The story has no one certain setting since it consists of a series of separate narratives, many of which are attributed to anonymous sources. But because Lester arranges these selections in chronological order, beginning with the initial capture of the slaves and ending with their emancipation, the story begins in Africa in the early seventeenth century, when Europeans are in quest of black people whom they can capture.

After a sea voyage to such places as South Carolina or Virginia, the slaves are auctioned and dispersed to various plantations across the South. Lester follows the destiny of his characters as they experience personal upheavals, and as America faces tremendous change through the 1860s and 1870s with the Civil War, emancipation, and Reconstruction.