Historians know where Solomon Northup was born, where he lived and where he worked. They know whom he married and how many children he had. They know he played the fiddle and spent 12 years enslaved in the South before being freed.
What historians don’t know about the author of “12 Years A Slave” is when and how he died and where he is buried. It’s a lingering mystery in the final chapter of the life of the 19th-century free-born African-American whose compelling account of enforced slavery in pre-Civil War Louisiana was made into the Oscar-winning film of the same title.
“That’s sort of a big blank spot in the story, for sure,” said Rachel Seligman, co-author of “Solomon Northup: The Complete Story of the Author of Twelve Years a Slave,” published last year.
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