Solomon Northup

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...

"The classic and compelling narrative of the kidnapping, slavery, and freedom of a free man of color wrested to rural Louisiana. Lured to the nation's capital by the prospect of work, Solomon Northup, a free man born in New York, is kidnapped and sold into slavery. He spends the next twelve years in bondage, primarily on a plantation in Louisiana, along the Red River. Solomon was a witness to the inhumanity of the institution of slavery, the abuses...

In this true story narrated by Academy Award winner Louis Gossett, Jr, the listener is transported to 1840s New York, Louisiana, and Washington, DC, to experience the kidnapping and twelve-year bondage of Solomon Northup, a free man of color. Published in 1853, this account was a bombshell in the national debate over slavery leading up to the Civil War and helped tilt public opinion in favor of abolition.