Twelve Years a Slave

Twelve Years a Slave is a memoir and slave narrative by American Solomon Northup as told to and written by David Wilson in 1852. The memoir is the story of a black man named Northup, who was born free in the state of New York. It describes how he was misled into traveling to Washington, D.C., where he was abducted and sold into slavery in the Deep South. Before surreptitiously passing along the information to friends and family in New York, who then managed to gain his release with the help of the authorities, he was held captive for 12 years in Louisiana. Besides providing extensive details on the slave markets in Washington, D.C., and New Orleans, and describing at length cotton and sugar cultivation and slave treatment on major plantations in Louisiana, the memoir also expresses the horrible and tragic experience as a black slave for 12 long years. After the book’s publication, Northup went on tour around the country to promote his book, which sold over 30,000 copies.

After its publication, Twelve Years a Slave educated Americans about slave life in the Deep South and contributed to the growth of anti-slavery sentiment before the Civil War. And up until this day, the memoir is still an important, vital reminder of the nature and intrinsic violence of historical slavery and the centuries-deep scars that it left on the communities that suffered under these atrocities. The memoir has been adapted into two film versions, produced as the 1984 PBS television film Solomon Northup's Odyssey and the 2013 film 12 Years a Slave, which won multiple Oscars including Best Picture.

Publication date: 1853

Author: Solomon Northup, David Wilson