Newton Knight, a soldier in the
Confederate Army,
deserts after learning of the
Twenty Negro Law and witnessing the death of his nephew Daniel during the
Second Battle of Corinth. Knight brings Daniel's body home to
Ellisville and reconnects with his wife, Serena. He befriends Rachel, a slave at a nearby plantation, who has
secretly learned to read, after she treats his infant son's illness. Newton's disenchantment with the Confederacy grows after he learns that soldiers have been seizing crops, livestock, and supplies from his neighbors, even though most are already struggling to feed their families. Newton threatens a Confederate officer, Lieutenant Barbour, at gunpoint; when Confederate
militiamen are ordered to arrest him for treason, Newton is bitten by one of their
attack dogs while trying to escape.
Abolitionist-oriented Aunt Sally, a sympathetic community leader, has her servant George take him into the swamps, where he is put under the protection of runaway slave Moses Washington and
his followers and is nursed back to health. After the
fall of Vicksburg, Confederate deserters flock into Jones County. Newton persuades his neighbors to provide him with weapons and organizes the deserters and slaves into a well-disciplined
Southern Unionist militia. When they begin ambushing military convoys to take back their property, Barbour and his commanding officer, Colonel Hood, order their farms to be torched. Serena is forced to flee with her son as Newton cannot protect them. Hood offers a full pardon to any Unionist who agrees to rejoin the Confederate Army, but when some of Newton's men ask to be pardoned, Hood goes back on his word and orders them to be hanged. The Unionists, appearing to accept defeat, persuade Hood to let them hold a funeral for the deceased under military guard. Suddenly,
sharpshooters hidden under the church and in the coffins fire on the Confederates as the mourners take pistols from their coats and join in. The soldiers are killed, and Newton strangles Hood to death with his belt. Barbour escapes, but he and the remaining troops in the county are driven out by the Unionists, who declare the establishment of the "
Free State of Jones". Swearing allegiance to the
United States Federal Government, the Unionists manage to defend their territory against Confederate reinforcements for the remainder of the war. Newton continues to fight racial inequality after the war. He helps free Moses' son from an "
apprenticeship" to Rachel's former master. After Moses is
lynched while
registering freedmen to vote, Newton is seen participating in a march of voters to the polls while they sing "
John Brown's Body". He eventually reconciles with Serena and has a son with Rachel. Since they are unable to legally marry, Newton arranges for Rachel to be deeded a parcel of his land to farm upon his death. The film ends with Newton's great-grandson, Davis Knight, being arrested under Mississippi's
anti-miscegenation laws in 1948. Since he has one-eighth of black ancestry, the law considers him to be black, and he therefore is ordered to annul his marriage to his white wife, which he refuses to do. He is sentenced to five years in prison for refusing to leave the state, but his conviction is reversed by the
Mississippi Supreme Court in 1949, rather than risk the law being declared unconstitutional in light of the emerging
civil rights movement. ==Cast==