It isn't based on any actual people, though of course the society and conditions depicted in the film are based on fact. There certainly were real life cases of freed slaves who afterwards worked to free others, often risking being recaptured and killed to do so. And the grim conditions on the Candie plantation are, if anything, less appalling than could be found in many real-llife accounts of plantation life.

In Django Unchained Jamie Foxx plays a former slave who, with the help of the man who buys and frees him (played by Christoph Waltz) becomes a bounty hunter. He ends up going to the plantation where his wife is enslaved, and trying to outwit the sadistic owner (played by Leonardo di Caprio).

Tarantino said he wanted to create a film called a 'southern' - with elements of the old-style Western and with the same kind of popular appeal, but addressing parts of America's past, like slavery, that people often prefer not to talk about.