Slave Narratives Mega Collection. 18 of the Most Moving & Telling Memoirs. Illustrated: Twelve Years a Slave, Up From Slavery, From Slavery to Freedom and others

by Solomon Northup

Slavery in the United States lasted more than two centuries. The adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in December 1865 abolished slavery after the American Civil War.The first slaves were forcibly removed from Africa by British slave traders beginning in the early 1600s.Redoshi, later renamed Sally Smith, was the last surviving female slave brought to the U.S. from Africa. A Benoise war captive, she was illegally transported to the US (importing slaves having been outlawed 50 years prior). The last surviving male slave, Oluale Kossula (aka Cudjo Lewis), had been transported on the sale ship and was most likely part of the Yoruba people in Benin.The quality of a slave's life depended completely on their master's will. It was considered normal, for example, for masters to rape their slaves, who were considered their property. Slaves who escaped were branded, killed, or punished severely in other Northup Twelve Years a SlaveBooker T. Washington Up From SlaveryFrederick Douglass From Slavery to Freedom Olaudah Equiano The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The AfricanHarriet Ann Jacobs Incidents in the Life of a Slave GirlMary Prince The History of Mary Prince, A West Indian Slave Charles Ball Fifty Years in Chains Or, the Life of an American Slave Thomas H. Jones Experience and Personal Narrative of Uncle Tom Jones; Who Was for Forty Years a Slave Phillis Wheatley Religious and Moral Poems William H. Robinson From Log Cabin to the Pulpit, or, Fifteen Years in Slavery Louis Hughes Thirty Years A Slave Elizabeth Keckley Behind the Scenes Josiah Henson The Life of Josiah Henson Old Elizabeth Memoir of Old Elizabeth, A Coloured Woman Annie L. Burton Memories of Childhood's Slavery Days Lucy A. Delaney From the Darkness Cometh the Light, or Struggles for Freedom Lunsford Lane The Narrative of Lunsford Lane, Formerly of Raleigh, N.C. L. S. Thompson The Story of Mattie J. Jackson 

2327 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 13, 2021

About the author

Solomon Northup was a free-born African American from Saratoga Springs, New York. He is noted for having been kidnapped in 1841 when enticed with a job offer. When he accompanied his supposed employers to Washington, DC, they drugged him and sold him into slavery. From Washington, DC, he was transported to New Orleans where he was sold to a plantation owner from Rapides Parish, Louisiana. 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 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, without 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 dozens of 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 later in the 19th century. An annotated version was published in 1968, edited by Sue Eakin and Joseph Logsdon. The memoir was adapted and produced as a film in 2013 by Steve McQueen, starring Chiwetel Ejiofor as Northup. Previously, a TV movie had been made of Northup's story, Solomon Northup's Odyssey (1984), directed by Gordon Parks. Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and former U.S. poet laureate Rita Dove wrote her poem "The Abduction" about Solomon Northup (published in her first collection, "The Yellow House on the Corner", 1980.)

Since 1999, Saratoga Springs, New York, has celebrated an annual Solomon Northup Day.

Reviews

[Diana Long · Rating 5 out of 5]

These slave narratives are of important historic value and should be read by anyone doubting that the events are real and how they impacted the lives of real living people. Some are extremely gut wrenching, the brutality and separating of families is hard to read. I've taken two years to finish this collection as it is emotionally upsetting.