Twelve Years a Slave - The Black History Classic

DISCOVER A TALE OF UNIMAGINABLE ADVERSITY
 
Twelve Years a Slave tells the story of Solomon Northup, a free-born man of colour who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in the American South in 1841. His true tale of captivity, torture and abuse brings to life the unimaginable evils of slavery in a time when it was yet to be outlawed. Equal parts slave, travel, and spiritual narrative, Twelve Years A Slave reveals Northup to be a person of astonishing strength and wisdom.
 
An insightful introduction by David Fiske reveals the world into which Northup was born, the kidnapping phenomenon to which he fell victim, and the legacy of slavery today.

List of contents

An Introduction by David Fiske
 
About David Fiske
 
About Tom Butler-Bowdon
 
Twelve Years A Slave
 
Editor's Preface
 
CHAPTER I
 
Introductory - Ancestry - The Northup Family - Birth and Parentage - Mintus Northup - Marriage with Anne Hampton - Good Resolutions - Champlain Canal - Rafting Excursion to Canada - Farming - The Violin - Cooking - Removal to Saratoga - Parker and Perry - Slaves and Slavery - The Children - The Beginning of Sorrow
 
CHAPTER II
 
The Two Strangers - The Circus Company - Departure from Saratoga - Ventriloquism and Legerdemain - Journey to New-York - Free Papers - Brown and Hamilton - The Haste to Reach the Circus - Arrival in Washington - Funeral of Harrison - The Sudden Sickness - The Torment of Thirst - The Receding Light - Insensibility - Chains and Darkness
 
CHAPTER III
 
Painful Meditations - James H. Burch - Williams' Slave Pen in Washington - The Lackey, Radburn - Assert My Freedom - The Anger of the Trader - The Paddle and Cat-o'-nine-tails - The Whipping - New Acquaintances - Ray, Williams, and Randall - Arrival of Little Emily and Her Mother in the Pen - Maternal Sorrows - The Story of Eliza
 
CHAPTER IV
 
Eliza's Sorrows - Preparation to Embark - Driven Through the Streets of Washington - Hail, Columbia - The Tomb of Washington - Clem Ray - The Breakfast on the Steamer - The Happy Birds - Aquia Creek - Fredericksburgh - Arrival in Richmond - Goodin and His Slave Pen - Robert, of Cincinnati - David and His Wife - Mary and Lethe - Clem's Return - His Subsequent Escape to Canada - The Brig Orleans - James H. Burch
 
CHAPTER V
 
Arrival at Norfolk - Frederick and Maria - Arthur, the Freeman - Appointed Steward - Jim, Cuffee, and Jenny - The Storm - Bahama Banks - The Calm - The Conspiracy - The Long Boat - The Small-Pox - Death of Robert - Manning, the Sailor - The Meeting in the Forecastle - The Letter - Arrival at New-Orleans - Arthur's Rescue - Theophilus Freeman, the Consignee - Platt - First Night in the New-Orleans Slave Pen
 
CHAPTER VI
 
Freeman's Industry - Cleanliness and Clothes - Exercising in the Show Room - The Dance - Bob, the Fiddler - Arrival of Customers - Slaves Examined - The Old Gentleman of New-Orleans - Sale of David, Caroline, and Lethe - Parting of Randall and Eliza - Small-Pox - The Hospital - Recovery and Return to Freeman's Slave Pen - The Purchaser of Eliza, Harry, and Platt - Eliza's Agony on Parting from Little Emily
 
CHAPTER VII
 
The Steamboat Rodolph - Departure from New-Orleans - William Ford - Arrival at Alexandria, on Red River - Resolutions - The Great Pine Woods - Wild Cattle - Martin's Summer Residence - The Texas Road - Arrival at Master Ford's - Rose - Mistress Ford - Sally and Her Children - John, the Cook - Walter, Sam, and Antony - The Mills on Indian Creek - Sabbath Days - Sam's Conversion - The Profit of Kindness - Rafting - Adam Taydem, the Little White Man - Cascalla and his Tribe - The Indian Ball - John M. Tibeats - The Storm Approaching
 
CHAPTER VIII
 
Ford's Embarrassments - The Sale to Tibeats - The Chattel Mortgage - Mistress Ford's Plantation on Bayou Boeuf - Description of the Latter - Ford's Brother-in-law, Peter Tanner - Meeting with Eliza - She Still Mourns for Her Children - Ford's Overseer, Chapin - Tibeats' Abuse - The Keg of Nails - The First Fight with Tibeats - His Discomfiture and Castigation - The Attempt to Hang Me - Chapin's Interference and Speech - Ramsey - Lawson and the Brown Mule - Message to the Pine Woods
 
CHAPTER IX
 
The Hot Sun - Yet Bound - The Cords Sink into My Flesh - Chapin's Uneasiness - Speculation - Rachel, and Her Cup of Water - Suffering Increases - The Happiness of Slavery - Arrival of Ford - He Cuts the Cords which Bind Me, and takes the Rope from My Neck - Mi

About the author

Solomon Northup was an American abolitionist and the author of the memoir Twelve Years a Slave. A free-born African American from New York, he was the son of a freed slave and a free woman of colour. In 1841, two con men offered him lucrative work playing fiddle in a circus, so he travelled with them to Washington, D.C. He was drugged, kidnapped, and subsequently sold as a slave into the Red River region of Louisiana.
David Fiske is a freelance writer and independent researcher, and the co-author of Solomon Northup: The Complete Story of the Author of Twelve Years a Slave. He was previously senior librarian at the New York State Library.
Tom Butler-Bowdon is Series Editor of the Capstone Classics series, and has provided Introductions for Plato's Republic, Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, Machiavelli's The Prince, Florence Scovel Shinn's The Game of Life and How to Play It, and Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet. A graduate of the London School of Economics, he is also the author of 50 Economics Classics (2017) and 50 Politics Classics (2015).
www.butler-bowdon.com

Product details

• Authors: Solomon Northup
• Assisted by: Tom Butler-Bowdon (Editor)
• Publisher: Wiley, John and Sons Ltd
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 29.07.2021
• EAN: 9780857089069
• ISBN: 978-0-85708-906-9
• No. of pages: 512
• Series: Capstone Classics
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Regional and national histories; Non-fiction book > History > Regional and national histories