January 4th

On this day - 4th January 1853- Solomon Northup (12 years a slave) gained his freedom

Solomon Northup was an american violinist who was born as a free man in New York in 1808. In 1841, on a traveling musician's job, was he drugged and kidnapped from Washington D.C. He was thereafter shipped to New Orleans and sold as a slave to a plant owner. Northup was kept as a slave for the next 12 years, unable to contact his family and friends in the Northern parts of US. It wasn't until he gained help from a Canadian worker on the plant that he was able to contact his family and get help. His family enlisted the aid from the governor of New York and started the work of finding Solomon and getting the papers in order. Locating Solomon had been a complicated job, especially since Solomon was only known as Platt. It was also important that the process of releasing Solomon was kept secret, because it was expected that Solomon's slave owner would kill him if he knew anyone were looking for him. On January 4th Solomons family finally succeeded and he could once again become a free man. Solomon Northup's memoirs were published later the same year and it became a best seller. In 2014 won the film "12 years a slave", based on Solomons life, the academy award for best film.