"Having been born a freeman, and for more than thirty years enjoyed the blessings of liberty in a free State—and having at the end of that time been kidnapped and sold into Slavery, where I remained, until happily rescued in the month of January, 1853, after a bondage of twelve years—it has been suggested that an account of my life and fortunes would not be uninteresting to the public." -an excerpt

DIVMore than 2,000 former slaves provide first-person accounts in blunt, simple language about their lives in bondage. Illuminating, often startling information about southern life before, during, and after the Civil War. /div

After years of fact checking, here is the entire text of Twelve Years A Slave, with annotations throughout and back stories on all of the characters-even the villains other historians have ignored. This is the true story of Twelve Years a Slave, and of David Wilson, the man who really wrote Solomon Northup's story into history.

The true story behind the acclaimed movie 12 Years a Slave, this book is based on the life of Solomon Northup, a free black man from New York who was captured in the United States and sold into slavery in Louisiana. Solomon Northup awoke in the middle of the night with his body trembling. Slowly, he realized that he was handcuffed in a dark room and his feet were chained to the floor. He managed to slip his hand into his pocket to look for his free papers that proved he was one of 400,000 free blacks in a nation where 2.5 million other African Americans were slaves. They were gone. This remarkable story follows Northup through his 12 years of bondage as a man kidnapped into slavery, enduring the hardships of slave life in Louisiana. But the tale also has a remarkable ending. Northup is rescued from his master's cotton plantation in the deep South by friends in New York. This is a compelling tale that looks into a little known slice of history, sure to rivet young readers and adults alike. National Geographic supports K-12 educators with ELA Common Core Resources. Visit www.natgeoed.org/commoncore for more information.

Dolen Perkins-Valdez’s enchanting and unforgettable novel, based on little-known fact, combines the narrative allure of Cane River by Lalita Tademy and the moral complexities of Edward P. Jones’s The Known World as it tells the story of four black enslaved women in the years preceding the Civil War. wench \'wench\ n. from Middle English “wenchel,”1 a: a girl, maid, young woman; a female child. Situated in Ohio, a free territory before the Civil War, Tawawa House is an idyllic retreat for Southern white men who vacation there every summer with their enslaved black mistresses. It’s their open secret. Lizzie, Reenie, and Sweet are regulars at the resort, building strong friendships over the years. But when Mawu, as fearless as she is assured, comes along and starts talking of running away, things change. To run is to leave everything behind, and for some it also means escaping from the emotional and psychological bonds that bind them to their masters. When a fire on the resort sets off a string of tragedies, the women of Tawawa House soon learn that triumph and dehumanization are inseparable and that love exists even in the most inhuman, brutal of circumstances—all while they bear witness to the end of an era. An engaging, page-turning, and wholly original novel, Wench explores, with an unflinching eye, the moral complexities of slavery. “Readers entranced by The Help will be equally riveted by Wench. A deeply moving, beautifully written novel told from the heart.”—USA Today

To Tell A Free Story traces in unprecedented detail the history of Black autobiography from the colonial era through Emancipation. Beginning with the 1760 narrative by Briton Hammond, William L. Andrews explores first-person public writings by Black Americans. Andrews includes but also goes beyond slave narratives to analyze spiritual biographies, criminal confessions, captivity stories, travel accounts, interviews, and memoirs. As he shows, Black writers continuously faced the fact that northern whites often refused to accept their stories and memories as sincere, and especially distrusted portraits of southern whites as inhuman. Black writers had to silence parts of their stories or rely on subversive methods to make facts tellable while contending with the sensibilities of the white editors, publishers, and readers they relied upon and hoped to reach.

After discerning the social and historical factors surrounding its first appearance in the 1960s, Neo-Slave Narratives explores the complex relationship between nostalgia and critique, while asking how African American intellectuals at different points between 1976 and 1990 remember and use the site of slavery to represent cultural debates that arose during the sixties."--BOOK JACKET.

Master's Thesis from the year 2015 in the subject English - Pedagogy, Didactics, Literature Studies, grade: 2,0, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, language: English, abstract: This thesis will go in depth in an effort to answer whether Twelve Years a Slave is an appropriate book to teach in German classrooms and how it can be taught. Furthermore, this paper will equip high school teachers with a step-by-step outline offering background information, teaching ideas and suggestions. The details in this paper, along with the analyses and presentation, provide the reader with essential information that will later be referred to in the teaching unit. Different themes that are considered of high importance are presented to equip the teacher for a unit using the narrative Twelve Years a Slave. Slavery is alive and well in our society today, nearly one hundred fifty after its legal end. Human trafficking, brothel houses, and franchise owners enslaving undocumented workers are just a few instances of modern day slavery. Consequently, this begs the question if, and what, is the importance of learning about slavery? Furthermore, what is the best and most influential way to portray this controversial issue? History books are a common source in history lessons all over the world, even if they involve factual texts that do not have a great effect on students. When teaching the institution of slavery, though, the genre of slave narrative is worth considering using. In recent years slave narratives have resurfaced, shedding light and insight into the peculiar institution of slavery in the antebellum South. Frederick Douglass and Harriett Jacobs -to name a few- are examples of former slaves who shared their story and expedited the antislavery movement. Solomon Northup, a free black man who was kidnapped, sold into slavery and deprived of liberty for twelve years wrote one of the most popular slave narratives, documenting his experiences during his time in bondage. The peculiar institution of slavery is a complex history topic that is hard to summarize. With his book, Northup created a work that involves the individual life of a slave and presents the institution from a micro perspective. In 2013, the story of his book resurfaced and with the help of British director Steve McQueen and participating actor Brad Pitt, and the 19th century slave narrative turned Hollywood Blockbuster hit. Following the movies big success, Twelve Years a Slave was subsequently added to the national curriculum in the United States.