Solomon Northup Kidnapped into Slavery

Solomon Northup, a free Black man from Saratoga Springs, NY, is drugged and kidnapped by slave traders in Washington, DC in April 1841 and sold to Louisiana planters. He endures 12 years of enslavement — witnessing vicious floggings, sexual violence, and worked near to death on Red River cotton plantations. His 1853 memoir documents specific atrocities in granular detail.