
Solomon Northup (10 July 1807 - 1863), known as Platt during his slavery, was an African-American man who, in 1841, was drugged and kidnapped by two conmen while serving as a traveling musician in Washington DC, before being sold into slavery in Louisiana for 12 years. His family and friends were able to free Northup from slavery with the help of Governor of New York Washington Hunt and the Canadian abolitionist Samuel Bass, and he regained his freedom on 3 January 1853. Northup went on to become an active abolitionist and wrote and published a memoir, Twelve Years a Slave, the same year as his release.
Biography[]

Northup in 1841
Solomon Northup was born in Minerva, Essex County, New York on 10 July 1807, the son of a freedman from Rhode Island and his wife, a free woman of color of one-quarter African and three-quarters European ancestry. His father was a landowner with the right to vote due to his meeting the state's property requirements, and Northup was well-educated, playing the violin and reading while working on the family farm. The family later moved to Granville, Hudson Falls, and Argyle, all in Washington County, where Northup's father died in 1829.

Northup with his family
That same year, Northup married Anne Hampton, who gave birth to their children Elizabeth, Margaret, and Alonzo Northup in 1831, 1833, and 1835. At the time, Northup was working on the Champlain Canal and other waterways in Upstate New York, enabling Northup to visit Canada on several occasions. He and his family first lived in Fort Edward, New York, before moving to Kingsbury in 1830. In 1834, the family sold their farm and moved to Saratoga Springs, and Anne worked at local taverns while Northup drove a horse-drawn taxi for a businessman and worked as a violin player. The couple lived a middle-class existence and dressed their children well, and, in 1841, Anne traveled 20 miles to Sandy Hill to work at another coffee house now that the local court was in session.

Northup being propositioned
While his wife and children were gone, Northup met the con men Merrill Brown and Abram Hamilton, who claimed to be famous circus performers who would pay Northup well for his services as a fiddler. Northup expected the trip to be brief and did not notify his wife, and he went on to perform with Brown and Hamilton in New York City and Washington DC. In Washington, the two con men drugged Northup and sold him to the slave trader James H. Birch, whose jailer Ebenezer Radburn severely beat his old identity out of him and claimed that he was a runaway from Georgia named "Platt". Northup was then taken to New Orleans, Louisiana by ship, catching smallpox along the way. Birch's partner Theophilus Freeman sold Northup to the preacher William Prince Ford of Bayou Boeuf, and Ford treated Northup kindly, with Northup regretting that Ford's circumstances blinded him to the evils of slavery. In 1842, Ford sold Northup to his chief carpenter John Tibeats (John M. Tibaut), and Tibeats abused Northup due to his jealousy over Northup's superior knowledge of engineering. When Tibeats attempted to beat Northup for using nails he disliked, Northup beat Tibeats up instead, leading to Tibeats and two other white men attempting to lynch Northup. Ford's overseer Anderson Chafin intervened, reminding Tibeats of his debt to Ford, and chasing off the white men at gunpoint.

Northup in servitude
Ford eventually cut Northup down from his noose after discovering him hours later, and, in order to save him from Tibeats' wrath, he was forced to sell him to another plantation owner, Edwin Epps, to pay off his debt to Epps; he ignored Northup's pleas to let him go, as he told Northup that he needed to cover for himself. Epps held Northup in Avoyelles Parish until 1853, and he was known for his cruelty, frequently raping Northup's fellow slave Patsey. Northup was briefly loaned to Judge Turner after cotton worms destroyed Epps' crops, and Turner paid Northup for his violin performances. In 1852, the Canadian carpenter Samuel Bass arrived at Epps' plantation, and, after Northup overhead Bass expressing anti-slavery sentiments to Epps, Northup told Bass of his true background. Bass agreed to write several letters to Northup's friends (including the storekeeper Cephas Parker) on his behalf, enabling them to come to his aid. Parker came to Epps' plantation with a sheriff, ascertaining Northup's story, and bringing with him Northup's freedom papers. In spite of Epps' protests, Northup was able to leave with Parker, but not before sharing a tearful goodbye with Patsey.
Northup regained his freedom on 4 January 1853, and he returned to his family in New York, where he wrote and published his memoir, Twelve Years a Slave. He went on to sue the two con men and the slave trader who had sold him into slavery, but his court cases were unsuccessful, as he was out of the jurisdiction of New York, where kidnapping people and selling them into slavery was illegal; his kidnapping technically occurred in Washington, DC. He went on to work as a carpenter and became an abolitionist lecturer; in 1857, he was prevented from speaking in Streetsville, Ontario by a hostile Canadian crowd. During the American Civil War, he worked with a Vermont Methodist minister to aid slaves on the Underground Railroad, and he died in 1863.