61 Facts About Solomon Northup

Solomon Northup was shipped to New Orleans, purchased by a planter, and held as a slave for 12 years in the Red River region of Louisiana, mostly in Avoyelles Parish.

Solomon Northup remained a slave until he met Samuel Bass, a Canadian working on his plantation who helped get word to New York, where state law provided aid to free New York citizens who had been kidnapped and sold into slavery.

Those who had kidnapped and enslaved Solomon Northup received no punishment.

Solomon Northup lectured on behalf of the abolitionist movement, giving more than two dozen speeches throughout the Northeast about his experiences, to build momentum against slavery.

Solomon Northup largely disappeared from the historical record after 1857, although a letter later reported him alive in early 1863; some commentators thought he had been kidnapped again, but historians believe it unlikely, as he would have been considered too old to bring a good price.

Solomon Northup was born in the town of Minerva in Essex County, New York on July 10,1807 or July 10,1808.

Solomon Northup's mother was a free woman of color, which meant that her sons, Solomon and his older brother Joseph, were born free according to the principle of partus sequitur ventrem.

Solomon Northup described his mother as a quadroon, meaning that she was one-quarter African, and three-quarters European.

Solomon Northup's father Mintus was a freedman who had been a slave in his early life in service to the Northup family.

Solomon Northup's sons received what was considered to be a good education for free black people at that time.

Solomon Northup spent his leisure time playing the violin and reading books.

Solomon Northup's mother died during Northup's enslavement.

Solomon Northup married Anne Hampton on December 25,1829, one month after the death of his father, or on November 22,1829, according to sworn depositions by Anne Northup, Josiah Hand, and Timothy Eddy, the latter of whom was the Justice of the Peace who performed the wedding.

Solomon Northup worked for local taverns that served food and drink, and at the United States Hotel.

Solomon Northup gathered the information to prove that Northup was free and went to Louisiana to bring him back to New York.

Solomon Northup returned to Sandy Hill on January 21,1853, and reunited with his wife and children.

Solomon Northup purchased land in Glens Falls near his daughter.

Author David Fiske states that Solomon Northup seems to have had a difficult time overcoming the years in which he was enslaved.

Solomon Northup was said to have drunk a lot and did not seem to spend a lot of time with his wife.

Anne Solomon Northup lived in Kingsbury in Washington County, New York in 1875.

Solomon Northup died in 1876 while performing her chores in Moreau.

Solomon Northup then bought two horses and contracted to tow lumber on rafts to Troy from Lake Champlain beginning the following spring.

Solomon Northup worked on other waterways in upstate New York and he traveled to northern New York and Montreal, Canada.

Solomon Northup worked as a farm laborer in the Sandy Hill area.

Solomon Northup arranged to farm corn and oats on part of the Alden farm where his father lived in Kingsbury.

Solomon Northup built a fine reputation as a fiddler and was in high demand to play for dances in surrounding villages.

The couple had become prosperous due to the income Anne received as a cook and that Solomon Northup made farming and playing the violin.

Solomon Northup played his violin at several well-known hotels in Saratoga Springs.

Solomon Northup worked on the construction of the Troy and Saratoga Railroad.

Solomon Northup had become a regular customer and friend of William Perry and Cephus Parker, who owned several shops in town.

Solomon Northup stayed in Saratoga Springs to look for employment until the tourist season.

In 1841, at age 32, Solomon Northup met two men, who introduced themselves as Merrill Brown and Abram Hamilton.

Solomon Northup was held in the slave pen of trader William Williams, close to the United States Capitol.

The letter was delivered to Governor Seward by Henry, but it was not actionable because Solomon Northup's location was unknown.

At Ford's place in Pine Woods, Solomon Northup assessed the problem of getting timber off Ford's farm to market.

Solomon Northup proposed and then made a log raft to move lumber down the narrow Indian Creek, in order to transport the logs more easily.

Solomon Northup built weaving looms, so that fabric could be woven for clothing.

Solomon Northup had helped construct a weaving house and corn mill on Ford's Bayou Boeuf plantation.

Since the amount Ford owed Tibaut was less than the purchase price agreed upon for Solomon Northup, Ford held a chattel mortgage on Solomon Northup for $400, the difference between the two amounts.

Ford's overseer Chapin interrupted and prevented the men from killing Solomon Northup, reminding Tibaut of his debt to Ford, and chasing them off at gunpoint.

Solomon Northup was left bound and noosed for hours until Ford returned home to cut him down.

Solomon Northup believed that Tibaut's debt to Ford saved his life.

Solomon Northup was a cruel master who frequently and indiscriminately punished slaves and drove them hard.

Solomon Northup's policy was to whip slaves if they did not meet daily work quotas he set for pounds of cotton to be picked, among other goals.

Bass wrote several letters to people Northup knew in Saratoga Springs: one went to his former employer Judge James M Marvin and another reached Cephas Parker and William Perry, storekeepers in Saratoga.

Henry B Northup contacted New York Governor Washington Hunt, who took up the case, appointing the attorney general as his legal agent.

Once Solomon Northup's family was notified, his rescuers still had to do detective work to find the enslaved man, as he had partially tried to hide his location for protection in case the letters fell into the wrong hands, and Bass had not used his real name.

Solomon Northup signed papers giving up all claim to Northup.

Finally on January 4,1853, four months after meeting Bass, Solomon Northup regained his freedom.

Solomon Northup told the story of his kidnapping and enslavement with many verifiable details.

Solomon Northup told the cruelty, treatment as chattel, and the appreciated acts of kindnesses that he received.

Solomon Northup was literate and provided the facts without hyperbole in "plain and candid language", while Wilson corrected style, grammar, and inconsistencies.

Solomon Northup traveled and went on a lecture tour in Northeastern states to tell his story and sell books.

Solomon Northup was one of the few kidnapped free black people to regain freedom after being sold into slavery.

However, Solomon Northup was unable to testify at the trial due to laws in Washington DC against black men testifying in court.

Birch and several others who were in the slave trade testified that Solomon Northup had approached them, saying he was a slave from Georgia and was for sale.

The prosecution consisted of Henry B Northup and another white man asserting that they had known Northup for many years, and he was born and lived a free man in New York until his abduction.

Solomon Northup worked again as a carpenter after he moved back to New York.

Solomon Northup became active in the abolitionist movement and lectured on slavery in the years before the American Civil War.

Solomon Northup was said to have visited Rev Smith after Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, which was made in January 1863.

Solomon Northup was assisted in the writing by David Wilson, a white man, and, according to Worley, some believed he would have biased the material.