American Literature / Unit 9 AML 0811 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Solomon Northup and *Twelve Years a Slave*
Captions available
The idea
Solomon Northup, born free in New York in eighteen-oh-seven and working as a farmer and musician, was kidnapped and sold south, spending twelve years enslaved in Louisiana before his rescue. His memoir of eighteen fifty-three reverses the usual narrative: the freedom comes first, and is taken.
In practice
A free man, kidnapped into slavery.
Where people slip
Freedom lost is a different argument from freedom won.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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