Twelve Years a Slave is a memoir by Solomon Northup, a black man who was born free in New York. The story tells of being kidnapped, sold as a slave, and shipped to serve various masters on plantations in Louisiana for 12 years. Northup narrative describes the culture of the slave markets in Washington DC and New Orleans and his experience as a slave on the cotton and sugar plantations in Louisiana. With the help of a sympathetic ally he was eventually able to contact friends and family in New York, who managed to secure his release.

Northup had the slave trader in Washington arrested and tried, but he was acquitted because District of Columbia law prohibited a black man from testifying against white people. Later, in New York State, Northup’s northern kidnappers were charged, but the case was tied up in court and finally dropped by the State of New York when DC was found to have jurisdiction. Washington DC did not pursue the case. Those who had kidnapped and enslaved Northup received no punishment.

The work was told to and edited by David Wilson and was published on the heels of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s best-selling novel about slavery, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852). Northup’s book was dedicated to Stowe and became a bestseller, selling 30,000 copies. After several editions the book fell into obscurity until it was re-discovered in the early 1960s. It has since been adapted and produced as the 1984 PBS television movie Solomon Northup’s Odyssey and the 2013 Academy Award-winning film 12 Years A Slave.

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