Solomon Northup

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Solomon Northup

Engraving from his autobiography

Born Solomon Northup[Note 1]

July 10, 1807 or 1808

Minerva, Essex County, New York, U.S.

Died between 1857 and 1875

Nationality American

Occupation raftsman, fiddler, labourer, carpenter

 Known for Twelve Years a Slave

Signature

Solomon Northup (July 10, 1807 or 1808 – unknown)[1][2] 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. In 1841, he was offered a traveling musician's
job and went to Washington, D.C. (where slavery was legal); there he was drugged, kidnapped, and
sold as a slave. He was shipped to New Orleans, purchased by a planter, and held as a slave for 12
years in the Red River region of Louisiana, mostly in Avoyelles Parish. He remained a slave until he
met a Canadian working on his plantation who helped get word to New York, where state law
provided aid to free New York citizens who had been kidnapped and sold into slavery. His family and
friends enlisted the aid of the Governor of New York, Washington Hunt, and Northup regained his
freedom on January 3, 1853.[3]
The slave trader in Washington, D.C., James H. Birch, was arrested and tried, but acquitted because
District of Columbia law prohibited Northup as a black man from testifying against white people.
Later, in New York State, his northern kidnappers were located and charged, but the case was tied
up in court for two years because of jurisdictional challenges and finally dropped when Washington,
D.C. was found to have jurisdiction. The D.C. government did not pursue the case. Those who had
kidnapped and enslaved Northup received no punishment.
In his first year of freedom, Northup wrote and published a 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 largely
disappeared from the historical record after 1857, although a letter later reported him alive in early
1863;[4] 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.[5] The details of his death have
never been documented.[6]
Northup's memoir was adapted and produced as the 1984 television film Solomon Northup's
Odyssey and the 2013 feature film 12 Years a Slave. The latter won three Academy Awards,
including Best Picture, at the 86th Academy Awards.

Contents

 1Early life
o 1.1Family history
o 1.2Marriage and family
 2Work
o 2.1Kidnapped and sold into slavery
o 2.2Restoration of freedom
o 2.3Court cases and memoir
o 2.4Last years
 3Historiography
 4Influence among scholars
 5Legacy and honors
o 5.1Representation in media
 6See also
 7Notes
 8References
 9Further reading
 10External links

Early life[edit]
Part of a series on
Slavery

Contemporary[show]

Historical[show]

By country or region[show]

Religion[show]

Opposition and resistance[show]

Related[show]

 v
 t
 e

Family history[edit]
Solomon's father Mintus was a freedman who had been a slave in his early life in service to the
Northup family. Born in Rhode Island, he was taken with the Northups when they moved to Hoosick,
New York, in Rensselaer County. His master, Capt. Henry Northup, a great grandson of Stephen
Northup[citation needed], manumitted Mintus in his will.[7][8] After being freed by Henry Northup, Mintus
adopted the surname Northup as his own. The name appears interchangeably in records as Northup
and Northrup.
Mintus Northup married and moved with his wife, a free woman of color, to the town
of Minerva in Essex County, New York. Their two sons, Solomon and Joseph, were born free
according to the principle of partus sequitur ventrem, as their mother was a free woman.[Note
2][9]
Solomon described his mother as a quadroon, meaning that she was one-quarter African
American, and three-quarters European.[10] A farmer, Mintus Northup was successful enough to own
land and thus meet the state's property requirements. From 1821 on, when it revised its constitution,
the state retained the property requirement for black people, but dropped it for white men, thus
expanding their franchise. It is notable that Mintus Northup was able to save enough money as
a freedman to buy land that satisfied this requirement, and registered to vote.[Note 3][8] He provided an
education for his two sons at a level considered high for free black people at that time.[11] As boys,
Northup and his brother worked on the family farm.[1][8] Mintus and his wife last lived near Fort
Edward. He died on November 22, 1829,[8] and his grave is in Hudson Falls Baker Cemetery.
Marriage and family