Twelve Years a Slave - Enhanced Edition by Dr. Sue Eakin Based on a Lifetime Project. New Info, Images, Maps

364 Pages·2013·5.11 MB·English

by  Solomon Northup

Praise for Twelve Years A Slave
“I can never read his account of his days in slavery, of his independence of spirit,
of his determination to be free… without believing that it would make a
difference in today’s world if our contemporaries knew of such a man as
Solomon Northup.”
—Dr. John Hope Franklin
From letter written to his friend and fellow historian Dr. Sue Eakin. Dr. Franklin was Professor
Emeritus of History at Duke University, best selling author, past president of American Historical
Association and recipient of Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.
“It’s a textured portrait that refuses to deal with the issue in absolutes. The
author is articulate and proud, and Louis Gossett, Jr., carries this tone throughout
his reading. Northrup writes in a straightforward style, letting facts and details
speak more eloquently than emotion. Again, Gossett captures this feeling. But
when the author does get emotional, Gossett infuses the words with a quiet,
seething power.”
—AudioFile Magazine (2013)
Review of our audiobook performed by award-winning actor Louis Gossett, Jr., published by the
premier source of reviews in the audiobook industry.
“Its truth is far greater than fiction. Think of it. For thirty years a man, with all a
man’s hopes, fears and aspirations… Then for twelve years a thing, a chattel
personal, classed with mules and horses… It chills the blood…”
—Frederick Douglass (1853)
Comments on the original narrative.
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For more reviews, visit the author website: www.TwelveYearsASlave.org

Sue Lyles Eakin:
A Lifetime Project
Twelve Years a Slave was lost to history by the early twentieth century when it
could not be located by libraries, stores or catalogues nationwide. Then a 12-
year-old avid reader in central Louisiana—the future Dr. Sue Eakin—reached
upon the library shelf of a planation home and discovered a dusty copy of the
book that would determine her life’s path.
Sue Lyles Eakin
Dr. Eakin went on to write her master’s thesis about Solomon Northup’s
story, and after decades of research, produced the first authenticated edition of
the book in 1968. In 2007, at the age of 88, she completed her final definitive
edition with over 100 pages of fascinating new information, never-before-
published images and unique maps related to the story; this e-book is the first
mass publication of her final edition.
Along the way, Dr. Eakin authored over a dozen acclaimed history books
and became an award-winning history professor, Hall of Fame journalist, local
civil rights leader and internationally recognized authority on antebellum
plantation life. Dr. Eakin’s academic career spanned over two decades with
intensive historical research supported by grants from the National Endowment
for the Humanities, the American Association of University Women, the LSU
Foundation and others. She founded and directed the World Plantation
Conferences featuring prominent scholars from around the world, served on the
boards of many historical foundations, and delivered hundreds of speeches
around the country regarding her research and unique perspectives. A popular
classroom teacher, her travel courses in Louisiana, Southern and American
history developed a large following, and she was recognized as Distinguished
Faculty of the LSU System and national Outstanding American History
Professor by the Daughters of the American Revolution.
After her passing at age 90 in 2009, her priceless archive was donated by
her family to Louisiana State University at Alexandria. The Smithsonian
Institute is creating a permanent exhibit featuring a portion of her Twelve Years a
Slave research materials, and her family carries on her work and spirit with its
passionate preservation of Solomon’s story and support of civil rights.
Introduction
by Sue Eakin, PhD
Note: The endnote numbers in this section are not hyperlinked to their
documentation in the Notes To Introduction section at the end of the book.
However, the numbers in the narrative are hyperlinked to the Chapter Notes and
Historical Context section at the end of the book.
The tragic story of Solomon Northup told in Twelve Years a Slave stands as an
enduring classic in American history. This new edition of the book shows to a
fuller extent the tragedy, adding some understanding of the limits to freedom and
justice endured by a free man of color in antebellum society.
The tension between North and South forms the background of Solomon
Northup’s story, which provides unique insights into the escalating conflict over
slavery, as the country moved closer to civil war with every passing year. The
beginning of the story sheds light on the unpublicized criminal ring that
kidnapped people of dark complexion and sold them into slavery in the nation’s
capital. So cleverly planned were their operations that the criminals were almost
never brought to justice, as they shielded themselves with the help of powerful
political connections, gained high-level positions in law enforcement and
manipulated the rules of the judicial system. Masterminding this Reverse
Underground Railroad was James Birch in Washington, D.C., who described his
position in subsequent legal documents:
I was appointed by the Mayor of Washington D.C. to the Command of the
Auxillary Guard Department in June, 1853, which said guard is part of the
Police force of the city and District aforesaid and which office I still
hold . . .1
When Birch and notorious New Orleans slave trader Theophilus Freeman
began as partners as early as 1840, Birch had been in this business for more than
a decade.2 During this time of sharpened feelings between the North and South,
further fueled by the Compromise of 1850 and its Fugitive Slave Act, the fiction
of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, published in 1852, further
inflamed the masses for the abolitionist cause.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, though fiction, had such a great impact that it inspired
President Lincoln’s apochryphal line: “So you are the little woman who wrote
the book that started this great war!”
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s book sold 10,000 copies within the first week of
publication and 300,000 by the end of the first year. There were over a million
copies sold in England. Stowe’s $10,000 royalty from the first three months of
sales was “the largest sum of money ever received by any author, either
American or European, from the sale of a single work in so short a time.”3
Given the record set by Stowe’s novel, David Wilson, Solomon Northup’s
ghost writer of Twelve Years a Slave, must have been excited when attorney
Henry Northup, along with Solomon, presented him with the proposition to write
a book that conceivably could bring fantastic rewards. Wilson had all of the
ingredients for a highly successful book. Imagine what could be done with a
story built on the factual kidnapping of a free man of color from New York who
was shackled in a slave pen in the nation’s capital and sold into slavery in New
Orleans!
The clincher of the public attraction of Solomon’s story was that the
Louisiana’s Bayou Boeuf area, where he actually served twelve years as Platt the
slave, was coincidentally only sixty miles from Stowe’s fictional plantation of
Simon Legree. Also, the people described by Solomon bore a close resemblance
to Stowe’s cast of fictional characters.
In 1853, Solomon’s autobiography brought immediate reaction from New
York newspapers, and his firsthand account was perceived as validation of
Stowe’s portrayal of Southern slavery. Twelve Years A Slave was published less
than a year after Stowe’s spectacularly successful fiction. About 8,000 copies
were sold in the first month, and several subsequent editions appeared until it
finally went out of print in 1856. The book remained out of print until I
completed the first modern edition in 1968 following decades of research.4
Documenting this edition has been the culmination of a lifetime’s work. It
also represents endless hours of time and tens of thousands of dollars spent in
pursuit of the necessary documents to confirm or refute elements of the story.
End notes in this edition are expansive and provide the fascinating back story
and intrigues of plantation society in the Bayou Boeuf area.
My discovery of Solomon Northup’s story began accidentally over seven
decades ago when I was twelve years old. On a hot summer day, Mama, my
younger siblings, and I were returning to our home on Bayou Boeuf from a ride
with Dad, who was driving a long flatbed truck. When we arrived Dad stopped
the truck and Mama got out with the younger children to walk down the lane to
our home. Dad was driving farther south some miles away to discuss business
with Sam Haas, whose family owned a large plantation. As she stepped from the