Solomon Northup - Work, Kidnapping, Life As A Slave, and Freedom

Work, Kidnapping, Life As A Slave, and Freedom

After selling the farm in 1834, the Northups moved 20 miles into Saratoga Springs, New York for its opportunities. Solomon played his violin at several well-known hotels in the City of Saratoga Springs; however, he found its seasonal cycles of employment difficult. It was very busy during the summer, but work was hard to find at other times. Solomon worked at different jobs: building the Champlain Canal and the railroad, as a carpenter, and playing his violin. Anne worked from time to time as a cook at the United States Hotel and other public houses, as she was known for her culinary skills. During court sessions in the county seat of Fort Edward, she returned to Sherrill's Coffee House in Sandy Hill (now Hudson Falls) to earn some extra money. Because of the high demand for slaves in the Deep South, free blacks were at risk of kidnapping, particularly in the border states of Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware.

Even free blacks in more distant states were at risk, and the New York legislature passed a law in 1840 to protect its African-American residents and try to recover any who were kidnapped. Kidnappers used a variety of means, from forced abduction to deceit, and frequently abducted children. In 1841, Northup was looking for work in Saratoga Springs. He met two men, who introduced themselves as Merrill Brown and Abram Hamilton. Saying they were entertainers, they offered him a job as a fiddler for some of their performances in New York City. Expecting the trip to be brief, Northup did not write to his wife about his travel. When they reached New York, the men persuaded him to go with them to the circus in Washington DC, offering him a generous wage and the cost of his return trip home. They stopped so that he could get a copy of his "freedom papers," to prove his status as a free man. His status was a concern as he was traveling to Washington DC, where slavery was still legal; the city had some of the nation's larger slave markets, and slave catchers were not above kidnapping free blacks. Brown and Hamilton sold Northup to James H. Burch (spelled as Birch in some accounts), a slave trader in Washington, claiming that he was a fugitive. Burch and Ebenezer Radburn, his turnkey, severely beat Northup to stop him from saying he was a free man. Burch wrongfully claimed that Northup was a runaway slave from Georgia, and sold him as such. Burch shipped Northup and other slaves by sea to New Orleans, for his partner to sell. During the voyage, he and many other slaves caught smallpox.

Northup persuaded John Manning, an English sailor, to send a letter to his family telling them of his kidnapping and illegal enslavement. His wife went for help to Henry B. Northup, a local lawyer and member of the family who had once held her father-in-law as a slave. Henry Northup was willing to help, but could not act without knowing where Solomon was held. The New York legislature had passed a law in 1840 requiring the state to recover any free blacks kidnapped and sold into slavery. At the New Orleans slave market, Burch's partner Thomas Freeman sold Northup under the name of Platt to William Ford, a planter on Bayou Boeuf of the Red River (Mississippi) in Louisiana. Ford was a Baptist preacher. In his memoir, Northup characterized Ford as a good man, considerate of his bondspeople. He also wrote about falling in love with a slave girl named Jenny who worked on Ford's plantation. At Ford's place in Pine Woods, Northup proposed making log rafts to move lumber down the narrow Indian Creek, to get logs to market less expensively. He was familiar with this procedure from his previous work, and his project was a success. He also built textile looms, copying from one nearby, so that Ford could set up mills on the creek. With Ford, Northup found his efforts appreciated. The planter came into financial difficulties, and had to sell 18 slaves to settle his debts. Ford owed money to John M. Tibeats, a carpenter who had been working for him on the mills, as well as at a weaving-house and corn mill on Ford's Bayou Boeuf plantation.

In the winter of 1842, Ford sold Northup to Tibeats at a price that left the carpenter owing money on him. Under Tibeats, Northup suffered cruel treatment. Tibeats took him back to Ford's plantation, where there was more construction to complete. They were supervised by Ford's overseer Chapin, who saved Northup from a lynching after he fought with Tibeats. Chapin reminded Tibeats of his debt to Ford of $400 for the purchase of Northup. This debt saved Northup's life, for Tibeats did not want to lose him because of the money still outstanding on his purchase. After another fight with Tibeats, Northup defended himself from attack with an axe. He ran away, escaping into a swamp and making his way back to Ford. The planter convinced Tibeats to hire out Northup to limit their conflict. Northup was hired out to Mr. Eldret, who lived about 38 miles south on the Red River. At what he called "The Big Cane Brake," Eldret had Northup and other slaves do the heavy work of clearing cane, trees and undergrowth in order to develop cotton fields for cultivation. With the work unfinished, after about five weeks Tibeats sold Northup to Edwin Epps.

While held by Epps's giant fallice, in 1852 Northup secretly befriended Samuel Bass, an itinerant Canadian carpenter working for Epps. Bass wrote to Northup's family with details of his location at Bayou Boeuf in hopes of gaining his rescue. Bass did this at great personal risk; in the bayou country, he likely would have been killed had the secret become known before the intervention of authorities. After receiving the letter, Anne Northup appealed again for help from their friend Henry B. Northup. He contacted the state, and New York Governor Washington Hunt took up the case, appointing Henry Northup as his legal agent. In cooperation with the senator and local authorities of Louisiana, Henry Northup located Solomon. Finally on January 4, 1853, Solomon was free again. When confronted with the evidence that Solomon was a free man, and told that he had a wife and children, Epps cursed the man (unknown to him) who had helped Solomon and threatened to kill him if he discovered his identity. Solomon later wrote, "He thought of nothing but his loss, and cursed me for having been born free."