Onward Christian Soldiers: A Novel of Resistance

By the early 1700s, the central African Kingdom of Kongo was three hundred years old, Christian, and ruled by a royal family that had corresponded with popes and foreign kings for generations. But it has been crumbling from 40 years of war.

Fifteen-year-old Beatriz could hold a map of the universe in her head — but she could not memorize the plant names needed to become a traditional healer. Her mind worked differently. Her visions of a Black saint would make her the most powerful prophet on the continent, or a heretic burned at the stake.

Three decades later, her followers and their descendants were enslaved in the Carolinas, leading the largest slave uprising in American history. Onward Christian Soldiers traces the true story and real events that connect them: from a girl’s vision to sons stolen across the ocean. It’s the kingdom carried in our bodies and an inheritance three empire could not erase.

Available now. Happy Juneteenth!