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Twelve Years a Slave: The Autobiography of Solomon Northup

by Solomon Northup , Louis Gossett Jr. (Reading)

4.13 of 5 stars 4.13 · rating details · 42,319 ratings · 3,739 reviews

In this riveting true story, Academy Award winner Louis Gossett, Jr., masterfully transports us to 1840s New York, Louisiana,and Washington, DC, to experience the kidnapping and twelve-year bondage of Solomon Northup, a free man of color. Published in 1853, this account was a bombshell in the national debate over slavery leading up to the Civil War and helped tilt public o ...more

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Published June 1st 2013 by Blackstone Audiobooks (first published 1853)

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Aug 17, 2014 Brian rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Brian by: William T. Vollmann

Shelves: ruard_referred

There's a sin, a fearful sin, resting on this nation, that will not go unpunished forever. There will be reckoning yet ... it may be sooner or it may be later, but it's a coming as sure as the Lord is just.

-Solomon Northup, 1855

I am a middle-age American white guy obsessed with my country's shameful chapter, our "peculiar institution" - slavery. No matter how many books I read, movies I see or any other means of approaching the subject there exists a gulf of understanding that can never be bridg
There's a sin, a fearful sin, resting on this nation, that will not go unpunished forever. There will be reckoning yet ... it may be sooner or it may be later, but it's a coming as sure as the Lord is just.

-Solomon Northup, 1855

I am a middle-age American white guy obsessed with my country's shameful chapter, our "peculiar institution" - slavery. No matter how many books I read, movies I see or any other means of approaching the subject there exists a gulf of understanding that can never be bridged. I can feel pity, shame, anger or any other emotion, but I will never know . Only sympathy. I've got nothing in my present or past that can make for empathy.

Northup's harrowing, page-turning narrative is the first book that I have read on the subject of American slavery that has allowed me the first inkling of answers to some of my questions of "how" and "why". Northup was a free man, born free in New York State, married to a free black woman and father of three children. Humanity's dark side shows its teeth and while away on business he is drugged, chained and then sold into slavery in Louisiana until he is rescued 12 years later. A horrible story with a happy ending, but as Northup makes clear by way of his being an interloper into that sickening economic system: his tale only runs parallel with the multi-generational truth of slavery. He fell into it, got out of it. For those hundreds of thousands of men, women and children that are born and ultimately die into it, there is only hopelessness.

So what Northup does, where he reaches across the ages and a race divide that I can never cross - he takes a look at his oppressors and states: "I get it." You take a white boy, the son of a slave owner, and from his birth you instill in him that there is no humanity in a slave. Northup: "..with such training, whatever may be his natural disposition, it cannot well be otherwise than that, on arriving at maturity, the sufferings and miseries of the slave will be looked upon with entire indifference." So in 2013, I am equally unable to understand the mind of a white slave owner. I was not born into this - how could I ever empathize with a multi-generational slave owning white southern man? "Brought up with such ideas - in the notion that we stand without the pale of humanity - no wonder the oppressors of my people are a pitiless and unrelenting race."

William Tanner Vollmann refers to this book several times in Rising Up and Rising Down - and this is how I first became aware of it. I wish that everyone would get the chance to read it - Northup's writing style and the story itself, while horrific and sad, is still so very important. This past weekend I was in a movie theater and I saw a preview for an upcoming big budget movie made from this book. I nearly choked on my popcorn. I just hope that Hollywood didn't make hashwork of this story and for those that won't get the chance to read the book, that Northup's tale will educate and inspire a new generation. And perhaps help those of us that are searchers for truth get a little bit closer to understanding. ...more

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Michael As to the movie; I suspect that Brad Pitt would ensure the historical and theatrical accuracy........Michael
Jun 23, 2015 09:31AM

Gonza I read the book then watched the film immediately. I noticed differences and I reflected on the point of them. Some of them were an issue of time cons ...more
Jul 04, 2015 06:26PM

May 05, 2015 Petra X rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2014-read , history , biography-true-story , 2014-reviews , reviewed

I know it's a genuine slave narrative, but it is just one-note. It concentrates on episode after episode of intense and repeated physical abuse. I don't doubt its veracity but there are far more nuanced - and readable - narratives out there.

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is about life as a slave when not being physically abused. For most slave owners slaves were extremely expensive farm animals and only the richest who could afford 'herds' of them would be able to maltreat them on a cont I know it's a genuine slave narrative, but it is just one-note. It concentrates on episode after episode of intense and repeated physical abuse. I don't doubt its veracity but there are far more nuanced - and readable - narratives out there.

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is about life as a slave when not being physically abused. For most slave owners slaves were extremely expensive farm animals and only the richest who could afford 'herds' of them would be able to maltreat them on a continual basis. If you want hard work from your oxen, and you want to breed from your cows, they have to be kept healthy and in good condition. Well fed, rested, and with down-time. Not a life of ease or quality, not one without the whip, but one designed that the animals will do their job dawn to dusk and breed on a regular basis. So it was with slaves.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave is that of a slave who escaped and became a famous abolitionist, in the US and the UK, and a newspaper publisher. In the UK, which had never had slavery (view spoiler) Douglass was an enormously popular public speaker. A little known, but important fact about him, is that after the death of his wife, he remarried a white feminist, and supported feminism as strongly as he did anti-slavery measures.

The House of Bondage: Or Charlotte Brooks and Other Slaves is a collection of short slave narratives that provide an immensely depressing look at a period of American life that makes one wonder how people could actually have thought it was all right to treat other people like that for mere profit by the mental device passed from one white person to the other, of pretending that black people weren't quite human.

In the New Testament, it is said, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God." The Church at the time, as do many now, preached that wealth and mistreatment of other human beings was a perfectly good way to be considered a decent religious person and no bar to eternal life at all. So it was without guilt, these men and women who owned other people and treated them like animals and beat them and took their children from them went to church on a Sunday with a clean and pure conscience and were generous, no doubt, at the collection. Not only that, but in order for their souls to be saved, and in order to control them with less beatings encourage the docility of fatalism, plantation owners taught their slaves Christianity. That way they could see their pre-ordained place in the world, the stain of their blood, and that accepting this would give them eternal life in heaven. Amen.

(view spoiler)

To sum up, the book is not an easy read, it is very distressing. For those not responsible but looking back to their country's involvement in that awful institution, I suppose it could be some kind of mea culpa. And from that point of view, in a fulfilling way the book could be a deep emotional experience.["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]> ...more

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Feb 08, 2014 Rowena rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: african-american

“Now had I approached within the shadow of the cloud, into the thick darkness whereof I was soon to disappear, thenceforward to be hidden from the eyes of all my kindred, and shut out from the sweet light of liberty for many a weary year.”

I’m embarrassed to say I had no idea that this was a true story. I find it odd that I’d never heard of this particular slave narrative, given how powerful and informative it is. I decided to read it after all the media frenzy surrounding the movie (which I hav “Now had I approached within the shadow of the cloud, into the thick darkness whereof I was soon to disappear, thenceforward to be hidden from the eyes of all my kindred, and shut out from the sweet light of liberty for many a weary year.”

I’m embarrassed to say I had no idea that this was a true story. I find it odd that I’d never heard of this particular slave narrative, given how powerful and informative it is. I decided to read it after all the media frenzy surrounding the movie (which I haven’t watched and probably won’t).

This narrative was written by Solomon Northrup, a freeman kidnapped from the North, and taken to a work on a plantation in Louisiana, where he lived for 12 years until he was rescued. The whole account was very detailed; we are given names, dates and so on. There are also graphic depictions of violence and plenty of sadness and grief.

The more stories about slavery that I read, the more I realize what a diversity in stories and experiences exist. There are always common themes though: the brutality of the slavedrivers who don’t get their comeuppance, for one, and the injustice of the whole system too. The fact that the slaves were treated as less than animals is something that makes these kinds of stories difficult to read.

I was expecting to be more affected by the pain and violence that I knew slaves experienced at the hands of their masters. However, I found myself more affected by the psychological pain that they had to endure. Coincidentally, I just read a poem by African-Canadian poet Dwayne Morgan entitled “The Academy Awards” which goes:

“And you don’t know the psychological

And spiritual trauma,

Of constantly having to justify your existence,

Your location and your presence.”

I felt quite ignorant about American history while reading this narrative; I was unaware that there was a time when some blacks were free while others were enslaved.

As difficult as it is for me to read anything related to slavery I believe it is important for stories like this one to be heard. I’m in awe at how much resilience African-American slaves showed.

...more

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Ashley Great review!!!

When I read this book I kept thinking about 2 things... How too many women now have this scary ordeal happening to them in the sex slav ...more
Sep 19, 2014 08:31PM

Rowena Thanks, Ashley! Wow, I'd never considered the parallel with the sex industry but you're so right. Human trafficking is so very common.
I've also been t ...more
Sep 19, 2014 09:10PM

Mar 07, 2014 Becky rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: librivox-gutenberg-for-free , political , history , biography

I cannot fathom this book. Everything that happens in this autobiography is so distant from anything that I have experienced that I cannot even conceive of the injustice in any sort of measurable or reasonable amount. I feel angry and heartbroken that this sort of crime ever took place in our country, disgusted to the point of choking, so horrified that human trafficking through America is still so present and strong, so helpless because I don’t even know how to help, because I want to help, bec I cannot fathom this book. Everything that happens in this autobiography is so distant from anything that I have experienced that I cannot even conceive of the injustice in any sort of measurable or reasonable amount. I feel angry and heartbroken that this sort of crime ever took place in our country, disgusted to the point of choking, so horrified that human trafficking through America is still so present and strong, so helpless because I don’t even know how to help, because I want to help, because I would want to kill the person that took my freedom from me and forced me to work, in any capacity, that treated me like chattel.

There were times that I felt Northrup was being too forgiving, or wasn’t being hard enough, on the people he encountered in the South, but having read substantially from this time period this lack of emotion seems to be due in part to stylistic choices- effusive emotion never really comes through writings from this period. I don’t know if it just wasn’t distinguished to write with unbridled passion, but you don’t see it in literature from this time, and so I assume that Northrup was just writing in the style of his day. There were other times where you could feel his rage and dismay, but it was all bundled up in what I am sure was the editorial process. And maybe I willfully distanced myself from some of it, because it was just so hard to force myself to confront the beatings, the whippings, and the separation and sorrow he was writing about.

In fact, there are times that its dry, matter-of-fact portrayal of this tragedy (not just of Northrup, but the tragedy of slavery) was its strong point. He is a reliable narrator, it never feels that he is embellishing, and hearing about the forced desertion of a child as the mother is sold separately in such dry tones, makes it harder to turn away from. You are just faced with the bare starkness of it all. This IS what happened, and simply put. It is powerful in its relation. How this isn’t mandatory reading is beyond me. I feel that even excerpts from this work would have substantially and radically changed my perception of my history lessons. The truth can never come too early for children, while sugar-coating history has the same effect as sugar coating teeth- you are left with decay, holes, and false teeth and tales. Perhaps it would be too hard and too brutal, but most of the world is too hard and too brutal, and if we never force ourselves to confront it in our comfortable castles in America, then it will also, inevitably, never change.
...more

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Apr 28, 2015 Bookworm Sean rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

“My sufferings I can compare to nothing else than the burning agonies of hell!”

This book is told from the view point of a man who was a slave, not some historian’s interpretation of the events or a novelist’s aggrandisement. It is a frank narrative of the events that surrounded one man’s persecution into a woeful existence and allows the reader to form their own opinion of the life of a slave. This is a unique enlightenment into the American slave system , of the 19th century, conveying the hypoc ...more

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Mar 07, 2014 none rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: autobiography , favorite

Authors writing about a life often fall into the established pattern of writing chronologically with dates, awards, and family relationships. But it is one event or circumstance that is the essence of a life, and it is this crossroad that is most interesting to a reader. Especially, I believe, if the event captures a era.

Soloman Northup was a free man, born to an emancipated Negro slave. He lived a simple, uneventful life with his wife and children in Upstate New York until the Spring of 1841 wh ...more

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May 28, 2015 Stephanie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: finished-2015

Twelve Years a Slave is chilling and atrocious -- a powerful memoir of Solomon Northup, a free "mulatto" man from New York who was brutally stolen from his way of life to become a slave in the Deep South in the 1850's.

This is a story that highlights the horrific life of a slave, portraying Solomon's experience of this institution first-hand. Also, in this book Solomon cites his years with a "good" master as well as those with a tyrant. You can't help buy be heart-broken when you read of a moth Twelve Years a Slave is chilling and atrocious -- a powerful memoir of Solomon Northup, a free "mulatto" man from New York who was brutally stolen from his way of life to become a slave in the Deep South in the 1850's.

This is a story that highlights the horrific life of a slave, portraying Solomon's experience of this institution first-hand. Also, in this book Solomon cites his years with a "good" master as well as those with a tyrant. You can't help buy be heart-broken when you read of a mother being separated from her children at an auction... or hearing about the vicious lashings that occurred on any given day to the poor cotton-picker who didn't harvest enough product...

"What difference is there in the color of the soul?” I love this quote an it resonates... however, this leaves me wondering "why"... I am so glad the Solomon Northup was freed and lived out the remaining years of his life with his family -- as well as becoming active in the Underground Railroad. However, what about the fates of the folks that he met along the way in his twelve years of slavery? What happened to them? (view spoiler)

I would recommend this book to people who like to read classics or historical fiction. It is a very moving first-hand account of living in bondage and is written in a very "matter of fact" tone. ["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]> ...more

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Feb 09, 2014 kisha rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: memoir , non-fiction-biography

12 Years a Slave is probably the most unique slave book that I've read so far because I can't say that I have ever read about a free person being kidnapped and sold into slavery. The concept was new to me and I imagine it was probably very common considering that is full profit for a slave trader (not having to buy a slave and then sale for profit). I can't say that I absolutely loved his book. I also can't say that I believe most of what was written to be a fact. What I believe is that he was k ...more

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Debi I agree with you on the fact theat there was what I felt to be unnecessary information as far as how cotton and sugar cane is processed. I also would ...more
May 06, 2014 08:26AM

Pat That is why blacks had to have their freedom papers with them at all times and even then, there was no guarantee of being kidnapped and sold into slav ...more
Sep 08, 2014 01:08PM

Nov 10, 2013 Richard Knight rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A lot of people are saying this book reads like a novel, but I couldn't disagree more. It reads like a man telling his life story, which is fascinating, giving what the man became for twelve years, but not as engrossing as some of the new journalism that came out in the 60s and 70s by people like Hunter S. Thompson and Norman Mailer. Call it a book of its time.

I actually saw the movie before I read the book, and there's an interesting difference. The movie is about the life of a slave, while th ...more

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Aug 25, 2014 Hadrian rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: american , biography-memoir , nonfiction

This is a horrifying story made only worse by the fact that it is all true. I'll leave other reviews to go on in detail about it.

I don't even have the consolation that 'well, at least it doesn't happen anymore'. Chattel slavery and abduction are still hideous problems the world over. It's all very grim to think about. Still, the world owes Northrup a debt of gratitude for bring the truth about such an awful system and the abuses it caused.

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May 20, 2015 Greg rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I appreciated this excellent book (some of its scenes still haunt me), but compared to other non-fiction slave narratives such as Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl , there was a bit more distance of perspective here. The facts are still searing; the antidotes still filled me with horror. But sometimes the narrator feels a step removed.

I read much of the account before I realized why I felt that way .. and then I got to Northup's description of the Christmas celebrations among the slaves. He I appreciated this excellent book (some of its scenes still haunt me), but compared to other non-fiction slave narratives such as Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl , there was a bit more distance of perspective here. The facts are still searing; the antidotes still filled me with horror. But sometimes the narrator feels a step removed.

I read much of the account before I realized why I felt that way .. and then I got to Northup's description of the Christmas celebrations among the slaves. He writes, "Marriage is frequently contracted during the holidays, if such an institution may be said to exist among them ." He wasn't one of "them." He was a Northerner. Not only does he not consider himself one of them, he wonders here if their marriages are even fully real. That comment struck me immediately as odd; looking back, I remember many of them.

Solomon Northup was an exceptionally intelligent man. Southern culture wasn't his, and at times he almost seems to take the tone of an anthropological study. Perhaps that's why he includes long tracts on various customs and planting methods. The planting methods are eye opening in giving a true depiction of the slaves' grueling labor, but he goes beyond this to describe the methods in great detail - the irrigation, the plowing process, the sort of mounding for each crop. In the end, I think his objective is much larger than telling his and his fellow slaves' human stories. Much as an anthropologist studying a foreign tribe, he tries to give full picture of the Southern life and culture in that area of the South.

This focus and his striking intellect make for a unique experience. Yes, sometimes the human story is slowed down a bit by the seeming diversions, but the fuller picture he provides is fascinating as well as searing. If being moved by a human story's raw power is primary, I would recommend Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl first - that book is unforgettable in its immediacy; the reader is pulled directly down into the dark pit of horrors that was slavery. If instead, one wants a fuller historical and cultural study of the period, I would highly recommend this excellent book. In the end though, the distinction is a bit artificial. The world could be improved much if every American were to read both books and many other stories besides from other periods, books that describe periods of history in enough detail that they can be understood not only with the mind but also, even more importantly, with the heart! ...more

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Feb 20, 2014 Lela rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"There may be humane masters, as there certainly are inhuman ones--there may be slaves well-clothed, well-fed, and happy, as there surely are those half-clad, half-starved and miserable; nevertheless, the institution that tolerates such wrong and inhumanity as I have witnesses is a cruel, unjust, and barbarous one, Men may write fictions portraying lowly life as it is, or as it is not--may expatiate with owlish gravity upon the bliss of ignorance--discourse flippantly from arm chairs of the plea "There may be humane masters, as there certainly are inhuman ones--there may be slaves well-clothed, well-fed, and happy, as there surely are those half-clad, half-starved and miserable; nevertheless, the institution that tolerates such wrong and inhumanity as I have witnesses is a cruel, unjust, and barbarous one, Men may write fictions portraying lowly life as it is, or as it is not--may expatiate with owlish gravity upon the bliss of ignorance--discourse flippantly from arm chairs of the pleasures of slave life; but let them toil with him in the field--sleep with him in the cabin--feed with him on husks; let them behold him scourged, hunted, trampled on, and they will come back with another story in their mouths. Let them know the heart of the poor slave--learn his secret thoughts--thoughts he dare not utter in the hearing of white man; let them sit by him in the silent watches of the night--converse with him in trustful confidence of 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,' and they will find ninety-nine out of every hundred are intelligent enough to understand their situation, and to cherish in their bosoms the love of freedom, as passionately as themselves."

These words found in the book written by Solomon Northrup about his 12 years as a slave in the 1840/1850's say so much about the history of the US and all the darkness in our past. I didn't learn anything I didn't already know about the dreadful institution of slavery but it was enlightening to read a first hand experience of the horror of a free Black man kidnapped and sold into slavery in Texas and Louisiana. He survived by wit, cunning and by being smarter than white human cockroaches (my apology to the insect) around him. My heart ached for all the thousands of souls who didn't make it out of bondage.

It's hard to read because of the sordid and painful content and I had to take time away from it. The writing is good, though written in a very old style and syntax and I found the narrative fascinating. Highly recommended for those who can bear it. ...more

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Lela Thank you. As you said it was a difficult book to read. It is amazing it was hidden for so long, but, then, oppressors are not known for wanting their ...more
Apr 01, 2014 07:18PM

none Lela wrote: "Thank you. As you said it was a difficult book to read. It is amazing it was hidden for so long, but, then, oppressors are not known for ...more
Apr 01, 2014 07:23PM

Aug 18, 2015 Eugenie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

An enjoyable read, although distressing in parts. This true narrative is a must read, especially for right thinkers. It left me pondering the profound evil that was/is slavery. What folly is man's inhumanity towards other men! We all bear the responsibility to prevent even an inkling of such injustice wherever in the world it is still perpetrated.

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Sep 08, 2015 Duane rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2015-book-challenge , memoir , non-fiction , rated-books , reviewed-books

The gut wrenching account, apparently true, of Solomon Northrup, a free black man, with wife and children living in New York State. He is kidnapped and sold as a slave, then shipped south to work on the plantations in Bayou Boeuf Louisiana. He spends most of the twelve years under the cruel tyranny of a sadistic plantation owner named Epps. His eventual escape and return to New York and his family occurs only after a series of events that aren't much short of a miracle. The narrative is painfull ...more

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Feb 20, 2015 Chrissie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: bio , history , race , audible , 2015-read

Slavery is an abomination. The United States was from its independence from England a nation that relied heavily on slavery. It was not a land of equality and it did not offer freedom for all.

This book is an autobiography written by Solomon Northup, a free Black kidnapped and taken into slavery for twelve years. He was from Upper-state New York. He played the fiddle. Given a proposition to earn extra money doing just this, he agreed to travel to Washington D.C. It was here he was kidnapped and Slavery is an abomination. The United States was from its independence from England a nation that relied heavily on slavery. It was not a land of equality and it did not offer freedom for all.

This book is an autobiography written by Solomon Northup, a free Black kidnapped and taken into slavery for twelve years. He was from Upper-state New York. He played the fiddle. Given a proposition to earn extra money doing just this, he agreed to travel to Washington D.C. It was here he was kidnapped and illegally sold into slavery. This was in 1841. In 1853 through the help of a white Canadian he regained his freedom. Within a few months his story was published. According to Wiki, "The first scholarly edition of Northup's memoir, co-edited in 1968 by Sue Eakin and Joseph Logsdon, carefully retraced and validated the account and concluded it to be accurate." He worked on three plantations in Louisiana.

This is an excellent book to read after Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad ; it gives you the personal story of the historical events summarized in Foner's book.

I liked this book because it shows how history played out in ONE person's life. What I admire most is the dignity with which Solomon Northup relates his tale. This is no sobfest. It is without melodrama. This isn't necessary given that the events themselves are so terrible. I admire his restraint. I admire that he details other aspects than his own tragic events. He talks of Christmas celebrations and cotton and sugar cane production, clothing and meals and food and of course the injustices committed. The writing is clear and straightforward, as well as the audiobook narration by Hugh Quarshie. I did sometimes wish I could have questioned the author about facts that seemed a bit unclear.

A three star book IS worth reading. I feel I must repeat this over and over again.
...more

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Chrissie All that you say is exactly right, except that it also says very clearly that Tibeats SOLD Solomon to Edwin Epps. This is what really confused me. Fro ...more
Feb 22, 2015 07:26AM

Lisa Vegan I'm curious too why a "decent" man would sell Solomon knowing he was going to a cruel man? The why is what's confusing. There were many who owned slav ...more
Feb 22, 2015 07:34AM

Jan 11, 2014 Ken Moten rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommends it for: anyone

Shelves: non-fiction-stuff , biography

" I can speak of Slavery only so far as it came under my own observation—only so far as I have known and experienced it in my own person. My object is, to give a candid and truthful statement of facts: to repeat the story of my life, without exaggeration, leaving it for others to determine, whether even the pages of fiction present a picture of more cruel wrong or a severer bondage. "

I feel intense guilt saying this, but I read this book after seeing the movie. I don't simply mean the film in thea " I can speak of Slavery only so far as it came under my own observation—only so far as I have known and experienced it in my own person. My object is, to give a candid and truthful statement of facts: to repeat the story of my life, without exaggeration, leaving it for others to determine, whether even the pages of fiction present a picture of more cruel wrong or a severer bondage. "

I feel intense guilt saying this, but I read this book after seeing the movie. I don't simply mean the film in theaters as of November 2013, but the old Gordon Parks directed tv-movie called Solomon Northup's Odyssey . So I should have tracked this one down before watching that amazing film that is out now. That said, this book is incredible in its scope and detail.

Northup's book distinguishes itself because it is a slave narrative written by someone not born and raised a slave. He describes his family history, the circumstances of his kidnapping, the history of his life in bondage and his rescue, and the mechanism and culture of Slavery in great detail. He tries his best not to leave any little detail to the imagination, so if you know nothing about Slavery in the United States, this is the book you should pick-up first. It is a story so real and sadly so relevant given the problem of human-trafficking and slaver that still exist.

The thing I find interesting about the autobiographies of slaves is the variety of experience from the different perspectives. Most Americans, if they read any Slave Narratives at all, will read Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas, an American Slave . I, myself, feel that Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is the best slave narrative I ever read (as a part of The Classic Slave Narratives ) and I will most likely do a review of it one of these days. Not much more to do beyond recommending you check this book out and letting Mr. Northup have the last word:

" My narrative is at an end. I have no comments to make upon the subject of Slavery. Those who read this book may form their own opinions of the "peculiar institution." What it may be in other States, I do not profess to know; what it is in the region of Red River, is truly and faithfully delineated in these pages. This is no fiction, no exaggeration...I doubt not hundreds have been as unfortunate as myself; that hundreds of free citizens have been kidnapped and sold into slavery, and are at this moment wearing out their lives on plantations in Texas and Louisiana. But I forbear. Chastened and subdued in spirit by the sufferings I have borne, and thankful to that good Being through whose mercy I have been restored to happiness and liberty, I hope henceforward to lead an upright though lowly life, and rest at last in the church yard where my father sleeps. "

...more

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Nov 25, 2013 Elizabeth rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

“Life is dear to every living thing; the worm that crawls upon the ground will struggle for it.”
― Solomon Northup, Twelve Years a Slave

“There may be humane masters, as there certainly are inhuman ones - there may be slaves well-clothed, well-fed, and happy, as there surely are those half-clad, half-starved and miserable; nevertheless, the institution that tolerates such wrong and inhumanity as I have witnessed, is a cruel, unjust, and barbarous one. Men may write fictions portraying lowly life ...more

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Feb 20, 2014 Angela M rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I can say that it was chilling, heart breaking, gut wrenching, atrocious and none of these words can aptly describe Solomon Northup's experience as told in this memoir. I did not know about this book until I saw the movie last month. During the brutal lashing scenes and the heart breaking scene of a mother separated from her children, you could hear a pin drop in the theater.
I left the movie theater, frantically looking in the Amazon app for the book. After I finished the book, I felt that same ...more

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Dec 31, 2011 Dorothea rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

Is it weird to have a favorite slave narrative? This is my favorite slave narrative, mainly because Solomon Northup was BAD. ASS.

Somebody needs to make a superhero-style comic about this man.

Northup was born free and lived most of his first thirty-three years in New York, where he married and had three children. His wife, Anna, was a chef and one of his talents was playing the violin, so during the social season they often parted ways and took temporary jobs in catering and entertaining.

In 1841 Is it weird to have a favorite slave narrative? This is my favorite slave narrative, mainly because Solomon Northup was BAD. ASS.

Somebody needs to make a superhero-style comic about this man.

Northup was born free and lived most of his first thirty-three years in New York, where he married and had three children. His wife, Anna, was a chef and one of his talents was playing the violin, so during the social season they often parted ways and took temporary jobs in catering and entertaining.

In 1841 Northup was approached by two friendly men who offered him a violin-playing job in New York City. Thinking he wouldn't be gone long, he didn't leave a note for Anna, who had already found a job away from home.

The two men persuaded him to accompany them to Washington, D.C., where they drugged him. He awoke shackled in the slave pen of one Burch, who beat him into silence when he protested that he had been kidnapped.

Burch sold him down South to Louisiana where, as the title says, he spent the next twelve years of his life enslaved. Until the very end of this period, he kept his history a secret, even his name -- he went by the name "Platt" which Burch had assigned him.

This was a country from which total escape, it seems, was unheard of -- too much of the South to travel North through, too much careful searching of departing ships, dangerous swamps. People did sometimes manage to escape to the swamps for a short respite from their work. Northup went there once, on the run after beating up one of his masters (a scene I would very much like to see in comic-book form). He had the advantage of being able to swim, and, although the swamp was full of alligators and poisonous snakes, none of them hurt him.

His plan was to send a letter to the white men he had known in New York, enlisting their help to rescue him. It took him nine years to obtain a piece of paper for this act, and then he had to burn the letter because the person he had nearly trusted to tried to betray him. Not until the last year did he find one trustworthy white man who could help him.

In his twelve years in Louisiana Northup observed the slaveholding South in great detail, and he reports in his book about the personalities of his different masters and fellow slaves, architecture and social customs, and how the work of cotton- and sugar-production was done. This is all fascinating but what I love best is to read about the ingenuity, courage, and physical prowess of Northup himself. Partly because of what he learned in his early life in the North, but I think mostly because he was an extraordinarily intelligent man, he was able to do so many novel things: For his first master, he proposed and executed a system of river transportation that greatly improved on the road transportation hitherto used. After examining another plantation's loom, he built one himself that worked perfectly. He invented a fish trap so that slaves whose masters had not given them enough food didn't have to hunt at night after exhausting themselves in the fields. He made his own ink for the first letter-writing attempt. Etc. etc.

There are also many examples of his strength and dexterity (at some things -- he admits that he was terrible at picking cotton). My favorite occurs when his master Epps makes him a driver of the other slaves, requiring him to whip them:

If Epps was present, I dared not show any lenity, not having the Christian fortitude of a certain well-known Uncle Tom sufficiently to brave his wrath, by refusing to perform the office. In that way, only, I escaped the immediate martyrdom he suffered, and, withal, saved my companions much suffering, as it proved in the end. ...

... If, on the other hand, he had seen me use the lash freely, the man was satisfied. "Practice makes perfect," truly; and during my eight years' experience as a driver, I learned to handle the whip with marvelous dexterity and precision, throwing the lash within a hair's breadth of the back, the ear, the nose, without, however, touching any of them. If Epps was observed at a distance, or we had reason to apprehend he was sneaking somewhere in the vicinity, I would commence plying the lash vigorously, when, according to arrangement, they would squirm and screech as if in agony, although not one of them had in fact been even grazed.

<3 <3 <3 <3 ...more

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Aug 10, 2014 b00k r3vi3ws rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: review-copy , books-i-own

I am afraid that I am guilty this time around of watching the movie before reading the book.

Twelve Years a Slave is Solomon Northup’s story of how he was kidnapped, drugged, beaten and sold off as a slave. It is a detailed account of 12 years of his life that he spent as a slave. The brutalities that he had to endure, the psychological torture that it was and the stories of the people who touched his life in one way or the other. He not only narrates his own story, but through knowing him and hi I am afraid that I am guilty this time around of watching the movie before reading the book.

Twelve Years a Slave is Solomon Northup’s story of how he was kidnapped, drugged, beaten and sold off as a slave. It is a detailed account of 12 years of his life that he spent as a slave. The brutalities that he had to endure, the psychological torture that it was and the stories of the people who touched his life in one way or the other. He not only narrates his own story, but through knowing him and his life we learn more about other slaves, slave catchers, the general conditions of a slave and also the relationship between the master and a slave.

I wish that this was a piece of fiction so that I could just say that it was brilliantly ‘plotted’ and skillfully narrated and move on.

But that is not the case… this isn’t just some fiction but the dark facts of humanity. When we hear about slaves, we pity them thinking that they had a hard and difficult life. But to hear the first hand account of that life breaks your heart so badly. It was so difficult to imagine that a person had to live a life like that and then go back to our own comfortable lives. His trials and tribulations over those years are bound to touch a person in the most deepest ways - to be beaten physically in an inhuman manner may still be bearable, but the psychological torture that it was and the effect it can have on a person is so immense.

Solomon Northup’s life will touch everyone who reads this book and maybe even influence the readers to treat others better. And while the film deserved the Oscars, it is not even close to the book’s emotional dynamite!

A MUST READ

http://www.b00kr3vi3ws.in/2014/03/Twe... ...more

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Sep 03, 2015 Maria Espadinha rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Existem múltiplas e variadas ficções sobre a escravatura nos USA. Mas estórias verdadeiras, narradas por alguém que as sofreu e viveu, não creio que haja outra para além desta ?!

Solomon Northup nasceu e viveu livre no Norte dos USA.
Um dia foi emboscado, raptado e vendido como escravo no Sul . E por lá permaneceu até ao dia em que reconquistou a liberdade que lhe fôra tão barbaramente roubada

Por um lado, esta é uma narrativa chocante, onde somos , como em muitas outras, confrontados com a força ...more

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Jan 07, 2015 Connie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: new-authors-2014 , audible-cd , 2014

4.5 stars.

First I must note that I listened to the audio of this and am awfully glad. Louis Gossett, Jr brought Solomon Northup to life for me. His voice is brilliant. I am not sure I could have enjoyed reading this narrative as much as the language and the cadence is from a different time. The story is also from a different time and one that is a mark on history.

I should correct myself, as this is not a story....but a narrative. I was amazed that it disappeared for decades and Solomon's voic ...more

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Oct 19, 2014 Michael rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommends it for: everyone

This book was both painful and a joy to read. It was painful because of the reality that some humans were lawfully able to visit such violence and heartache on other humans for the purpose of monetary gain. The author did not dwell on the terrible, but also shared his knowledge about such things as preparing a field for the planting of cotton and sugar cane. Yes, he also told of the whippings and other abuses suffered by him and his fellow slaves.

The joy for me was the language used. People jus ...more

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Jan 09, 2014 Pink rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biographies-memoirs , history , race , kindle

If this were fiction, I would probably rate it lower. But this is not fiction. This is the story of how a free man became enslaved for 12 years, in that awful period of American history. How this happened, what transpired during his slavery and how Solomon came to achieve freedom again were all fascinating and heartbreaking tales. Equally interesting is how this story came to be told - from the ghost writer who published the book just 3 months after Solomon was freed, to it's 20th century resurr ...more

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Jun 18, 2015 Carol rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: bookclub , non-fiction , classics , memoir , read-2014 , cultural-african-american

3.5 Stars. Solomon Northup, a free man, survives a brutal twelve years after his capture into slavery and is finally able to procure his way back home through the diligence and persistence of one true friend. While a true story written in 1853, I sometimes found it unconvincing (not that I doubt it as fact) and difficult to connect with Solomon during the telling of this horrific time in his life perhaps bc of the narrator and/or writing style, I'm not sure? A good portion of the story is spent ...more

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Sep 30, 2011 Sherry Young rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history

If you are reading this review then you are most likely someone who is free to read what you choose and to live life how you please.

Imagine for a moment being kidnapped and sold into a life of forced labor, without the very liberties you have come to take for granted. You are no longer considered anything but someone's property, never knowing if you will ever see your family again...

This is the true story of Solomon Northup, a black man who was born free and who, by the mere color of his skin, w ...more

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Apr 20, 2014 Kaye rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Absolutely incredible! I never imagined a slave narrative that could have been worst than Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs or William Wells Brown. Solomon Northup describes in graphic detail his kidnapping, repeatedly being sold off between slavers and the savagely horrific treatment he suffered for twelve years at the hands of his slavers near Louisiana's Red River. He details the immoral, unscrupulous and the demoralizing aspects of slavocracy as it occurred in the United States of America. ...more

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Nov 03, 2013 Dan rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

12 Years a Slave is a compelling story written hastily in four months by white ghost writer David Wilson in 1853. The story of Solomon Northup’s kidnapping and subsequent slavery and ultimate rescue is nothing short of amazing. I’m surprised I never heard about it until the movie came out. I haven’t seen the movie yet, but decided to read the book because I was curious how this slave narrative compared to the many narratives I read in an African-American literature class I recently took.

I’m gue 12 Years a Slave is a compelling story written hastily in four months by white ghost writer David Wilson in 1853. The story of Solomon Northup’s kidnapping and subsequent slavery and ultimate rescue is nothing short of amazing. I’m surprised I never heard about it until the movie came out. I haven’t seen the movie yet, but decided to read the book because I was curious how this slave narrative compared to the many narratives I read in an African-American literature class I recently took.

I’m guessing that it isn’t really necessary to read the book before seeing the movie. Wilson had his interpretation of Northup’s story, and the movie will have another. The movie is no-doubt based on the book and newspaper accounts of the time. The facts of his enslavement and his escape are merely one aspect of the story. The perspective lens through which one interprets those facts, whether it be from the nineteenth century or the twenty-first, is another aspect. Arguably the interpretation is more important than the facts themselves.

As some scholars have pointed out, pre-Civil War slave narratives all have a similar structure and tropes that were molded by the expectations and desires of their audience, northern abolitionists. 12 Years a Slave shares many of the characteristics of other narratives such as those written by Frederick Douglass, William Wells Brown, Harriet Jacobs, and others. There are good slave masters and bad slave masters, there are sadistic whippings and tragic mulattos. And of course, there is the thrilling escape. Northup’s tale is different in that he was born a free man in New York and his rescue was so unusual.

As literature, the book is mediocre. Wilson does a workmanlike job of telling Northup’s story, using the literary style of the day. The story is told in the first person, as if Northup had written it, but there is little doubt that even though the story is Northup’s, the voice is Wilson’s. I never really got a good bead on Northup’s character or personality. His reactions to his enslavement and his ultimate freedom are just as you would expect any other person’s. Maybe ultimately we all act the same when we’re put in such inhumane conditions.

The true marvel of this book is Sue Eakin’s incredible endnotes which are in many ways more compelling than the story itself. Eakin has researched every possible aspect of this story. No one can have a shred of doubt about the accuracy of Northup’s tale after a thorough reading of Eakin’s notes. I was flabbergasted to learn that the pen Northup was first enslaved in Washington DC is two blocks from where I work, across from the Smithsonian Air and Space museum.

Eakin painstakingly notes the minor points where Northup’s story doesn’t add up. Lest anyone doubt his veracity, she overwhelms the reader with documentary evidence that track’s Northup’s trek from New York to the bayous of Louisiana. Most compelling is how she matches the manifest of the ship Orleans that took Northup and his companions to New Orleans. Nearly every single slave Northup mentions in passing has a sad corresponding entry on the ship’s log.

That’s not to say that every endnote is interesting. Minor plantation characters sometimes get pages of end notes. Not all end notes directly pertain to the story, but some are just downright fascinating. I ended up on an exercise bike twenty minutes longer than I planned while I read her account of a Union army general’s extraordinarily irresponsible, ill-planned and ultimately tragic freeing of the bayou slaves during the civil war.
...more

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Dec 07, 2014 Nicole~ rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction , slavery

Is it fit or can it bear the shock
Of rational discussion, that a man
Compounded and made up, like other men,
Of elements tumultuous, in whom lust
And folly in as ample measure meet,
As in the bosom of the slave he rules,
Should be a despot absolute, and boast
Himself the only freemen of his land?
-Cowper
Poem from the original 1853 publication.

Solomon Northup was a free citizen of New York State when he was abducted and sold into slavery in 1841. He went from the slave trading pens of Washington an Is it fit or can it bear the shock
Of rational discussion, that a man
Compounded and made up, like other men,
Of elements tumultuous, in whom lust
And folly in as ample measure meet,
As in the bosom of the slave he rules,
Should be a despot absolute, and boast
Himself the only freemen of his land?
-Cowper
Poem from the original 1853 publication.

Solomon Northup was a free citizen of New York State when he was abducted and sold into slavery in 1841. He went from the slave trading pens of Washington and New Orleans to service under several masters, finally spending ten years as a field hand and occasional carpenter on a cotton plantation in Louisiana. Northup's story is one of many accounts of injustice and human brutality during what is considered the darkest period in American history. The true worth of Northup's narrative is primarily attributable to his recollection of slavery in Louisiana in stunning detail, creating a convincing authentic story. He vividly recounts the typical daily slave life; the horrifying observations of human degradation at the hands of their captors; the cruelty and severity of the slave system; its constant torture inflicted on the people ensnared by it.

"Throwing down the whip, I declared I could punish her no more. He ordered me to go on, threatening me with severer flogging than she had received, in case of refusal. My heart revolted at the inhuman scene, and risking the consequences, I absolutely refused to raise the whip. He then seized it himself and applied it with ten-fold greater force then I had. The painful cries and shrieks of the tortured Patsey, mingling with the loud and angry curses of Epps, loaded the air. She was terribly lacerated-I may say, without exaggeration, literarily flayed. The lash was wet with blood which flowed down her sides and dropped upon the ground."

Northup makes compelling disclosures regarding the point of view of the slaves, their relationships with their masters, and his own position: "There was not a day throughout the ten years I belonged to Epps that I did not consult with myself upon the prospect of escape." He definitively reports just how minute a sense of humanity was present in the structure of the system, despite the very few moments of human feeling.

After twelve years in bondage, he was finally able to sneak out a message that would, with the help of an abolitionist, lead to his freedom. His story was told to David Wilson who published the copy in 1853. It's in this 'ghostwriting' that I have my only misgivings of Northup's story. David Wilson, a New York State newspaperman rendered Northup's experience with an exuberant literary flare, using verbiage and purple prose perhaps too sophisticated to reflect, I would imagine, Northup's daily manner of speech:

"No opportunity was omitted of addressing me in the language of approbation; while on the other hand I was certainly much prepossessed in their favor."

"I come now to the relation of an occurrence, which I never call to mind but with sensations of regret. I thank God , who has since permitted me to escape from the thralldom of slavery, that through his merciful interposition, I was prevented from imbruing my hands in the blood of his creatures".

"..was I passing only through the dismal phases of a long protracted dream? It was no illusion. My cup of sorrow was full to overflowing."

"He sought to inculcate in our minds feelings of kindness towards each other of dependence upon God."

The list goes on. I felt in Wilson's earnestness to put out an important story as this, that his own voice of justice drowned out the originality of Northup's. The book did become an instant success in 1853 and a powerful tool for the abolitionists' cause.

Twelve Years a Slave would be still in obscurity today if not for the tenacity of Dr. Eakins, whose efforts to document Solomon Northup's life became a project that spanned over seven decades. It is one among many important accounts of the ruthlessness and brutality of slavery and now, thanks to Dr. Eakins, it is also immortalized on screen in the movies. ...more

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Apr 21, 2015 Lawrence rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: aa-slavery , aa-nonfiction , audio-books-2015 , autobiography , e-reader-2015 , mp3

WOW!! What a book! This is a must read! It's hard to imagine being taken away from your home and made a slave for 12 long years. It was a hard read, but again a must read.

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About Solomon Northup

Solomon Northup was a free-born African American from Saratoga Springs, New York. He is noted for having been kidnapped in 1841 when enticed with a job offer. When he accompanied his supposed employers to Washington, DC, they drugged him and sold him into slavery. From Washington, DC, he was transported to New Orleans where he was sold to a plantation owner from Rapides Parish, Louisiana. After 12 Solomon Northup was a free-born African American from Saratoga Springs, New York. He is noted for having been kidnapped in 1841 when enticed with a job offer. When he accompanied his supposed employers to Washington, DC, they drugged him and sold him into slavery. From Washington, DC, he was transported to New Orleans where he was sold to a plantation owner from Rapides Parish, Louisiana. After 12 years in bondage, he regained his freedom in January 1853; he was one of very few to do so in such cases. Held in the Red River region of Louisiana by several different owners, he got news to his family, who contacted friends and enlisted the New York governor in his cause. New York state had passed a law in 1840 to recover African-American residents who had been kidnapped and sold into slavery.

Northup sued the slave traders in Washington, DC, but lost in the local court. District of Columbia law prohibited him as a black man from testifying against whites and, without his testimony, the men went free. Returning to his family in New York, Northup became active in abolitionism. He published an account of his experiences in Twelve Years a Slave (1853) in his first year of freedom. Northup gave dozens of lectures throughout the Northeast on his experiences as a slave, in order to support the abolitionist cause.

In the early 1860s, Northup, along with another black man, aided a Methodist minister in Vermont in helping fugitive slaves on the Underground Railroad. The circumstances of Northup's death are uncertain.

Solomon Northup's memoir was reprinted several times later in the 19th century. An annotated version was published in 1968, edited by Sue Eakin and Joseph Logsdon. The memoir was adapted and produced as a film in 2013 by Steve McQueen, starring Chiwetel Ejiofor as Northup. Previously, a TV movie had been made of Northup's story, Solomon Northup's Odyssey (1984), directed by Gordon Parks. Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and former U.S. poet laureate Rita Dove wrote her poem "The Abduction" about Solomon Northup (published in her first collection, "The Yellow House on the Corner", 1980.)

Since 1999, Saratoga Springs, New York, has celebrated an annual Solomon Northup Day. ...more

More about Solomon Northup...

Books by Solomon Northup

12 Years a Slave and Other Slave Narratives

Twelve Years A Slave: Original Edition - With Bonus of Uncle Tom's Cabin and Original illustrations

12 Years a Slave and the Emancipation Proclamation

Solomon Northup's Twelve Years a Slave and Plantation Life in the Antebellum South

12 Years a Slave (Annotated) with Original Illustrations, Timeline, Biography & Quiz PLUS Five Classic Slave Narratives Incl. Uncle Tom's Cabin

More…

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