Solomon Northup (c. 1807-after 1857) was a free Black farmer, musician, and family man from New York who was kidnapped in Washington, D.C., in 1841 and sold into slavery. Stripped of his identity and separated from his wife and children, he spent twelve years enslaved in Louisiana before friends and legal authorities helped secure his release in 1853.Northup published Twelve Years a Slave the same year he regained his freedom. His detailed account of kidnapping, forced labor, violence, survival, and eventual liberation became one of the most important firsthand narratives of American slavery. He later spoke publicly in support of abolition, though the details of his final years remain uncertain.