Life in Africa
The imagery of Africa serves a much more important role in the book than just offering exotic settings. The true value of the imagery is not in the African habitat or wildlife; it is Kossula's personal experience of Africa. Life was automatically considered through tribal and spiritual points of view in that cultural context, and because of those parameters Kossula thrived as someone in his community with a naturally insightful point of view. He was not born into power but he was raised to a position of power by his lifelong community and family. In this context, Kossula was deeply honored.
Instability and betrayal
After explaining the way Kossula reigned in his community, helping them to thrive, she explains the betrayal of nearby warring tribes who betray Kossula's community, raiding them in the night and subjecting them to slavery, selling them to merchants who then transport them across the Atlantic to slavery in America. This imagery comes across as the inciting incident, to be sure, but also as a true portrait of horror; in the night, to be assaulted, to have one's loved ones slain and raped, and to be sold into a brutal life of mistreatment and slavery—it is a truly horrifying fate.
Slavery and disenfranchisement
Because of the unique timing of Kossula's life, he was able to witness the slave trade in full swing and indeed be martyred by that trade, and then suffer through a martyrdom of disenfranchisement and exploitation, before ultimately gaining an insight that hundreds of years of slaves could only dream of. At the end of the Civil War, Kossula is freed, beginning a third journey of martyrdom. Is he truly free to be equal to those who were just his master? His story shows that when slavery ends, enfranchisement does not automatically begin. Racism is still a major obstacle in his life.
Violence and death
The worst part of the novel as far as painful insights are concerned is the imagery of violence which not only continues throughout the novel but defines the life of an African slave. It was an atrocious act of violence that landed Kossula's tribe in the grips of American slavery and when they would not or could not work, it is violence that is their punishment. Violence and terroristic threats of violence force slaves into obedience, and when slavery ends, Kossula watches in horror as the law ignores the murder of his own son at the hands of a police officer with no legitimate reason to kill.
