Solomon Northup

Solomon Northup (July 1808 – c. 1864-1875) was a free-born African American from Saratoga Springs, New York. He is noted for having been kidnapped in 1841 while on business in Washington, DC and sold into slavery in the Deep South. After 12 years in bondage, he regained his freedom in January 1853; he was one of very few to do so in such cases. Held in the Red River (Mississippi River) region of Louisiana by several different owners, he got news to his family, who contacted friends and enlisted the New York governor in his cause. New York state had passed a law in 1840 to recover African-American residents who had been kidnapped and sold into slavery.

Northup sued the slave traders in Washington, DC but lost in the local court. District of Columbia law prohibited him as a black man from testifying against whites and, absent his testimony, the men went free. Returning to his family in New York, Northup became active in abolitionism. He published an account of his experiences in Twelve Years a Slave (1853) in his first year of freedom. Northup gave nearly two dozen lectures throughout the Northeast on his experiences as a slave, in order to support the abolitionist cause.

In the early 1860s, Northup, along with another black man, aided a Methodist minister in Vermont in helping fugitive slaves on the Underground Railroad. The circumstances of Northup's death are uncertain.

Solomon Northup's memoir was reprinted several times late in the 19th century. An annotated version was published in 1968. The memoir was adapted and produced as a TV movie, Solomon Northup's Odyssey (1984), directed by Gordon Parks. Since 1999, Saratoga Springs has celebrated an annual Solomon Northup Day.