The novel’s Prologue describes a chain of islands along the southeastern coast of America, collectively known as the Sea Islands. The landscape of these islands is hot and marshy, rich with flora and fauna that makes them attractive destinations for new settlers. As various ancient peoples occupy the islands, their names change many times, but they are collectively known as the Sea Islands.

Enslaved people from West Africa are eventually brought to the Sea Islands to work on rice and cotton plantations. The white enslavers stay away from the islands due to the heat and abundance of dangerous animals, preferring to live in nearby Charleston, South Carolina. Despite their adverse circumstances, the new residents of the Sea Islands learn to “survive and thrive […] raising their families, praying to their gods, [and] holding sacred the ways of the lands from which they had come” (3). Their resultant culture and language, a blend of many Indigenous and African influences, is known as Gullah or Geechee.

An elderly woman named Miz Emma Julia is awakened from a nap on her porch by the approach of four children: Elizabeth Peazant, her little brother Ben, her cousin Clarice, and their friend Pap.