The Book of Negroes

- Season 1

(2015)

A young girl is taken from her home in Africa and forced on a treacherous journey to America.

Aminata, now grown beautiful, healthy, 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, are more trusting: they treat her as a servant rather than a slave. But after Rosa's death and the revelation that Solomon brokered the sale of her child, Aminata's trust is broken. Lindo, desperate for a distraction to ease ...

Amanita travels to New York with her Jewish owner. She takes the opportunity to run during the confusion of the American revolution. She gains respect in her community as a midwife and literacy teachings. She and her husband are reunited, only for him to enlist to fight. With Sam's help (Cuba Gooding Jr) they find him wounded.

The book of Negroes is born. Amenita documents all Negroes passage to freedom from New York to Novascotia. She enlist many with no judgement. When her time comes to leave, she is re-enslaved as a claim from Appleby, her original owner. This is disputed and won. She is declared a free woman. And sails to reunite with her husband.

Racial tensions run high with Amenitas employer adding fuel to the fire. Amenita has found her husband alive once more. A pact is made never to leave each other again.

Upon their arrival in Africa, Aminata leaves the Loyalists behind to find her way back to her home village of Bayo.