12 Years a Slave · written by John Ridley and Steve McQueen · 2013

At Norfolk, Burch and Radburn add more captives, including battered Arthur and watchful Robert, then leave; Solomon glares after them as they sail on.

Scene 51 of 211 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act one

Act oneAct twoAct three

Begins 32 min into a 2:22 film

The story so farBefore scene 51

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.
Scene 30
Solomon is drugged and abducted in New York, abruptly ending his free life and beginning his captivity.
Scene 31
After Solomon is drugged and abducted in scene 30, he wakes in chains and discovers that he has been stolen from his free life.
Just before
Scene 48
At dawn, the steamboat travels downriver past a green shoreline.
Scene 49
Radburn unlocks the prisoners’ shackles and takes them from the hold to the deck.
Scene 50
On deck, Burch pressures Eliza to drink while a woman advises her to accommodate the men for her child’s sake; Eliza slaps her hand away and refuses.
Scene 51
This scene

51EXT. NORFOLK/PORT - DAY

The Orleans arrives to Norfolk and is docked. MORE SLAVES - about 15 in all, of various genders and ages - are brought on board. Chief among them is ARTHUR, who fights viciously with his captors. His face swollen and covered with wounds and bruises. One side of it is a complete raw sore. "With all haste" is shoved down into the hold.

Another among them is ROBERT, who is about 19 years of age. He, like Solomon, is quiet. And like Solomon as well we can tell there is much going on behind his eyes; a good deal of silent plotting.

Having taken their cargo as far as they care or need to, Burch and Radburn depart. They do so without a word spoken to Solomon or the others.

With this new and sizable batch of slaves on board, the crew again CASTS OFF, and the Orleans makes its way again.

Solomon stares down Burch for as long as he can, as if wishing bad things. As if wanting to exact some measure of revenge. But the greater insult is that Burch and Radburn, engaged in conversation, take no notice of Solomon whatsoever. He is that insignificant to them. That fact, that reality, makes Solomon boil with a rage he cannot express in words.