Twelve Years A Slave is about the story of Solomon Northup, a free negro in Saratoga Springs, New York who was a skilled carpenter and violinist. One day, Brown and Hamilton, two circus promoters offered him a high wage if he worked for them as a musician for their traveling circus. He accepted then left with them without informing his wife he was leaving to work in New York and Washington D.C. Not too long after his arrival, he awoke to find himself in a pen for slaves, drugged and bound. Northup was a free man not a slave; for asserting his rights he was beaten and was informed that he should never mention that he was a free man. The story takes you on a journey for Northup where he is transported to New Orleans with others; enslaved where his life of cruelty by his masters despite the fact that he was a skilled carpenter and a violinist. He is eventually rescued due to sheer desperation and luck when he confides in Samuel Bass, a white carpenter and abolitionist from Canada whilst working at the Epps plantation.

Bass sends letters to Northup's wife and friends in Saratoga. One of these letters finds itself in the hands of Parker, a white shopkeeper who seeks help from Henry B. Northup, a white attorney and politician whose family had freed Solomon's father whose help with the assistance of John P. Waddill, an attorney assists in obtaining Solomon Northup's freedom. After numerous searches he succeeds in locating Solomon and freeing him from the plantation.