Is Washington Black based on a true story?

Washington Black is airing on Hulu and Disney Plus and the epic adventure drama follows a the title character who was forced to flee his homeland following a tragic death.

The series, which was released on July 23, is set in Barbados, where George Washington "Wash" Black was born into slavery.

Taking place in the early 1800's, the story sees Wash come under the wing of Medwin Harris (played by Sterling K. Brown), who also a traumatic childhood as a Black refugee in Nova Scotia.

The series is an adaptation of a historical novel by Esi Edugyan, and the author opened up about what inspired the original narrative.

She initially set out to write a novel about the Tichborne case, one of the longest-running criminal trials in British history.

However, she found the characters "took on their own realities". Telling Black History Month: " I understand now that it was the voice of its narrator that interested me, the complicated position he found himself in, racially, socially, intellectually.

"This is what I took from that initial idea. And out of this grew a story about a boy of sensitivity and intelligence, seeking his foothold in a world where there can be no real belonging for him.

"Looking back at my previous novels, I see now how they are both preoccupied with aftermaths, with the reconstructing of lives after great suffering. Washington Black, as a post-slavery narrative, is no different. But it became what it is only very gradually, and on its own terms."

The story was inspired by the famous Britain case of the Tichborne Claimant. Roger Tichbourne was a British aristocrat from a wealthy family, was shipwrecked and presumed dead.

Once his mother discovered a man in Australia claimed to be the lost Tichbourne son, she sent Andrew Bogle, a former slave of the Tichborne plantation, to retrieve the man.

Victor Valley College explained: "Andrew Bogle's life with the Tichbornes serves as the point of inspiration for Washington Black, with Edugyan creating a narrative of Bogle's life through the character, George Washington Black (played by Ernest Kingsley Jr), by capturing the complexity of the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized as well as depicting the tumultuous transition of becoming your own person."

The book goes into incredible detail about science, especially 19th century flying machines, and the author spoke out about the research she did.

"Richard Holmes - one of the great historians of the possible - wrote a fascinating overview of hot-air ballooning called Falling Upwards. That was a trove of information," she explained to Black History Month.

She admitted she was fascinated by historical science, from discoveries and inventions to the dismissal of one theory in favour of a better one.

Washington Black airs on Disney Plus and Hulu