This is historic movie in the times of year 1841 when Solomon Northup is a violinist and is Afro-American by his origin. He is staying in Saratoga Springs in the city of New York along with his wife and two kids. Brown and Hamilton are two white men, offering him a job for short time. They put a condition that he should come with them to Washington D. C. In fact this is a big conspiracy where they fed some drugs to Northup and try to sell him as slave after appearing in the Washington D. C. In that condition, Northup is ported to New Orleans and is kept by a slave trader- Freeman. He gives a new name as Platt to Northup and pretends him as a slave runaway from the Georgia state. Freeman sells him to Eliza and Northup starts going from one slave-owner to another as a slave. He constantly try to explain to everyone that he is not a slave but a free man but nobody understands his plea.