I have the day off work, and I’m sitting on the couch sipping my coffee trying to wake up before we go run our errands. I’m searching through the Dish Network listings and come across a movie called Solomon Northup’s Odyssesy starring Avery Brooks, aka Captain Benjamin Sisko of Deep Space Nine.
I’m a big Star Trek fan, so I click on to watch, just to see what Captain Sisko is up to. Turns out it’s a true story about a free black man kidnapped from New York State in 1841 who spent the next 12 years as a slave in Louisiana before a friendly Canadian helped his loved ones locate him. Northup wrote a best-selling book, 12 Years a Slave.
It was a very interesting piece of history and I’m glad I found it. I’d never heard of Northup before and I’m happy I know about him now.
A similar incident is recounted in Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. The Fugitive Slave Act made possible all sorts of kidnappings like this, apparently.
As strange as it is to think about, African-Americans in New York City actually have lived under slavery longer than they have lived in freedom. (Enslavement 1625-1827) It was a slave state for over two hundred years. Hard to believe.
According to the movie, there was a federal law that stated free black men could not be forced into slavery(?). Unfortunately, Northup was not allowed to testify against the men who kidnapped him in Louisiana courts because he was a “negro,”, and the federal case was bogged down in legal technicalities so the men never faced punishment.
He had three children. I would love to know more about his descendents.