"Roaring River" is an American reel in 2/4 time and G Major. The parts are played AABB. It was composed by Solomon Northup, an African-American fiddler and carpenter originally from Saratoga, New York. Northup was tricked into going to Baltimore to play for a circus but was captured and sold into slavery. He had a variety of masters and endured various conditions and treatment/mistreatment, including time on several Louisiana plantations. "Roaring River" is transcribed and appears in Northup's book Twelve Years a Slave (1853). He was, for a time, responsible for timber cutting and extraction on a river; perhaps his "Roaring River" was inspired this experience.