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12 Years a Slave and the Emancipation Proclamation book cover
12 Years a Slave and the Emancipation Proclamation
2013
First Published
4.34
Average Rating
182
Number of Pages

Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup is a memoir of a black man who was born free in New York state but kidnapped, sold into slavery and kept in bondage for 12 years in Louisiana before the American Civil War. He provided details of slave markets in Washington, DC, as well as describing at length cotton cultivation on major plantations in Louisiana. President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free."

Avg Rating
4.34
Number of Ratings
198
5 STARS
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4 STARS
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3 STARS
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2 STARS
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1 STARS
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