Escaping religious persecution in England in 1611, Edmund Steel flees his native England to find freedom in the New World by joining Captain Smith's brave journey to Virginia. Steed produces a remarkable family, who lives parallel the settling and forming of the nation. And their lives in turn touch on so many others: Edwards Paxmore, his Quaker family, and abolitionist wife; the slave Cudjo and his wife Eden, who achieve freedom and become major figures in their community; pirates, planters, and famous politicians, all struggling through the Revolutionary War, the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown, and the fascination weave of history as it was lived by Americans.