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Powerful story of a free-born African American who was taken into slavery for twelve years. Quite often hard to read, but very worthwhile considering our nation's slavery history is not too far in the past.
Read as audiobook. Took me a while to get into the language of 1850 but it was a very interesting and compelling read after that.
This should be required reading for high school students. It reads like fiction, and despite having been written over 170 years ago, the language is very accessible.
This book has been on my tbr for quite some time and I had intended to finally read it back in February for Black History month, because I had heard that it was a strong and powerful firsthand account of a slave. But alas, it was one that I didn’t get to at the time, but I am glad that I finally read it this month.
Twelve Years a Slave is a strong and sad narrative of Solomon Northup, a freeman from New York in the mid-1800s. Mr. Northup was married to a free woman and they had three children. I believe the story stated that he was a farmer and and that she worked in a hotel kitchen, and that he also played the violin and would sometimes hire himself out in that capacity. It was on the guise of participating in a traveling performance that he was tricked by two white men and was kidnapped and sold into slavery in Louisiana, where he remained in bondage for twelve years.
This book is his account of that experience, from his innocent trusting of the two kidnappers, to the journey southward, and the time he spent enslaved. Mr. Northup gives a detailed description of the slave markets in Washington, D.C. and New Orleans. He richly describes the work required by the enslaved, as well as the suffering and abuse that he (as well as all the other enslaved people) endured. At times, I was literally sick or overcome with grief at the atrocities enacted upon them.
This narrative is dense and super detailed, and while it is a memoir, I’ve read others that read more like fiction and are easier to read. This one was a little harder to read and took me a little longer to finish, but I never found it to be boring or trite. If you are interested in reading more about that Peculiar Institution of America’s early days, I can recommend this one.
Twelve Years a Slave is a strong and sad narrative of Solomon Northup, a freeman from New York in the mid-1800s. Mr. Northup was married to a free woman and they had three children. I believe the story stated that he was a farmer and and that she worked in a hotel kitchen, and that he also played the violin and would sometimes hire himself out in that capacity. It was on the guise of participating in a traveling performance that he was tricked by two white men and was kidnapped and sold into slavery in Louisiana, where he remained in bondage for twelve years.
This book is his account of that experience, from his innocent trusting of the two kidnappers, to the journey southward, and the time he spent enslaved. Mr. Northup gives a detailed description of the slave markets in Washington, D.C. and New Orleans. He richly describes the work required by the enslaved, as well as the suffering and abuse that he (as well as all the other enslaved people) endured. At times, I was literally sick or overcome with grief at the atrocities enacted upon them.
This narrative is dense and super detailed, and while it is a memoir, I’ve read others that read more like fiction and are easier to read. This one was a little harder to read and took me a little longer to finish, but I never found it to be boring or trite. If you are interested in reading more about that Peculiar Institution of America’s early days, I can recommend this one.
It took me a long time to get through 115 pages. I felt like he was writing a defense of why he felt mistreated, when he was so obviously brutally mistreated. I think the last page is accurate that if anything he was too positive about slavery and slave owners.
This book is heartbreaking, heartwarming, beautiful, and tragic. The books moves swiftly and is a true expression of the ways of slavery in Louisiana in the 1840s-1850s. An amazing history.
This book is incredible. It's so powerful and it's a reminder of how cruel but also how kind human kind can be. Reading this, you forget that these things all actually happened. It's crazy to think people were ever treated this way. I think we should all read this book as a reminder to ourselves to be kind, and that we are all equals.
La historia es increíble pero el libro me resulto tedioso en su flujo, me costaba avanzar, era algo mas de terminarlo que gusto por lo que leía
Compelling and painful to read all at the same time. Reading it in 2021, puts me 170 years from the events in this account; and yet I live in and around the consequence of this “peculiar institution” everyday in the South.
A book that easily fits under the ‘everyone should read this’ heading. Absolutely necessary.
A book that easily fits under the ‘everyone should read this’ heading. Absolutely necessary.