Jim learns Miss Watson plans to sell him to New Orleans and flees alone to nearby Jackson Island.

Huck arrives on the island bloodied after faking his own death to escape yet another brutal beating from his father.

Jim and Huck flee the island together on a raft, heading south deliberately to confuse anyone tracking them.

Huck tells white men searching for Jim that the shape hidden under a tarp is his smallpox-infected uncle.

Jim and Huck encounter two swindlers on the riverbank who claim to be an English duke and the king of France.

The Duke poses as a reformed pirate and swindles a Christian tent revival congregation before the crowd threatens violence.

The Duke and King reveal they know Jim is a fugitive and plan to sell and recapture him repeatedly for profit.

The Duke and King beat Jim viciously to prevent him from escaping their scheme.

Minstrel show director Daniel Decatur Emmett pays to take Jim from Mr. Wiley and enlists him as a tenor in his troupe.

Jim escapes from Emmett's minstrel troupe, and Norman — a Black man passing as white — finds him hiding in the woods.

Norman sells Jim to a brutal mill owner named Henderson, who beats Jim badly before Jim escapes with an enslaved girl named Sammy.

Henderson pursues Jim, Norman, and Sammy into a river; Sammy drowns, and Jim and Norman later stow away on a steamboat.

The steamboat's boiler explodes; stranded in the water, Jim chooses to swim toward Huck rather than Norman, and Norman drowns.

Jim reveals to Huck for the first time that he is Huck's biological father.

Jim arrives at the Graham farm, frees enslaved men and women from shackles, and escapes north with his wife and daughter.

Jim flees slavery in Missouri after learning he is about to be sold, and meets Huck Finn on a nearby island where the boy is also hiding from his abusive father. The two travel the Mississippi River together, narrowly evading capture with Huck's quick thinking along the way. They are entrapped by two scheming con men who beat Jim and plan to exploit him for profit by selling and recapturing him repeatedly. After a series of harrowing ordeals involving a minstrel show, a brutal mill owner, and a steamboat explosion, Jim rescues Huck from drowning and reveals he is the boy's biological father. Jim then returns to Hannibal, confronts Judge Thatcher at gunpoint, and leads a daring rescue of his wife and daughter from a farm where enslaved people are kept for forced breeding.

The headline events of Jim's escape and family rescue.

Jim gathers with enslaved people to tell stories, and the group code-switches into dialect the moment white people approach.

Jim teaches his household to speak in dialect around enslavers, arguing that the Christian God is a tool of control.

Jim uses a ball of magic hair to perform a folk divination for Huck, predicting hardship but ultimate survival.

The flooding island reveals a floating house with a dead body; Jim realizes it is Huck's father but says nothing.

A rattlesnake bites Jim on the island, and he cuts the wound open and sucks out the venom himself.

Jim and Huck board a stranded riverboat to look for provisions, stumble onto robbers, and lose their canoe in the chaos.

Jim and Huck drift downriver discussing the concept of three wishes from a genie while Jim secretly reads by firelight.

Three enslaved men named Josiah, George, and Pierre warn Jim about brutal local enslavers who use dogs to track escapees.

George steals a pencil from his enslaver and secretly delivers it to Jim so Jim can begin writing.

Jim begins writing his life story, recording his African origins and defining himself as a man who loves his family.

Easter the blacksmith secretly unchains Jim after the Duke and King leave for the night, using a hidden spare key.

Jim learns while working at the blacksmith shop that George has been hanged for stealing the pencil.

Norman reveals to Jim that he is an enslaved Black man who has been passing as white within the minstrel troupe.

Jim and Norman steal a fisherman's canoe and use it to board a passing steamboat, hoping to travel north undetected.

Jim and his family settle in Iowa, where they are free but still face suspicion and racism from local white people.

Jim's life in Hannibal is defined by the invisible labor of code-switching, teaching enslaved children to protect themselves through performed ignorance, and surviving within a brutal system. On Jackson Island, small dangers accumulate — a snakebite, a hidden corpse, a stranded robbers' boat — as Jim and Huck learn to trust and rely on each other in the wilderness. Unexpected allies emerge in the woods in the form of three enslaved men, one of whom risks everything to deliver a pencil to Jim so he can begin writing his own story. Within Emmett's minstrel troupe, Jim's bond with Norman deepens when Norman reveals he is a Black man passing as white, and the two become partners in survival and escape. After harrowing losses and hard-won miles, Jim and his family reach Iowa, where freedom is real but racism still shapes every interaction with the white residents around them.

The hidden moments and quiet bonds that shaped Jim's journey.

Huck reports to Jim that Jim is a wanted man and that Huck's father has vanished from Hannibal.

A feverish Jim dreams of debating Voltaire, who reveals that his idea of equality requires Africans to mimic European behavior.

Jim drafts a written manifesto while Huck scouts the town, declaring he will not be defined by the condition of enslavement.

Jim spots George being beaten in a forest clearing as punishment for stealing the pencil; George silently mouths the word "run."

After a chaotic firefight in the woods, Jim reunites with Huck, who notices that Jim sounds nothing like "a slave."

Jim and Huck spot a wanted poster matching Jim's description and make an unsuccessful attempt to flee without the Duke and King.

Huck overhears Jim and Easter speaking standard English and wonders aloud why Jim never trusted him enough to reveal himself.

Emmett tells Jim he must work off the $200 purchase price; Jim challenges him on the difference between chattel and bonded slavery.

Jim dreams of John Locke, who frames Jim's struggle as a war and prompts Jim to consider his moral right to use violence.

Jim is forced to watch helplessly as a plantation overseer sexually assaults an enslaved woman named Katie inside her own cabin.

Jim ambushes the drunk overseer who raped Katie, strangles him, loads the body into a canoe, and sinks it in the river.

Huck returns from Hannibal and reports that Lizzie and Sadie have been sold, with the Graham farm mentioned in connection.

Jim holds Judge Thatcher at gunpoint in his own study, speaking standard English and declaring that no enslaver can truly be kind.

Jim reaches the Graham farm and discovers enslaved men chained to a pole, kept there specifically for forced breeding.

Jim shoots the Graham farm overseer and tells the man his name is James before leading the escaped group north.

Jim's journey is shaped by a series of shattering revelations and pivotal choices, beginning with Huck's news that Jim is a wanted man and culminating in Jim reclaiming his full name. Along the way, Jim wrestles with the hypocrisy of Enlightenment thinkers in his dreams, drafts a manifesto asserting his own humanity, and witnesses acts of racist violence that harden his resolve. Critical turning points include his decision to kill the overseer who raped an enslaved woman and his confrontation with Judge Thatcher, where he speaks in standard English and refuses to let the judge comfort himself with the idea that he was a kind master. The arc moves through Huck's discovery that Jim is a fugitive, a series of moments in which Jim's true voice slips through his code-switching disguise, and a final reckoning at the Graham farm. It concludes with Jim shooting the overseer and introducing himself as James — a declaration that reframes his entire journey as one man's fight to define himself on his own terms.