Twelve Years a Slave
Solomon Noethup
 The book tells how Solomon Northrup, a free carpenter and fiddler, was deceived by two men who originally offered him work as a musician in New York state and Washington, DC; then drugged him, and kidnapped and sold him into slavery while in the nation's capital. Two men presenting themselves as circus promoters offered Northup work as a fiddler, first in New York City and then in Washington, DC. They offered a generous amount of money to work for their circus in the capital and offered to pay for his transportation and a hotel. After they arrived and watched some of President Harrison's funeral procession, Northup was drugged at the hotel room. He was bound and moved to a slave pen owned by James Burch, a slave trader. It was located in the Yellow House, one of several slave markets on the National Mall. This and Robey’s Tavern were located in the area between the present-day buildings housing the Department of Education and the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, within view of the Capitol. Burch coerced Northup into accepting a new name and past as having been born a slave in Georgia. Burch told Northup that if he were to tell his true story to another person, he would be killed. When he asserted his status as a free man, Burch beat him violently; Northup finally stopped protesting. Northup was transported with other slaves to New Orleans, Louisiana by ship, where he and others contracted smallpox and some slaves died. He asked a sympathetic sailor to get a message to his family, which the man did, but they did not know how to find him in Louisiana. Northup was sold by Burch's partner in New Orleans to a planter on a bayou of the Red River, and had several different owners during his 12 years as a slave in Louisiana. In some places his carpentry and other skills earned him good treatment. The contrast with his previous life made the deprivations and sufferings of slavery worse: the meager slave diet, a cabin with a dirt floor, poor clothing; restrictions on his freedom, and numerous beatings and physical punishment. At one time, he was leased to a man named Tibbets, who lost his temper and attacked him with an axe. Northup fought back and ran back to his old master, who finally took him in. Northup eventually regained his freedom. He met Samuel Bass, a white carpenter from Canada, who was hired by Northup’s owner. Northup learned that Bass did not share the racial prejudice of white men in America, and ultimately confided his story to him, with a letter describing where he was located. Bass delivered the letters to Northup’s wife, who called on Henry Northup, an attorney who was a family friend and son of the man who had held and freed Northup's father. Henry Northup contacted New York state officials and the governor appointed him as an agent, under current state law, to go to Louisiana to free Solomon Northup. Bass and Northup took a great risk in starting this process; when forced to free Northup, his master said he would have killed the man who took his account to the north.