(I was reminded to ask this by this current thread relating to slavery.)
I’m curious about this movie I saw on PBS a very long time ago, perhaps around 1980. It concerned, as best I can remember, a free African American who was a musician and lived in the North, but somehow got shanghaied to the South and was enslaved. He was a musician–a fiddler, and it turned out that the movie was based on a book. I read the book too, but that was almost as long a time ago and I don’t remember the name of it. One thing I thought was odd was that, while the story was clearly taking place in the early 19th century, people used shillings for money and prices were denominated in shillings.
IIRC the main character does escape in the end, but that’s all I remember of it.
Since nobody else seems to have any idea…
You’re not possibly thinking of either Roots or a 1988 Christmas special called Roots: The Gift, both of which featured Lou Gossett as a slave named Fiddler?
Just a thought.
If not, you could go down to the library and ask both the Reference Librarian and the Children’s Librarian. Children’s librarians are especially adept at identifying books (especially books that were famous enough to have had movies made out of them) from vague descriptions.
As far as the “they were using shillings!” thing…The U.S. didn’t officially stop recognizing “other than dollars and cents” coinage as legal tender until the passage of the legal tender law in 1857. And a number of colonial governments, organizations, and private citizens minted their own money, calling them “shillings”. So yeah, in the early part of the 19th century, it was quite possible to have American people using “shillings” as money.
Could it be “Solomon Northup’s Odyssey” with Avery Brooks?
Confirmed by www.allmovie.com. Thank you.