Twelve Years a Slave: A True Story (Collins Classics)

Solomon Northup

Feb 2014 · Sold by HarperCollins UK

About this ebook

The shocking first-hand account of one man’s remarkable fight for freedom; now an award-winning motion picture.

‘Why had I not died in my young years – before God had given me children to love and live for? What unhappiness and suffering and sorrow it would have prevented. I sighed for liberty; but the bondsman's chain was round me, and could not be shaken off.’

1841: Solomon Northup is a successful violinist when he is kidnapped and sold into slavery. Taken from his family in New York State – with no hope of ever seeing them again – and forced to work on the cotton plantations in the Deep South, he spends the next twelve years in captivity until his eventual escape in 1853.

First published in 1853, this extraordinary true story proved to be a powerful voice in the debate over slavery in the years leading up to the Civil War. It is a true-life testament of one man’s courage and conviction in the face of unfathomable injustice and brutality: its influence on the course of American history cannot be overstated.

Ratings and reviews

A true account of a free man, born in New York, kidnapped, bought & sold as a slave. The mistreatment that he along with several hundreds of others endured was inhumane to say the least. My great grandparents came to the USA from Italy. They too were slaves on a cotton plantation. Makes me wonder if they were inflicted the whips, beatings, cussing, defaming names and cruelty that Solomon Northrop went through. This is an eye opening book of the struggles of Slaves and the greediness of those Masters.

Wonderful account of injustice overcome by a free black man. Kidnapped and sold into slavery very moving end

A sad story with a happy ending. It was very informative, sad and infuriating to think of what people did to others. Had to read it

About the author

Solomon Northup was born a free man in Saratoga Springs, New York, in 1808. He lived as such until 1841 when, attracted by a job offer, he travelled to Washington, DC, where he was drugged and sold into slavery by his supposed employers. Northup was enslaved for twelve years before he regained his freedom and returned to New York. There, he became an advocate for abolitionism and in the 1860s began helping fugitive slaves via the Underground Railroad. Northup is believed to have died between 1863 and 1875, but both the date and circumstances of his death are unknown.