Northup describes his time as a slave in Louisiana in "Twelve Years a Slave," including the cruelty and dehumanization his fellow slaves experienced at the hands of their owners. He talks of the physical and mental torture he experienced, as well as the everyday tasks he was had to undertake. Along with describing the many people he met when he was a slave and a free man in graphic detail, Northup also discusses how they changed his life. With the aid of a kind white man from New York, Northup was finally able to reclaim his freedom after spending twelve years as a slave. In order to expose the atrocities of slavery to a larger audience, he wrote the book after returning to his family in the North.
