The remarkable true story of Harriet Jacobs whose dramatic escape from slavery-after spending years in her grandmother's crawl space hiding from her sexually abusive master--prompted her to write a memoir (Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl) of her struggles, sexual assault, and fierce desire for freedom that remains the most-read woman's slave narrative of all time. 12 Years A Slave meets #MeToo. 

SYNOPSIS:

Hello, I’m Susan Flakes. I’ve written an award-winning screenplay based on the life of slave and activist Harriet Jacobs, now titled UNDAUNTED. Harriet was undaunted no matter what ordeals she faced to free herself and her daughter from a master who wanted to own her body and soul. A historical bio-pic, UNDAUNTED also addresses what is now called #MeToo.

The film begins after Harriet has escaped. She’s a fugitive in Rochester, New York, working with Frederick Douglass. He insists she write her story. She says she can’t because her daughter Louisa’s illegitimacy would be exposed. “What does Louisa say about that?” Frederick asks. Harriet can’t answer, because Louisa is even more of an activist than she is, and agrees with Douglass that Harriet’s full story should be told, including the affair Harriet had with a white man, Sam Sawyer, who subsequently became a U.S. Congressman, and the father of Harriet’s child, Louisa.

A young male abolitionist warns Harriet that the daughter and son-in-law of her master, Dr. Norcom, arrived in New York and are now on their way to Rochester, to capture her, and take her back to Edenton, North Carolina.

Harriet flees to where her daughter Louisa is in hiding because Louisa also faces the danger of capture. Louisa finally persuades Harriet to write her story, which unfolds.

Harriet is six years old, at her mother’s burial. Her mother’s mistress, Miss Margaret, had let Harriet and her mother live as if free, and so Harriet only just now learns that she’s a slave. She’s furious, disbelieving.

Harriet is persuaded by her grandmother Molly to go willingly with Miss Margaret, who will teach her to read and write, even though that’s illegal, and Miss Margaret suffers from malaria and very well might die soon, and free Harriet in her will.

Miss Margaret treats Harriet like a daughter and a pupil. But as Harriet grows into a young woman and flourishes, Dr. Norcom becomes enamored with her. She flees from him whenever he comes too close.

Near death, Margaret gives Harriet gold coins to buy passage on a ship to New York City. Margaret promises she’s freed Harriet in her will,

But Norcom manages to get Margaret, on her death bed, to sign a codicil, a change in her will, which gives Harriet to Norcom, rather than freeing her.

Norcom leaves on a four-month sabbatical, Harriet and Sam Sawyer secretly make love. Harriet prays she’ll get pregnant.

When Norcom returns, Harriet proudly announces that she’s pregnant. She thinks he’ll be so mad that he’ll sell her, and Sam can stealthily buy her. Instead Norcom says he’ll keep her and the baby; he knocks her down and is about to rape her. Harriet knees him in the balls and runs out. Norcom gets patrollers to go after her.

She escapes from the patrollers; hides in her grandmother’s home: a crawl space, just nine by three feet, and only three feet high. She thinks she’ll have to stay in this cramped space for only a few days, when a safe captain will sail into this inland port, and she can be sneaked aboard. But times are bad economically, and no captain dares to be safe since patrollers swarm all the ships looking for escaped slaves.

Harriet spends seven years in the crawls space, where she births her baby girl, Louisa. She finds a clever way to make Norcom think she’s escaped to the North. In the middle of the night Molly and Harriet’s Aunt Betty walk Harriet around in circles in the storeroom to keep her from going lame.

She risks leaving Molly’s house a few times, one time to go to Sam. He says he still loves her, but can’t get Congress to do any good for any slave. Another time when she leaves the crawl space she ends up being captured by a patroller. Her good friend Sailor Pete rescues her; kills that patroller. Finally, a safe captain sails into Edenton, Harriet dresses like a sailor, joins with other sailors and boards a ship to freedom. Louisa is well-hidden in the captain’s quarters.

In the final scene Frederick Douglass pays a visit to the Jacobs School, Alexandria, Virginia, founded and headed by Harriet and Louisa, both now freed. In front of all the students, children of ex-slaves, Frederick and Harriet laugh about how they both escaped to freedom dressed as sailors. Frederick praises Harriet for having written the greatest slave narrative written by a woman. He has written the greatest slave narrative written by a man.