his experiences, to build momentum against slavery. He disappeared in 1857 (although a letter later reported him alive in early 1863); some commentators thought he had been kidnapped again, but historians believe it unlikely, as he would have been considered too old to bring a good price. The details of his death have never been known or documented. Northup’s memoir was adapted and produced as the 1984 PBS television movie entitled Solomon Northup’s Odyssey, and the 2013 was brought to life on the big screen as a feature film named 12 Years a Slave. The latter won an Academy Award in 2014 for Best Picture.