Northup, Solomon "Twelve Years a Slave"

Northup, Solomon "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 Louisiana" - 1853

On the back cover, it says this is perhaps the best written of all the slave narratives. I have to agree with that. Probably because it was written by a well-educated slave himself. Who could relate all the horrible deeds done to those poor people better than someone who has had to endure it himself?

Solomon Northup was born in the State of New York. He was a free man and as such, could get an education, work, get married, have children, all without having to fear that would be taken away from him one day. But it was. He was kidnapped and sold into slavery. He was free but he also was black, so it was easy to just let him disappear somewhere in the deep south, on one of those plantations that nobody ever goes to. He ended up in Louisiana and had to live a life that is as unhuman as none of us can even imagine. He was treated worse than anybody would treat an animal.

Because of his education, he managed to get some information out and was freed after twelve years of torture, twelve years of hell. How he survived, I don't know. But he describes it all in this book and it is well worth a read, especially with all the shocking, abhorrent, dreadful, repugnant, outrageous, hideous, repulsive news we hear daily. How can people in this day and age still look down on someone? It is beyond my understanding.

A while ago, I published a list with anti-racism books. If you are looking for more books in that category, have a look here.

From the back cover:

"Perhaps the best written of all the slave narratives, Twelve Years a Slave is a harrowing memoir about one of the darkest periods in American history. It recounts how Solomon Northup, born a free man in New York, was lured to Washington, D.C., in 1841 with the promise of fast money, then drugged and beaten and sold into slavery. He spent the next twelve years of his life in captivity on a Louisiana cotton plantation.

After his rescue, Northup published this exceptionally vivid and detailed account of slave life. It became an immediate bestseller and today is recognized for its unusual insight and eloquence as one of the very few portraits of American slavery produced by someone as educated as Solomon Northup, or by someone with the dual perspective of having been both a free man and a slave."