Plot Synopsis

Based on the novel "Someone Knows My Name" by Lawrence Hill. Kidnapped by slave traders in West Africa and subsequently enslaved in South Carolina, Aminata Diallo must navigate her way through the American Revolution in New York, the isolated refuge of Nova Scotia and the treacherous jungles of Sierra Leone before ultimately securing her freedom in England at the dawn of the 19th century. On her way home, twelve-year-old Aminata Diallo is kidnapped and her parents killed. Forced to march across West Africa to the Atlantic Ocean, she is looked after by Chekura, a young boy sold to help the slavers. They grow close and are put on the same slave ship. Upon her arrival in Charleston, SC, she's sold to Robinson Appleby, an Indigo Plantation owner. Time passes and Aminata, now grown and literate, is the flower of Robinson Appleby's Indigo plantation. After several seasons of deflecting Appleby's advances, Aminata marries Chekura and has his child. Appleby, infuriated, sells her and her child to separate owners. Her new owners, a Jewish Indigo Trader and his wife, Solomon and Rosa Lindo, treat her as a servant rather than a slave. But after Rosa's death, Solomon, desperate for a distraction to ease his grief, sets sail to New York with Aminata, who plots her escape to freedom. Soon after arriving in New York, the American Revolution breaks out, allowing Aminata to escape Solomon with the help of an influential Black innkeeper named Sam Fraunces. With the American victory, slavers return to New York in search of runaway slaves. She is soon arrested but is exonerated at the last moment by the testimony of Solomon, who vouches he gave Aminata her freedom. After being freed, she travels to Shelburne, Nova Scotia, where she's taken in by Daddy Moses and manages to find a job as a printing assistant. As the open hostility towards black residents comes to a head after the death of a white citizen, an abolitionist arrives offering an escape for the black community to a settlement in Sierra Leone. Just as Aminata begins to recruit her community, Chekura arrives and is reluctant to embark on yet another long journey. A violent race riot breaks out in Shelburne, and Chekura is convinced to join his wife on her homeward journey. They set sail with Daddy Moses, bound for Africa. After arriving in Freetown, Aminata becomes more engrossed in the idea of returning to her village of Bayo. The local tribes, however, are unwilling to support her and Aminata is forced to flee for her life. She soon realizes she must let go of her dream of returning to Bayo, and sets out to London to tell her life story to the world.