Amari lives joyfully in her African village of Ziavi, where her brother Kwasi climbs a tree to spot a giraffe.

White strangers arrive in Ziavi alongside Ashanti warriors, and the village elders prepare a celebratory welcome feast for their guests.

During the celebration, a gunshot kills the village chief and the white men open fire on the entire community.

While fleeing the massacre, Amari's younger brother Kwasi is speared through the body and dies in her arms.

The surviving villagers are shackled together and forced to begin a brutal, deadly march toward Cape Coast.

Amari meets Afi in a dark holding building at Cape Coast, and Afi becomes a protective mentor to her.

The enslaved Africans are loaded onto small lifeboats and ferried out to a massive slave ship anchored offshore.

A red-haired sailor takes Amari to a private room and teaches her English words instead of assaulting her.

The slave ship docks at Sullivan's Island, where an official inspects the cargo and approves the slaves to land.

Amari is sold to plantation owner Percival Derby for sixty pounds at a public slave auction in Charles Town.

Amari trips and spills pie on Percival Derby's carpet during dinner service, and Derby whips her into unconsciousness.

Percival Derby shoots and kills Noah the Black butler and Isabelle's newborn baby after the secret affair is exposed.

Dr. Hoskins stops his wagon on the road and releases Amari, Polly, and Tidbit, giving them a fighting chance at freedom.

Clay Derby confronts Amari alone in the forest, and Polly shoots the musket, grazing his head so they can escape.

Amari, Polly, and Tidbit cross the St. Mary's River on horseback and arrive safely at Fort Mose in Spanish territory.

Amari's joyful life in the West African village of Ziavi is shattered when white slave traders and Ashanti warriors attack, killing her family and enslaving the survivors. She is marched to Cape Coast, branded, loaded onto a slave ship, and subjected to brutal conditions during the crossing of the Atlantic. In the American colonies she is sold to the Derby plantation, where she endures beatings and sexual abuse at the hands of Clay Derby. A violent crisis erupts when Percival Derby murders Noah and Isabelle's newborn baby after exposing their secret affair, leading to the imprisonment of Amari, Polly, and Tidbit. A compassionate doctor frees the three on the road south, and they begin a harrowing journey through the wilderness toward Spanish territory. After surviving starvation, recapture, and near-impossible odds, Amari and her companions finally cross into Fort Mose and claim their freedom.

The headline events of Amari's journey from capture to freedom.

Besa warns Amari about pale-faced strangers spotted in the forest, but her mother insists the village must welcome all guests.

Amari watches helplessly as her father is stabbed and her mother's head is smashed against a rock during the massacre.

An Ashanti guard tells a captive woman he is cooperating with the white men because he will be richly rewarded.

White men inspect the enslaved women at Cape Coast and brand them like cattle before shipping them to the slave ship.

A terrified mother and her daughter leap from a lifeboat into the ocean rather than board the slave ship, and sharks kill them.

Afi begins to sing a traditional Ewe song in the ship's dark hold, and nearly a hundred enslaved women softly join in.

A fierce storm strikes the ship, sweeping a small child overboard, and the child's devastated mother leaps into the sea after her.

A Black interpreter at Sullivan's Island addresses the newly arrived slaves in their own language, warning them they will be auctioned off.

Percival Derby refuses to purchase Afi at the auction, permanently separating her from Amari despite Amari's desperate screams.

Polly is assigned the task of teaching Amari English and the ways of the plantation, despite her deep racial resentment.

Clay Derby ties young Tidbit to a rope and throws him repeatedly into a river as alligator bait for his own amusement.

Isabelle Derby privately tells Amari she is aware of Clay's abuse and expresses genuine sympathy, admitting she has little power on the farm.

Before Tidbit is taken away to be sold, Teenie gives him a piece of her own mother's kente cloth to remember her by.

Fiona O'Reilly discovers the runaways in an abandoned shed and gives them a wagon, a horse, and advice for their journey south.

Captain Menendez registers Amari and Polly at Fort Mose and tells Amari she will be paid wages for her weaving skills.

Before the attack on Ziavi, Besa's warning about strangers hints at the coming disaster while Amari's mother insists on welcoming all guests, setting the tragedy in motion. The journey from Cape Coast to Sullivan's Island is marked by relentless suffering — branding, the deaths of those who leap from the lifeboats, and a devastating storm that kills many women in the ship's hold. At the Charles Town auction, Amari is permanently separated from her protector Afi, a wound that deepens her isolation on the Derby plantation. Life at Derbyshire Farms brings new cruelties, including Clay's sadistic use of young Tidbit as alligator bait and Isabelle Derby's quiet, powerless sympathy. As the three runaways flee south, strangers provide small but vital acts of generosity — most crucially, Fiona O'Reilly supplying a wagon and horse that transforms their exhausting trek. Their arrival at Fort Mose is sealed when Captain Menendez registers them and confirms that Amari will be paid wages for her skills, marking the true beginning of her free life.

The supporting moments that shaped Amari's path to freedom.

After being shackled, Amari insists that life means hope, but fellow captive Tirza admits she has no dreams left and soon dies.

On the beach before boarding the slave ship, Afi tells Amari she sees a great power in her and urges her to survive.

Enslaved women are forced to dance on the ship's deck for the sailors' amusement, and that night the women are sexually assaulted.

The night after the red-haired sailor's rare act of kindness, Amari is taken by a different sailor and brutally raped.

By listening carefully to sailors' conversations, Amari realizes she can understand English and that the ship is heading toward Carolina.

The red-haired sailor Bill whispers 'Be brave, child. God have mercy on you' into Amari's ear just before she leaves the ship.

The night before the Charles Town auction, Besa reaches close to Amari in the holding building and quietly declares his enduring love for her.

When Polly tries to rename her Myna, Amari shakes her head defiantly and insists that her name is Amari.

Consumed by shame from Clay Derby's repeated abuse, Amari asks Teenie for a root capable of killing someone.

Amari and Polly exchange stories about their mothers and childhoods; Amari reaches out to touch Polly's hand, and Polly does not pull away.

Isabelle Derby gives birth to a black baby girl, revealing her secret love affair with Noah, the plantation's Black butler.

After killing Noah and the baby, Percival Derby locks Teenie, Polly, Amari, and Tidbit in the smokehouse and announces they will be sold.

Amari recognizes a scarred farmhand at a stranger's property as Besa, but he refuses her plea to flee, declaring his spirit is dead.

A Spanish soldier stops the runaways on the road and confirms that Fort Mose is real and that runaways are granted full freedom there.

Amari discovers she is pregnant with Clay Derby's child but chooses to embrace the baby as a vessel carrying her ancestors' spirits.

From the moment Amari is shackled, her insistence that life means hope — even as fellow captive Tirza dies without it — establishes the survival philosophy that carries her through everything that follows. On the slave ship, Afi's belief in Amari's hidden power and the brutal reality of sexual assault test that philosophy to its limits, while Amari's growing command of English quietly becomes a tool of future resistance. At the plantation, her defiant refusal to accept a slave name announces her unbroken sense of self, and her slowly deepening bond with Polly — cemented by a moment of shared grief and an unrejected touch — transforms their relationship from resentment to friendship. The birth of Isabelle's Black baby is the explosive revelation that destroys any stability at Derbyshire Farms and sets the escape in motion. On the road south, Amari's discovery that Besa is alive but spiritually shattered forces her to grieve the person she loved and accept that she must build her future alone. The journey ends with the most personal revelation of all: Amari discovers she is pregnant, and by choosing to see her unborn child as carrying her ancestors' spirits rather than Clay's cruelty, she reclaims her identity and finds the courage to begin again.