56 pages 1 hour read

Esi Edugyan

Washington Black

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2018

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Part 1, Chapters 1-3

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1: “Faith Plantation, Barbados, 1830”

Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary

The novel begins on Faith Plantation, a sugar cane plantation on the island of Barbados in 1830. The protagonist, Wash, is 10 or 11 years old when his first master dies. Along with Wash’s friend and surrogate mother Big Kit, Wash watches the coffin containing the old master leave the plantation and wonders what is to come.

Instead of selling Faith Plantation, the former master’s nephew inherits it and travels to the plantation to oversee its operations. The new master, Erasmus, disembarks from his carriage for the first time, and his cruel countenance frightens Wash. Having grown up a slave on a plantation, Wash is already wise to the ways of the world and knows “the nature of evil,” particularly when it comes to white masters (5). Narrating the events of the chapter from a later date, Wash believes that it was this moment that Big Kit “determined, calmly and with love, to kill herself and me” (5).

Part 1, Chapter 2 Summary

Wash describes his upbringing and relationship with Big Kit. At five years old, he was sent to live with Big Kit and other slaves in a “brutal hut” in the slave quarters of the plantation (6).

Related Titles

By Esi Edugyan

Study Guide

logo

Half-Blood Blues

Esi Edugyan

Half-Blood Blues

Esi Edugyan