Family History and Education
Solomon's father Mintus was a freedman, who had been a slave in the early part of his life in service to the Northup family. Born in Rhode Island, he was taken with the Northups when they migrated to Hoosick, New York in Rensselaer County. The master Northup manumitted Mintus by his will; freed as a young man, Mintus took the surname Northup.
Mintus Northup married and moved north with his wife, a free woman of color, to the town of Minerva in Essex County, New York. The couple's two sons were born free there. His wife was of African, European and Native American ancestry; Solomon described her as a quadroon, meaning that she was one-quarter black. A farmer, Mintus Northup was successful enough to meet the state's property requirements for voters and could vote. He provided an education for his two sons, at a level considered high for free blacks at the time. He and his wife last lived near Fort Edward. He died in November 1829, and his grave is located in Hudson Falls Baker Cemetery. His wife died later, during the period of Solomon's captivity.
Read more about this topic: Solomon Northup
Famous quotes containing the words family, history and/or education:
“Sometimes I think that idlers seem to be a special class for whom nothing can be planned, plead as one will with them—their only contribution to the human family is to warm a seat at the common table.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“... all big changes in human history have been arrived at slowly and through many compromises.”
—Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962)
“One of the greatest faults of the women of the present time is a silly fear of things, and one object of the education of girls should be to give them knowledge of what things are really dangerous.”
—Ellen Henrietta Swallow Richards (1842–1911)