Stolen into Slavery: The True Story of Solomon Northup, Free Black Man. National Kids Geographic
where his condition worsened. He ran a high temperature, suffered from severe body aches, and for three days was completely blind. The doctors believed that Solomon would die, but the thought that he had to live and return to his family went round and round his feverish brain. After 16 days in the hospital he began to recover and was returned to Freeman’s slave pen.
Finally, after weeks of being offered for sale, Solomon was purchased by William Ford, a planter from central Louisiana. Solomon was in such poor condition from his bout with smallpox that his selling price dropped to $900—$600 less than what he would have sold for before he became so seriously ill. He had now been sold three times: by Brown and Hamilton to Birch, by Birch to Freeman, and then by Freeman to Ford.
Slaves generally had no last names of their own but were called by their owners’ last names. Platt Ford, as Solomon Northup was now known, was taken by boat, train, and on foot to William Ford’s plantation. The Ford property was located in the Great Pine Woods. Escape from this vast wooded wilderness in Louisiana’s Red River Valley was nearly impossible. For one thing, the area’s large swamps were home to alligators and poisonous snakes. For another, the nearest “free state”—or state that had outlawed slavery—was 500 miles away.
This is the bill of sale certifying that Theophilus Freeman sold Solomon Northup (called Platt) to William Ford. (Illustration Credits 1.11)
Solomon was put to work chopping tree trunks into logs and making piles of lumber. A skilled carpenter, he also did construction work on the Ford family’s property.
At the time, William Ford was a wealthy cotton planter who owned a number of slaves. One of them was Walton, a house slave who had lived all his life on the Ford plantation and who spoke of Mr. Ford as a child would of his father. Another was John, the Fords’ 16-year-old cook, who walked around chuckling to himself and laughing at things that no one else found funny. However, Solomon felt the most sympathy for Eliza, the young woman who had been in Birch’s slave pen with her two children. When Freeman sold Eliza to William Ford, he sold her son and daughter to other masters. Knowing that she probably would never see her children again, Eliza cried almost continuously.
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