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.
- Scene 124
Solomon is transferred to Epps’s plantation and placed among Patsey and the enslaved workers, opening the harsher final plantation phase.
- Just before
- Scene 149
During Epps’s forced dance, Mistress Epps denies Patsey a pastry, claws her face, and demands punishment; Epps takes Patsey away with his whip.
- Scene 150
Patsey offers Solomon a stolen ring in exchange for killing her and ending her suffering; he refuses, and she warns he will one day understand that he should have freed her.
- Scene 151
A caterpillar plague ruins Epps’s cotton; he blames the enslaved workers and lashes them in the field.
- Scene 152
This scene
