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:
“At best the family teaches the finest things human beings can learn from one another—generosity and love. But it is also, all too often, where we learn nasty things like hate, rage and shame.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (20th century)
“In history an additional result is commonly produced by human actions beyond that which they aim at and obtain—that which they immediately recognize and desire. They gratify their own interest; but something further is thereby accomplished, latent in the actions in question, though not present to their consciousness, and not included in their design.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“Because of these convictions, I made a personal decision in the 1964 Presidential campaign to make education a fundamental issue and to put it high on the nation’s agenda. I proposed to act on my belief that regardless of a family’s financial condition, education should be available to every child in the United States—as much education as he could absorb.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)