It Happened Here -- In Precarious Positions, Part II

Unlike Charles Nalle, Solomon Northrup had never been a slave. He had been born in 1808, a few years after his father, Mintus Northrup had been freed in his owner's will, and had taken his master's

surname for his own¹.

Solomon had farmed with his father and on his own, and worked on maintenance crews on the Champlain Canal. He had cut timber and freighted rafts of logs down the canal from Lake Champlain to Troy. He was also a talented fiddle player and had begun to supplement his income by playing at dances and public events. His wife, Anne, who he married in 1829 had gained a reputation as a skilled cook. In 1834 Solomon moved his family to Saratoga Springs, where he and Anne could find regular employment at the United States Hotel, and other events and functions much of the year.

In March 1841 Anne left for Sandy Hill (Hudson Falls) for the spring Circuit Court session where she ran the kitchen at a local coffee house that catered to the lawyers, court officials, and litigants that packed the little town when court was in session. With his wife and oldest child out of town, and his younger children with an aunt, Solomon began looking for work until the visitor's season began in Saratoga. At the corner of Congress Street and Broadway a friend introduced him to two entertainers who said they were looking for a musician to accompany them in their performances to New York as they worked their way south to meet up with a circus in Washington City (DC). Offering him a handsome wage they persuaded him to continue with them to Washington, and seemed to show their concern for him when they encouraged him to stop at the New York Customs House to obtain court papers proving his status as a free man. In Washington they stayed close to him as they looked around the city. ²To celebrate their arrival in the city they bought drinks at a saloon. After a second drink Solomon became ill, and eventually blacked out.

Solomon awoke chained in a darkened cell. He would soon learn he was being held in Williams' Slave Pen, a private jail for slaves in transit, within sight of the U.S. Capitol. His money and his court papers were, of course, gone. A large man entered his cell, introducing himself as James Burch, his new owner who had bought him as a runaway slave from Georgia, and was about to transport him to New Orleans for sale. When Solomon declared he was a free man from New York, Burch cursed him, warning him to never repeat that “lie” and beat him severely again and again until he ceased his protests. Eventually he would be joined by a number of other slaves, a few, like himself, kidnapped and sold into slavery, to be transported in a ship's hold to New Orleans.

In New Orleans Solomon was purchased by William Ford, a baptist preacher who owned a plantation on Bayou Boeuf on the Red River in Louisiana. There he was treated reasonably well until financial problems forced his master to sell him and other slaves. Solomon was exchanged for back wages owed to a carpenter, John Tibeats who had built several buildings for Ford, with a mortgage for the balance of Solomon's price (some $400) to be paid back to Ford over time. Solomon had worked with the carpenter, and they did not get along. Surly, and prone to fits of temper, Tibeats mistreated his new slave, preparing, at one point to beat him, provoking the former freeman to rebel and beat the carpenter. Escaping, Tibeats returned armed and accompanied by friends, intending to lynch the black man. (As a master of a slave under Louisiana law he would have been within his rights to do so.) Only the intervention of Ford's overseeer prevented him, by reminding Tibeat he still owed Ford $400 for him. Later, he and Solomon fought again, with Tibeats attempting to kill him with an axe. Solomon escaped through the bayous back to Ford's plantation evading slave catchers and bloodhounds hired to bring him back dead or alive. Ford prevailed upon Tibeats to hire out his slave to prevent future trouble (and protect their investment.) The former free man found himself first leased out to clear land for a new plantation, then sold to Edwin Epps, a hard driving, cruel master with a reputation as a “nigger breaker.” For ten years he endured systematic daily and random whippings from Epps' lash as he worked the cotton fields and wood lots of Epps small plantation.

In June 1852 Epps contracted to have a new house built for himself. Solomon, known to have some carpenter skills was taken from the fields to help with the construction. One of the carpenters, named Bass, was a Canadian who had worked around much of the Country, before settling the last few years in the area of Bayou Rouge. Bass had a local reputation for enjoying a good debate, as well as believing in a number of liberal ideas that amused the local planters for their “patent absurdity”. One evening, Solomon overheard Bass arguing with Epps about the immorality of slavery and the inherent equality of Blacks and Whites. Solomon's heart lept with excitement, as here, finally, was someone who might be willing to get a letter mailed to his family in New York, and others who might help him.

Years before, he had attempted to get a letter out, only to be betrayed. With considerable trepidation he approached Bass, convincing him of his story by his knowledge of upstate New York, and Canadian geography, and by his abilities to read and write. Bass was reluctant to help, knowing that if found out, he would go to prison, if the local planters did not kill him first. But he decided to do the right thing. The letter was sent and Solomon waited. After ten weeks the slave from New York reluctantly concluded his letter had either been intercepted and destroyed or the persons it had been addressed to had either died or moved away.

But the letter had reached it destination, setting into motion a series of events and legal maneuvers.

In 1840, New York had enacted a admirable law to recover its Black residents who were kidnapped and sold into slavery. The Governor was charged upon hearing a petition from a kidnapped person's family or friends to investigate, and appoint a legal representative to go to the state where the person was being held. There, his agent could present evidence, bring lawsuit, etc., to gain the person's freedom, then find him and accompany him home. All of this was to be paid for out of the state treasury.

When the local officials in Saratoga received Solomon's letter they forwarded it to Anne, Solomon's wife who contacted lawyer Henry B. Northrup. Henry Northrup was a descendant of the farmer who had owned and freed Solomon's father , and he took a personal interest in the case. He helped Anne prepare a petition to Governor Hunt and presented it to the Governor. Hunt appointed Nortrup agent in the case, and Northrup, after the fall elections, and the conclusion of other legal business headed for Washington. There, he enlisted the support of several powerful persons, including a Cabinet Secretary, a Supreme Court Justice, and Pierre Soule, Senator from Louisiana. Soule though a staunch supporter of slavery, did not condone kidnapping or the animus it created between free states and slave states. They prepared letters of introduction to officials at Marksville Courthouse in Avoyelles Parish where Solomon was enslaved. Northrup met with Judge John P. Waddill. When the Judge saw Northrup's letters he was cooperative and hospitable, but confessed he knew of no slave in the parish that went by the name Solomon, or Solomon Northrup. He offered his brother and his carriage to drive the lawyer around the next day but doubted they would have success locating one slave among thousands and thousands in scores of widely scattered plantations.

Solomon Northrup's story may have ended here, unfinished and, of course, unwritten, for Solomon had omitted a crucial detail in his letter. When the slave trader, Burch discovered he may have obtained a kidnapped freeman, he began calling him by the name Platt, and for a dozen years he had been known only by that name.

Discouraged, Northrup accepted the Judge's invitation to dinner. After dinner, their conversation turned to politics, with the Judge confessing he was baffled by all the parties, groups and factions that operated on New York's political scene. The New York lawyer enumerated them for his host, including the “Barn-burners” or abolitionist faction. Perhaps teasingly, Northrup asked if there were any abolitionists down in these parts '”Never, but one,' answered Waddill, laughingly. 'We have one here in Marksville, an eccentric creature, who preaches abolitionism as vehemently as any fanatic at the North. He is a generous, inoffensive man, but always maintaining the wrong side of an argument. It affords us a deal of amusement. He is an excellent mechanic, and almost indispensable in this community. He is a carpenter. His name is Bass.'"

The next day Northrup rode out to meet with Bass. After some hesitation the carpenter confessed to having conspired to help write and deliver Solomon's letters, and he directed him to Epps' plantation. With that information, Northrup arranged with the judge and the sheriff to pick Solomon up, before Epps became aware and could hide him away. With their legal documents in order the Northrup and the sheriff descended on Epps' plantation, encountering Solomon with his fellow slaves in the fields picking cotton. The sheriff assaulted Solomon with a barrage of question which the former freeman answered quickly, while his fellow slaves stood around flabbergasted and open mouthed. Suddenly he recognized Henry Northrup and flew into his arms. 'I'm glad to see you.' Northrup responded and after a few minutes said 'Throw down that sack ... your cotton-picking days are over. Come with us to the man you live with.' With equal astonishment, and considerable hostility Solomon's enslaver received the news. A short hearing at the courthouse disabused the slaveowner from trying to regain his property, and soon Soloman Northrup and his rescuer were on their way north, to freedom.

Solomon and his family were reunited. He brought suit against James Burch for his part in enslaving him, but the federal court ruled he could not give evidence solely on the ground that he was a colored man, despite being a citizen of New York. By chance, a New York judge familiar with Solomon's case knew Merrill Brown and Abram Hamilton, his kidnappers and New York State's Attorneys were able to bring a case against them, but the case dragged on over the issue of whether the kidnap occurred in New York, or Washington, where he could not testify. When a new Attorney General came into office the case was dropped. The year following his release Solomon published a testimony. Twelve Years a Slave: Narrative of Solomon Northup, a Citizen of New-York,Kidnapped in Washington City in 1841, and Rescued in 1853, the year following the publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin.   It created a sensation, selling 30,000 copies.

Solomon Northrup was Introduced to his Captors Here

1 In any event, New York had begun the gradual emancipation of its slaves, back to 1799, freeing in 1827 all male slaves when they reached their 28^th birthday,

2As a free man from upstate New York, Solomon had scarcely thought about the need to be able to prove himself a free man, or about the dangers of being kidnapped and sold into slavery.

(Northrup's narrative was electronically published in 1997 as part of the Documenting the American South Project published by the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)
 

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Marker of the Week

Rte 32, Onesquethaw/Feura Bush

I pass this little Dutch farmhouse every day on my way to work. It was only after

I took this picture, did I realize something was amiss. We all know of the sturdiness of the Dutch farmers who settled the Hudson Valley, (especially if you believe the likes of Washington Irving) but if you believe this sign, Tunis Cornelise Slingerland built this house 112 years after coming to New Netherlands !

 

 Next Week-- Grandma Moses and another Marker of the Week.