The conflict between Ethiopia and Italy began soon after Italy arrived on the Red Sea coast to take over the port of Massawa in 1885 at the invitation of the British. Khartoum had fallen to the forces of the Madhi and the British were hastily evacuating Egyptian and Turkish forces from the Sudan and this Red Sea port. Soon after the Italians arrived they began to annex territory around Massawa and by 1890 that territory became the colony of Eritrea. By this time the scramble for African colonies was at its height and Italy then turned its sights on Ethiopia just south of its new colony. The prelude to war saw many Italian incursions into Ethiopian territory and when diplomacy failed to resolve disputes between the two countries Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1895 with the aim of making the country an Italian colony. Emperor Menelik rallied his forces to repel the invaders and in the final battle that ended the war the Italians suffered a disastrous defeat at Adwa on March 1, 1896.

The great imperialist Cecil Rhodes had one overriding aim in Central Africa: to expand the British Empire using the wealth he gained from the gold and diamond fields in South Africa. However, one African king stood in his way. He was Lobengula, king of the Ndebele, who carried on negotiations with Europeans seeking mining concessions in his territory and made the fatal error of signing a concession with agents of Rhodes whose provisions were detrimental to his kingdom. Upon having them explained to him, he dispatched emissaries to London in an effort to stop the British government from recognizing this treaty. One of his emissaries was Babayane who would later play a major role in the uprising that would follow. This diplomatic effort to London failed and white settlers from the Cape entered the territory in 1890. Three years later these white settlers turned on Lobengula and destroyed the Ndebele kingdom and in so doing gained control of this vast territory north of the Transvaal. Lobengula died while fleeing into exile. In March 1896 the Ndebele began an uprising, later joined by the Shona, in a futile effort to regain their land stolen from them by Rhodes.

African Americans were under oppression no less onerous than that of Africans on the continent. It was the period of post-Reconstruction in the south and every effort was being made by whites from intimidation to murder to strip African Americans of rights won after the close of the Civil War. By 1896 these rights were practically gone in state after state in the Old Confederacy and accommodation to this new order under Booker T. Washington would follow. George Washington Carver, the noted African American scientist, arrived at Tuskegee University in 1896 and he would remain there for the rest of his life. This historical novel weaves these conflicts together on a broad canvas that takes the reader back to these times and places, introduces the characters that played a central role in these conflicts and recounts the struggle that African people waged to maintain their freedom.