02/14/2023
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2.15.23
Repost from
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Join Virtual Parlor Chat on Wednesday 2/15 at 7PM (registration link in bio), where Kamau Ware of Black Gotham Experience will share his process creating NORTHUP, an audio experience which will premiere at the Morris-Jumel Mansion later this month. NORTHUP is about Anne Hampton Northup, a Black woman whose life was intertwined with the history of the Mansion but has been obscured by a system from which white supremacism is nurtured. Anne's presence within the historic record is also overshadowed by the miraculous story of her husband, Solomon Northup, author of Twelve Years a Slave.
Anne was born around 1808 in Sandy Hill (near Saratoga Springs), New York, to free-Black parents who were property-owning citizens. Despite the legal racial classification as Black as indicated in some census records, the family claimed Black, White, and Native ancestry. In 1829, Anne married Solomon, a professional violinist, with whom she had three children. However in 1841 Anne’s husband suddenly and mysteriously disappeared while in Washington, D.C. for a musical engagement.
Anne began working in domestic service in her teens and was renowned for her skills as a cook. She was working at Sherrill’s Coffee House in Saratoga, NY when her husband was kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1841. Solomon was able to send Anne a letter when he reached New Orleans, informing her that he had been kidnapped, but he was soon sold to another location.
During the period of Solomon’s unknown whereabouts, Anne became her family’s sole provider while trying to locate and rescue her missing husband. During the summer of 1841, Eliza Jumel hired Anne Northup and her children to work at the Mansion, where the family was employed from 1841-1843.
Solomon' story is a powerful epic, lived by a Black man. The story of his wife, Anne, is just as powerful. Join our Virtual Parlor Chat on Wednesday to learn more about Anne Northup and the NORTHUP audio experience, produced by Black Gotham Experience, commissioned by the Morris-Jumel Mansion and funded by Humanities New York.
