Heartbreak Day

Dante Williams is born into slavery in 1852, the same day that "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is published. He isn't freed during the Civil War but is sold to a sugar plantation in Cuba, which continues slavery for another ten years. Nevertheless, he does well and is rewarded with a wife, who on Heartbreak Day, every January 1, is sent out on contract as a cook. Dante flees to New York, learns to read and write, returns to Cuba, and exacts his own form of justice before escaping into the interior to join the maroons, or escaped slaves. His is a tale of crushing betrayal, extreme avarice, and clashing values of slavery and freedom.