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Sue L. Eakin
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Summary
Perhaps the best written of all the slave narratives, Twelve Years a Slave is a harrowing memoir about one of the darkest periods in American history. It recounts how Solomon Northup, born a free man in New York, was lured to Washington, D.C., in 1841 with the promise of fast money, then drugged and beaten and sold into slavery. He spent the next twelve years of his life in captivity on a Louisiana cotton plantation. After his rescue, Northup published...
Author
Summary
In this true story narrated by Academy Award winner Louis Gossett, Jr, the listener is transported to 1840s New York, Louisiana, and Washington, DC, to experience the kidnapping and twelve-year bondage of Solomon Northup, a free man of color. Published in 1853, this account was a bombshell in the national debate over slavery leading up to the Civil War and helped tilt public opinion in favor of abolition.
