Northup, Solomon:

$15,000 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

TWELVE YEARS A SLAVE. NARRATIVE OF SOLOMON NORTHUP, A CITIZEN OF NEW-YORK, KIDNAPPED IN WASHINGTON CITY IN 1841, AND RESCUED IN 1853, FROM A COTTON PLANTATION NEAR THE RED RIVER, IN ... First edition, first printing, of Northup's important account of enslavement: "one of the most authentic descriptions of slavery from the viewpoint of the slave himself" (Foner).Solomon Northup (1807–1863?) was born a free Black man in New York, the son of a formerly enslaved man from Rhode Island, and a mother of mixed-race descent. He married, had three children, and cultivated a reputation as a talented fiddle player while working jobs in construction and agricultural labor. His life took a tragic turn, when "[in] March 1841 Northup met a pair of white men in Saratoga who called themselves Merrill Brown and Abram Hamilton. Claiming to be members of a circus company, they persuaded him to accompany them for a series of performances until they rejoined their circus....[Northup] agreed to join them as a fiddler. These con men, to secure Northup's trust, told him that he should obtain free papers before leaving New York, since they would be entering the slave territories of Maryland and Washington, D.C....In Washington, however, Northup was drugged, chained, robbed, and sold to a notorious slave trader named James H. Burch for around $600. Thus began Northup's eleven years, eight months, and 26 days of enslavement" (ANB). Twelve Years a Slave is a detailed, lengthy, and keenly observed portrait

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