Virtually unknown, however, is Northup’s role as the focus of the first campaign for reparations for slavery from the government of the United States. Long before “forty acres and a mule” became a rallying cry for former slaves and their allies after the Civil War, Northup and his abolitionist friends lobbied Congress for compensation for the time he spent in bondage.
Moved by the troubling content of Northup’s lectures and his slave autobiography, abolitionists in upstate New York and elsewhere initiated a campaign in the latter part of 1853 asking Congress to compensate Northup for his years in slavery. As his family’s primary breadwinner, this period had left him and the members of his household in a financial quandary. Abolitionists argued that his time away from his family and the loss of his liberty was worth many times his value as slave property, estimated at $1,700. They crafted and circulated petitions to Congress seeking a reasonable indemnity for Northup. Douglass was a leading figure in the campaign. One of the foremost lecturers in the antislavery movement, the author of a widely-circulated slave autobiography himself, and the editor of a leading weekly antislavery newspaper, he allowed those distributing petitions to publicize them in his journal and even published sample petitions. Furthermore, he provided public encouragement to the campaign.