Part One, Pages 3-36 Summary

Octavian begins to recall his life as a young slave. He and his mother, Cassiopeia, live with a number of scientists and academics that refer to themselves as the Novanglian College of Lucidity. They operate out of Boston in the pre-revolutionary days of America. Octavian does not know his father. The house and college are run and owned by a man named Mr. Gitney, who refers to others in the household, with the exception of Octavian and his mother, as a series of numbers. Gitney himself is 03-01, according to this system. Octavian is well educated and does not even realize that he is technically the property of someone else and not free. He is given many fine things and taken excellent care of, but forbidden to enter one room in particular, that even bears his picture...