Want to learn the ideas in Twelve Years A Slave better than ever? Read the world’s #1 book summary of Twelve Years A Slave by Solomon Northup here.

Read a brief 1-Page Summary or watch video summaries curated by our expert team. Note: this book guide is not affiliated with or endorsed by the publisher or author, and we always encourage you to purchase and read the full book.

1-Page Summary of Twelve Years A Slave

Overview

Solomon Northup was a free black man living in upstate New York with his family. He was a carpenter and played the violin. Two men approached him, asking if he would go to Washington DC with them and play his fiddle at the circus they worked for. Solomon agreed, but he was drugged and woke up in what turned out to be a slave pen within view of the Capitol.

Burch, a cruel slave trader, beats Solomon and tells him never to mention that he is from the North. He was kidnapped and sold into slavery in Louisiana. Solomon witnessed firsthand the horror of a mother being separated from her children.

Solomon is sold to a minister named Ford with a small plantation in the Great Pine Woods. He treats Solomon and his other slaves well, but there’s an irascible carpenter who works for Ford, Tibeats, who dislikes Solomon. The carpenter abuses him and beats him mercilessly. As such, Ford sells him to the cruel Tibeats (but on loan).

Tibeats is an awful master. One day, he’s furious with Solomon for something and comes to beat him up. But Solomon grabs the whip from Tibeats and beats him mercilessly. Tibeats runs off, but Chapin stops him from killing Solomon by reminding him of Ford’s mortgage on the plantation.

After selling Solomon to Edwin Epps, Tibeats is furious with him and beats him severely. He also makes it clear that he’s not over the incident by constantly threatening Solomon. In addition, when they meet in town, he often threatens to kill Solomon if he sees any hint of disrespect or disobedience from him.

Solomon is a slave on the Epps plantation. He works in the cotton fields and sometimes has to do other jobs too, such as cutting cane near the Gulf of Mexico. Solomon talks about how cotton and sugarcane are planted and harvested, what life for slaves was like, Christmas celebrations, food rations, relationships with masters/slaves and his desire to escape from slavery.

Solomon is a slave of Epps. One day, he hears Bass talking to Epps about how slavery is wrong and must be abolished. Solomon believes that Bass can help him get his freedom, so he begins telling him about the places he knows in Canada and upstate New York. Shocked by what Solomon says, Bass encourages him to continue sharing his story. Eventually, they both decide that they have to work together to free Solomon from slavery.

It takes a long time, but Solomon is eventually able to send letters to people in the North. Eventually, Henry B. Northup is given the power and ability to help Solomon get out of his situation by acting as an agent for the governor of New York. He has to work with senators from Louisiana and other government officials, but they are willing to make things right after they realize that Epps was wronging them all along.

Northup arrives at Epps’s plantation with a local sheriff. He asks Solomon some questions to ensure that his story is true. Northup and Solomon embrace, and Solomon cannot contain his joy. The other slaves are incredulous that he had never told them about this before. Epps is angry that he has to relinquish Solomon, but he has no choice; therefore, Solomon returns home with Northup. A lengthy court proceeding begins against Burch, but he is not convicted of the kidnapping because there were too many discrepancies in the testimony given by witnesses on both sides of the case.

Solomon is reunited with his family.

Chapters I-IV

Summary of Chapter I

Solomon Northup narrates his story of being kidnapped and sold into slavery. He states that he will tell the story as faithfully as possible. Solomon’s paternal ancestors were slaves in Rhode Island, and eventually his father became free. Henry B. Northup, a lawyer who freed Solomon’s father from slavery, is a current relative of the family who freed him. His father moved to Minerva in Essex County, New York where he died and left Solomon and his brother and mother behind. Although this was not as bad for him compared to other slaves since they had been respected for integrity and industry by their masters, they still saw the degradation of the system through their work on farms with other slaves at all hours every day under strict supervision by overseers with whips ready to lash out if anyone didn’t do what they were told quickly enough or tried anything funny like running away because it would be too dangerous even if successful because most people lived near each other so word would get around about those who ran away which made them less valuable property than someone else’s slave so no one wanted them back anyway but then there’d be reprisals against friends or family members back home which could include beatings or death threats so really it wasn’t worth trying to run away despite how terrible things were here because life outside was just as bad only more dangerous.