[Transcriber's Note: Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as possible, including obsolete and variant spellings and other inconsistencies. Text that has been changed is noted at the end of this ebook.] [Illustration: SOLOMON IN HIS PLANTATION SUIT. Solomon Northup (signed)] FIFTH THOUSAND. TWELVE YEARS A SLAVE. NARRATIVE OF SOLOMON NORTHUP, A CITIZEN OF NEW-YORK, KIDNAPPED IN WASHINGTON CITY IN 1841, AND RESCUED IN 1853, FROM A COTTON PLANTATION NEAR THE RED RIVER, IN LOUISIANA. AUBURN: DERBY AND MILLER. BUFFALO: DERBY, ORTON AND MULLIGAN. LONDON: SAMPSON LOW, SON & COMPANY, 47 LUDGATE HILL. 1853. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-three, by DERBY AND MILLER, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Northern District of New-York. ENTERED IN LONDON AT STATIONERS' HALL. TO HARRIET BEECHER STOWE: WHOSE NAME, THROUGHOUT THE WORLD, IS IDENTIFIED WITH THE GREAT REFORM: THIS NARRATIVE, AFFORDING ANOTHER Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin, IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED "Such dupes are men to custom, and so prone To reverence what is ancient, and can plead A course of long observance for its use, That even servitude, the worst of ills, Because delivered down from sire to son, Is kept and guarded as a sacred thing. But is it fit, or can it bear the shock Of rational discussion, that a man Compounded and made up, like other men, Of elements tumultuous, in whom lust And folly in as ample measure meet, As in the bosom of the slave he rules, Should be a despot absolute, and boast Himself the only freeman of his land?" COWPER. CONTENTS. PAGE. EDITOR'S PREFACE, 15 CHAPTER I. Introductory--Ancestry--The Northup Family--Birth and Parentage--Mintus Northup--Marriage with Anne Hampton--Good Resolutions--Champlain Canal--Rafting Excursion to Canada--Farming--The Violin--Cooking--Removal to Saratoga--Parker and Perry--Slaves and Slavery--The Children--The Beginning of Sorrow, 17 CHAPTER II. The two Strangers--The Circus Company--Departure from Saratoga--Ventriloquism and Legerdemain--Journey to New-York--Free Papers--Brown and Hamilton--The haste to reach the Circus--Arrival in Washington--Funeral of Harrison--The Sudden Sickness--The Torment of Thirst--The Receding Light--Insensibility--Chains and Darkness, 28 CHAPTER III.