Twelve Years a Slave

An 1853 memoir and slave narrative by American Solomon Northup

This app contains text and audio ebook of Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup with a powerful reader.

Twelve Years a Slave is an 1853 memoir and slave narrative by American Solomon Northup as told to and edited by David Wilson. Northup, a black man who was born free in New York state, details his being tricked to go to Washington, D.C., where he was kidnapped and sold into slavery in the Deep South. He was in bondage for 12 years in Louisiana before he was able to secretly get information to friends and family in New York, who in turn secured his release with the aid of the state. Northup's account provides extensive details on the slave markets in Washington, D.C. and New Orleans, and describes at length cotton and sugar cultivation and slave treatment on major plantations in Louisiana.

[About Solomon Northup]

Solomon Northup (July 10, 1807 or 1808 – c. 1863) was an American abolitionist and the primary author of the memoir Twelve Years a Slave. A free-born African American from New York, he was the son of a freed slave and a free woman of color. A farmer and a professional violinist, Northup had been a landowner in Hebron, New York. In 1841, he was offered a traveling musician's job and went to Washington, D.C. (where slavery was legal); there he was drugged, kidnapped, and sold as a slave. He was shipped to New Orleans, purchased by a planter, and held as a slave for 12 years in the Red River region of Louisiana, mostly in Avoyelles Parish. He remained a slave until he met a Canadian working on his plantation who helped get word to New York, where state law provided aid to free New York citizens who had been kidnapped and sold into slavery. His family and friends enlisted the aid of the Governor of New York, Washington Hunt, and Northup regained his freedom on January 3, 1853.

[App Features]

1. Text to Speech: Sync text rendering with audio playback. Four speeds options.

2. In-App Dictionary and Wikipedia Search functions

3. Custom Fonts, Text Size, Reading Mode(Vertical/Horizontal), and Theme(Day mode/Night mode)

4. Add Highlights with different Style, and also includes List/Edit/Delete functions

5. Support both Portrait and Landscape screens

6. With "Reading Time Left / Pages Left" information for each chapter