Solomon Northup, age 33, a well-educated black man who was born into freedom, resided with his wife and three children in his native state of New York. Solomon was kidnapped and sold into slavery in our nation's capital...Washington, D.C. Solomon was sold and transported to Louisiana where he spent twelve long years of suffering, degradation, whippings and hard labor as a slave. Slavery was an everyday fact of life from the earliest settlement of this country up to the end of the Civil War. In the 1840's there were many white people who opposed this concept of forced labor and the maltreatment of fellow human beings. The voices of these abolitionists were becoming louder...even in the heart of the south. One of these, Samuel Bass, a Canadian by birth, put his own life in jeopardy to free Solomon. This book gives, in chilling detail, an account of a way of life that hopefully will never, ever, occur again in this great country... the "Land of the Free!"