Solomon Northup
Abolitionist and memoirist
Solomon Northup was a free-born New Yorker who was kidnapped into slavery in 1841 and later became an abolitionist. He told his story in a memoir published in 1853.
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American Born 1808 in Minerva Died 1864
About Solomon Northup
Solomon Northup was born free in New York and lived in Saratoga Springs. He worked as a violinist, farmer and landowner in Washington County, New York. In 1841 he took a job offer as a traveling musician and went to Washington, DC, where he was drugged and sold into slavery. He was enslaved for close to twelve years, in the Red River area of Louisiana. He regained his freedom in January 1853, after word of his situation reached New York and his family and friends enlisted the state governor's help. Within a year of gaining his freedom, Northup wrote and published his memoir, which appears here as 12 Years a Slave. He then gave speeches across the Northeast to support the abolitionist cause. The 2013 film adaptation won the Academy Award for Best Picture.