In a present-day world where Columbus never sailed to the Americas in 1492, the European colonization timeline was drastically altered. Additionally, there was never an institution of chattel slavery in what is now the U.S. The protagonist, Elijah, lives in a version of the U.S. shaped by centuries of different migration, trade, diplomacy, and conflict patterns - one that still has racial and economic divisions. Still, they have taken on very different forms.