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 180
Armsby joins the cotton field, where the unskilled white laborer does little work.
- Scene 181
Epps compares cotton totals and orders Solomon and Abram whipped for falling short, while he merely tells Armsby to work harder.
- Scene 182
As Patsey tends Abram and Armsby treats Solomon’s back, Armsby recounts how he became a failed, alcoholic overseer and returned to plantation work.
- Scene 183
This scene
