Solomon Northup Essay

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Synopsis The book tells how Solomon Northrup, a free carpenter and fiddler, was deceived by two men who originally offered him work as a musician in New York state and Washington, D.C.; then drugged him, and kidnapped and sold him into slavery while in the nation's capital. Two men presenting themselves as circus promoters offered Northup work as a fiddler, first in New York City and then in Washington, D.C. They offered a generous amount of money to work for their circus in the capital and offered to pay for his transportation and a hotel. After they arrived and watched some of President Harrison's funeral procession, Northup was drugged at the hotel room. He was bound and moved to a slave pen owned by James Burch, a slave trader. It was located in the Yellow House, one of several slave markets on the National Mall. This and Robey’s Tavern were located in the area between the present-day buildings housing the Department of Education and the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, within view of the Capitol.[2] Burch coerced Northup into accepting a new name and past as having been born a slave in Georgia. Burch told Northup that if he were to tell his true story to another person, he would be killed. When he asserted his status as a free man, Burch beat him violently; Northup finally stopped protesting. Northup was transported with other slaves to New Orleans, Louisiana by ship, where he and other enslaved blacks contracted smallpox and some died. He asked a sympathetic sailor to get a message to his family, which the man did, but they did not know how to find him in Louisiana. Northup was sold by Burch's partner in New Orleans to a planter on a bayou of the Red River, and had several different owners during his 12 years as a slave in Louisiana. In some places his carpentry and other skills earned him "good treatment". The contrast with his previous

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