Book Summary Of Solomon Northup's 12 Years A Slave

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Twelve Years a Slave is a narrative written by Solomon Northup. After conducting research, the story was told to, written, and edited by David Wilson, a white lawyer and legislator from New York. The book is based on Solomon Northup who was a citizen of New York and a freeman. He was kidnapped in Washington City in 1841 and the book tells the tale of his years as a slave from the time of his kidnapping to when he was rescued in 1853. The first two chapters, Northup tells about his family. Little is known about his mother and he does not identify her by name, but his father, Mintus, was enslaved in Rhode Island by the Northup family. Mintus was freed after the family moved to New York. Solomon, as a young man, helped his father with chores around the farm and worked as a raftsman as told by in his narrative. Solomon tells about his marriage to Anne Hampton, a mixed woman, who he identifies as being of several different ethnicities (white, black, and Native American). He married Anne Hampton on Christmas Day in 1829 and has had three children with her.
The book begins to shift directions towards the end of the second chapter when he tells the reader that he a skilled violinist. During the 1830s, Northup became locally renowned as a skilled musician and in 1841 he was approached by two circus promoters. The two men offered Northup a job with incredible wage to travel with the circus to perform various musical shows. He accepts, they drug him, and sell him into slavery. He was sold at auction in New Orleans, and Northup tells in great detail of the ship ride there where he and several other enslaved blacks contracted smallpox and one died. This is when the story begins its downward spiral and the cruelty and abuse to Northup only ge...

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...egins to get discouraged and loses hope of ever getting rescued until he is found and liberated by Henry B. Northup, a member of the same white family that his father had served years before. An official state agent was sent to Louisiana to reclaim Northup, and he was successful through a number of coincidences.
The final chapter discusses the legal actions that were taken. After Northup was freed, again, he filed kidnapping charges against the two circus promoters, but the lengthy trial that followed was dropped because of legal technicalities and Northup received no remuneration. The narrative concludes with Solomon’s reunion with his wife, Anne, and his daughters. He is introduced to his grandson whom he had never met. His grandson’s name was Solomon Northup Staunton. Little is known about Northup’s life after the trial, but he is believed to have died in 1863.

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