Under the ruse of taking her to get her free papers, the heirs sold Eliza and her children into Burch’s slave pen. Elisha Berry promised emancipation for Eliza and her children upon his death however, when he passed away, his heirs reneged on that promise. She had been the slave and mistress of a rich white man named Elisha Berry, who treated her kindly and fathered her daughter, Emily. She was the mother of both Randall Berry and Emily Berry. slave pen and lifelong friend to Solomon Northup. However, Burch prevailed in the proceedings by hiring false witnesses to testify on his behalf.Įliza Berry A fellow black captive in James H.

Upon being emancipated, Northup and his lawyer pressed criminal charges against Burch and his accomplice, Ebenezer Radburn. Believing that threat applied to all slavers, Northup never spoke to anyone again of his being born free until nearly 12 years later. After the brutal beating, Burch threatened to kill Solomon if he ever mentioned his freedom or background again. Burch shackled Northup in a hidden slave pen and then, apparently enraged by Northup’s claims that he was a free man, beat and whipped Solomon into submission. A business partner with Theophilus Freeman of New Orleans, Burch was white, around 40 years old, and a large, powerful man with chestnut hair, slightly gray. Burch A brutal slave dealer who first kept Solomon Northup in captivity in Washington, D.C. Around 25 years old, tall, thin, and somewhat effeminate. Burch while he was unconscious.Ībram Hamilton With Merrill Brown, co-kidnapper of Solomon Northup. There they drugged him and allegedly sold him to slave trader James H. About 40 years old, short, and thick-set, Brown, with Hamilton, promised Northup lucrative work as a violin player in a circus, and thereby convinced him to accompany them to Washington, D.C. Merrill Brown One of two white con men who, with Abram Hamilton, deceived Solomon Northup and orchestrated his kidnapping. A lawyer, he journeyed south to rescue Solomon from captivity. Northup A white man, related to the family that owned Solomon’s father as a slave, and from the family from which Solomon took his last name. The author of the memoir 12 Years a Slave, he chronicled his experience and ultimate emancipation as part of the abolitionist movement in the mid-1800s.

Solomon was married to Anne (Hampton) Northup and with her had three children: Elizabeth, Margaret, and Alonzo. Solomon Northup, aka “Platt” A free black man who lived in the northern United States in the 1800s, Solomon was kidnapped in 1841, at age 33, and sold into slavery in the South, where he lived until he was rescued by friends in 1853.

Solomon northup descendants