25 Little Known Slavery Facts That’ll Make You Emotional

Solomon Northup, a free African American living in New York in the 1800s, was kidnapped and sold into slavery in the south. As a slave, he had no way to testify his case. He remained a slave for 12 years before finally being freed. He then wrote a memoir “Twelve Years A Slave.”

Sara Forbes Bonetta was a West African who was orphaned, sold into slavery, and in a remarkable twist of events, was liberated from enslavement and became a goddaughter to Queen Victoria.

Lewis Williams was an escaped slave who managed to evade recapture by switching with a body double at his crowded trial and then crossdressing as a woman to flee town. He was aided by a reverend, who dressed him up as his “daughter” with a veil and bonnet, then got him out of town.

Maria Lewis was a 17-year-old emancipated slave who disguised herself as a white guy and fought in a Union cavalry unit for over two years.

Thomas Peters was an ex-slave who fought for the British during the American Revolutionary War and is one of the Founding Fathers of Sierra Leone.