SOURCE: “Kidnapping,” in A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin; Presenting the Original Facts and Documents upon which the Story is Founded. Together with Corroborative Statements Verifying the Truth of the Work, Kennikat Press, Inc., 1968, pp. 173-74.

In the following excerpt from the companion book, originally published in 1853, to Uncle Tom's Cabin, Stowe presents an abridged account of Northup's kidnapping, slavery, and liberation as was reported by the New York Times in order to support her fictionalized account of slavery.

Kidnapping

The principle which declares that one human being may lawfully hold another as property leads directly to the trade in human beings; and that trade has, among its other horrible results, the temptation to the crime of kidnapping.

The trader is generally a man of coarse nature and low associations, hard-hearted, and reckless of right or honor. He who is not so is an exception, rather than a...