[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"$f5-39DryTSOCQoPJXYmD8dlekF_1TnCtHqCus3cPmuGU":3,"$fYa2yPvsjCXv7vfI163o_VwReTEny_MSPOLIqqeGXFW0":18},{"author":4,"tags":13},{"author_id":5,"author_name":6,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"bio":9,"short_bio":10,"slug":11,"image_url":12},4340,"Solomon Northup","S",53,"Solomon Northup was an American farmer, violinist, writer, and abolitionist born in Minerva in 1808.\n\nBorn to a freed slave and a free woman of color, Northup grew up as a free Black man in the United States. His origins shaped the circumstances of his life in ways that would later find expression in his written account, though the details of his early years remain sparsely documented. He worked as a farmer and also practiced as a violinist, occupations that placed him within the fabric of ordinary American life before the events that would define his public legacy.\n\nNorthup is the primary author of the memoir Twelve Years a Slave, a work composed in the English language that documents his experiences. The memoir stands as a first-person account written by a man who lived and labored within the conditions it describes, lending it a particular authority as a document of its time. His role as an abolitionist is consistent with the nature of the memoir's content, situating the work within the broader antislavery discourse of nineteenth-century America. The text represents a direct contribution to that discourse, written by a man who held citizenship in a country whose legal and social structures he had direct cause to address.\n\nThe facts surrounding Northup's birth date carry some ambiguity, with records pointing to both January 1 and July 10 of 1808. His death is recorded as occurring in 1864. Within the span of his life, he occupied multiple roles — farmer, violinist, writer — that together form a portrait of a free Black American in the antebellum period. His son's status as the child of a freed slave and a free woman of color placed him within a specific legal and social category in a nation where such distinctions carried profound consequences.\n\nThe memoir Twelve Years a Slave, composed in English and attributed to Northup as its primary author, remains the central record through which his life and abolitionist commitments are known. It is a work of personal testimony that intersects with the larger history of slavery and freedom in the United States during the nineteenth century.","Solomon Northup was an American farmer, violinist, writer, and abolitionist born in Minerva in 1808.","solomon-northup",null,[14],{"tag_id":15,"tag_name":16,"tag_count":17},1050,"slavery",5,{"quotes":19,"pagination":82},[20,28,34,40,46,52,58,64,70,76],{"id":21,"quote_text":22,"author_id":5,"source_id":23,"has_image":24,"author":25,"source":26,"quote_tag":27,"commentary":12},3436450,"Still he plied the lash without stint upon my poor body, until it seemed that the lacerated flesh was stripped from my bones at every stroke. A man with a particle of mercy in his soul would not have beaten even a dog so cruelly.",6,false,{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":11,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":12},{},[],{"id":29,"quote_text":30,"author_id":5,"source_id":23,"has_image":24,"author":31,"source":32,"quote_tag":33,"commentary":12},3436443,"The flesh of the coon is palatable, but verily there is nothing in all butcherdom so delicious as a roasted ’possum.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":11,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":12},{},[],{"id":35,"quote_text":36,"author_id":5,"source_id":23,"has_image":24,"author":37,"source":38,"quote_tag":39,"commentary":12},3436439,"A man with a particle of mercy in his soul would not have beaten even a dog so cruelly.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":11,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":12},{},[],{"id":41,"quote_text":42,"author_id":5,"source_id":23,"has_image":24,"author":43,"source":44,"quote_tag":45,"commentary":12},3436433,"They are deceived who flatter themselves that the ignorant and debased slave has no conception of the magnitude of his wrongs. They are deceived who imagine that he arises from his knees, with back lacerated and bleeding, cherishing only a spirit of meekness and forgiveness. A day may come – it will come, if his prayer is heard – a terrible day of vengeance when the master in his turn will cry in vain for mercy.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":11,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":12},{},[],{"id":47,"quote_text":48,"author_id":5,"source_id":23,"has_image":24,"author":49,"source":50,"quote_tag":51,"commentary":12},3436427,"The child is father to the man,” and with such training, whatever may be his natural disposition, it cannot well be otherwise than that, on arriving at maturity, the sufferings and miseries of the slave will be looked upon with entire indifference.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":11,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":12},{},[],{"id":53,"quote_text":54,"author_id":5,"source_id":23,"has_image":24,"author":55,"source":56,"quote_tag":57,"commentary":12},3436420,"It is not the fault of the slaveholder that he is cruel, so much as it is the fault of the system under which he lives. He cannot withstand the influence of habit and associations that surround him. Taught from earliest childhood, by all that he sees and hears that the rod is for the slave’s back, he will not be apt to change his opinions in maturer years.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":11,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":12},{},[],{"id":59,"quote_text":60,"author_id":5,"source_id":23,"has_image":24,"author":61,"source":62,"quote_tag":63,"commentary":12},3436417,"It is not the fault of the slaveholder that he is cruel, so much as it is the fault of the system under which he lives. He cannot withstand the influence of habit and associations that surround him.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":11,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":12},{},[],{"id":65,"quote_text":66,"author_id":5,"source_id":23,"has_image":24,"author":67,"source":68,"quote_tag":69,"commentary":12},3436412,"He, however, lost nothing by his kindness.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":11,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":12},{},[],{"id":71,"quote_text":72,"author_id":5,"source_id":23,"has_image":24,"author":73,"source":74,"quote_tag":75,"commentary":12},3436406,"Let not those who have never been placed in like circumstances judge me harshly.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":11,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":12},{},[],{"id":77,"quote_text":78,"author_id":5,"source_id":23,"has_image":24,"author":79,"source":80,"quote_tag":81,"commentary":12},3436400,"Strange as it may seem, within plain sight of this same house, looking down from its commanding height upon it, was the Capitol. The voices of patriotic representatives boasting of freedom and equality, and the rattling of the poor slave’s chains, almost commingled. A slave pen within the very shadow of the Capitol!",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":11,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":12},{},[],{"currentPage":83,"totalPages":23,"totalItems":8,"itemsPerPage":84},1,10]