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; infuriated, Appleby, sells her and her child to separate owners. Her new owners, Jewish Indigo Trader Solomon Lindo and his wife Rosa, 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. Desperate for a distraction to ease his grief, Lindo sets sail to New York with Aminata, who plots her escape to freedom.