Free State of Jones True Story: What The Movie Changed

Free State Of Jones may be based on a true story, but the film exercises some dramatic license in bringing the story to the big screen. Written and directed by Gary Ross, Free State Of Jones stars Matthew McConaughey as Newton Knight – a Mississippi farmer who deserted the army and revolted against Confederate forces during the American Civil War. Together with fellow farmers and runaway slaves, Knight took over Jones County, Mississippi and declared it seceded from the Confederacy.

Free State Of Jones follows Knight and his fellow rebels through the Civil War to the Reconstruction era and is intercut with a more contemporary plot from the 1940s that sees Knight’s great-grandson Davis Knight put on trial for miscegenation for marrying a white woman. Director Ross apparently spent years researching the film and referred to two main books on the subject of Newton Knight: Victoria E. Bynum’s The Free State Of Jones and The State Of Jones by Sally Jenkins and John Stauffer.

Despite the film’s real-life basis and its director’s extensive research, Free State Of Jones isn’t entirely historically accurate. One major deviation from reality the movie made was in its inclusion of fictional characters. Knight’s nephew Daniel (Jacob Lofland) who died in battle during the opening scenes is a fictional composite character, as are the escaped slave Moses Washington (Mahershala Ali) that joins Knight’s cause and Confederate Colonel Elias Hood (Thomas Francis Murphy).

Though Elias Hood was partly inspired by a real person – Major Amos McLemore – the circumstances of his death were embellished in Free State Of Jones. In real life, McLemore was shot while staying at the home of state representative Amos Deason near Ellisville, Mississippi and although there’s no definitive proof Knight killed him, it’s widely believed he did. In Free State Of Jones, however, Hood is killed off during a dramatic funeral-turned-ambush when Knight strangles him in a completely fabricated scene.

Free State Of Jones also took certain liberties when it came to portraying Knight’s family life. It’s true Knight was married to a white woman, Serena (Keri Russell, The Americans), and entered a common-law marriage with former slave Rachel (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) but the circumstances of those relationships were a tad different in reality. The film portrays Knight as having one child with each wife when he really had nine kids with Serena and five with Rachel. Furthermore, the film paints Rachel as the slave of fictional plantation owner James Eakins (Joe Chrest) but she was actually Knight’s grandfather’s former slave.

As is the case with many films based on a true story, Free State Of Jones features a cherry-picked mix of fact and fiction. Nevertheless, it still paints a compelling picture of a relatively unknown chapter of the Civil War and an interesting character who challenged its status quo.