After a dozen generations. Half-dozen years before Abe Lincoln’s election. Another collision between black dreams and white supremacy.
The Tiffany slave labor camp (aka, Tiffany Plantation) was the largest rice producer in South Carolina’s Colleton District due in large part to the expert river-irrigation management of an eighty-four-year-old man of Nigerian descent named, Posey. Weeks after enslaved Posey saved the Tiffany rice crop from the Great Carolina Hurricane of September 1854, Tiffany’s owner hired James, a non-practicing attorney from Richmond, Virginia, to operate the rice labor camp. Conflict begins when James realizes that Posey’s expertise will be essential to the success a plantation he plans to acquire with ill-gotten money and slave mortgage-backed securities. Meanwhile, the widow Ella, an enslaved nurse, must find a way to salvage her dream of marrying widower Posey.
Matters grow progressively worse when Posey thwarts James’ first attempt to force his attention on Penny, a comely young enslaved mother who is an apprentice learning from Ella. Posey wants to enjoy his retired status earned at Tiffany Plantation and the small fishing boat promised to him as a reward for saving the late rice crop. He vows to resist James’ plans to acquire and carry him off to another plantation. Above all else, Posey is loath to abandon his secret preparation of the minds of young men at Tiffany to fight for freedom in the looming war. What role will Ella’s desire play in Posey’s heart? Pit against James, a white man with money, can Posey succeed and live his dreams?
