Pennsylvania, 1798. Devout Quaker Daniel Dickinson has lost his wife. When he marries a fifteen-year-old Methodist orphan to help with his five children, the Quakers disown him. Forced out of his community, Daniel moves the family to the Virginia frontier. While determined to hold to his Quaker abolitionism, Daniel is now in a slave state, and is soon the owner of a young boy. This fatal purchase sets in motion a chain of events that will forever change his – and his children’s – lives.