Her chauffeur is running late in picking her up at Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince. As Marie-Jeanne impatiently paces on the curb, a middle-aged woman approaches her. Finally, the car arrives, and after scolding the driver for being late, Marie-Jeanne escapes from the crazy woman by jumping into the vehicle.

Marie-Jeanne observes the deep poverty, awful living conditions, and general despair on her way through the city. She is both disgusted and fascinated. The driver gets lost, and they are stuck in a traffic jam in the worst part of Port-au-Prince. The car is surrounded by a gang of young men with guns. Marie-Jeanne’s world turns upside down when she finds herself at gunpoint. The kidnappers demand a ransom that money alone cannot buy: she must take a journey back in time and face the reality of her bloody heritage. She will learn how, for generations, her family profited from the slave system and then the sugar industry. She will also learn why she had to leave Haiti in the first place.

Marie-Jeanne becomes a Mulatto house slave on a French sugar plantation. She will learn that her ancestors owned this plantation and owned slaves. She will suffer the brutality of slavery herself and witness the atrocities inflicted on slaves. She will come into contact with an indigenous Taino native and participate in the revolution and the killing of whites. Marie-Jeanne will also accompany a delegation to Paris and appear before the National Assembly to make pleas for people of color. She will return to her parents a changed woman. However, will she have the strength of character to make a difference? Before the end, she must make a difficult decision, one that could change her entire world.