After being kidnapped from New York and sold into slavery, Solomon Northup uses his skills and carefully placed trust to survive and seek a way back to his family.
- Scenes 1–29
Solomon lives freely in Saratoga as a husband, father, worker, and musician.
- Scenes 30–65
Kidnapped and held under the imposed name Platt, Solomon must preserve his life and identity.
- Scenes 66–123
He enters plantation life under Ford, passes through Tibeats’s violence and the near-lynching, and is transferred to Epps.
- Just before
- Scene 122
At sunset, Ford returns, cuts Solomon down, and Solomon collapses before he can stand.
- Scene 123
Ford warns that Tibeats still wants Solomon dead and says he has transferred Solomon’s debt to Epps, who will take charge.
- Scene 124
At Epps’s barn, Solomon meets the plantation’s enslaved workers as Epps reads Scripture about a servant being beaten, turning the passage into a threat.
- Scene 125
This scene
