The title card of D. W. Griffith's 1911 film His Trust: The Faithful Devotion and Self-Sacrifice of an Old Negro Servant provides some insight into early conceptualisations of the sequel:

The notion of a ‘complete story’ is clearly pitted here against the concept of the sequel. Although both His Trust and His Trust Fulfilled have a clearly defined narrative trajectory involving the resolution of conflict, the sequel restages the conflict/resolution situation of the first production, drawing upon spectators' knowledge of the action of the first film to stimulate engagement with the second. In His Trust, a black slave named George (Wilfred Lucas) is instructed by his master to take care of the master's wife and child while he goes off to war. News of the master's death soon reaches home. A mob burns the house to the ground, despite George's brave efforts to stop them. Saving the young child and the master's sword from the burning wreckage, George tenderly takes the woman and child to live in his run-down shack while he sleeps outside. Griffith's sequel operates as promised as a ‘complete story’ that, implicitly, can be enjoyed without having seen the first film. But the level of enjoyment brought to the viewing experience is enhanced by applying one's knowledge of the first film.