It premiered on BBC One on 18 December 2018 and aired in the US on PBS on January 31, 2021 as part of the network's long-running series Masterpiece.
The story is set in early-nineteenth-century colonial Jamaica, focusing on the final years of slavery on the island, including the Christmas Rebellion of 1831, and the transition to freedom that took place after its abolition in 1833.
Hayley Atwell plays Caroline Mortimer, the owner of the plantation, who eventually marries an idealistic overseer, Robert Goodwin (Jack Lowden).
The cast also included Jordan Bolger, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Gordon Brown, Ayesha Antoine, Leo Bill, Lenny Henry, and Madeleine Mantock in supporting roles.
The Guardian's Lucy Mangan awarded it four stars out of five, calling it "a beautiful, moving, horrifying adaption of [July's] unsimple tale, that honours the source and its subject.