Atabeya is a Lucayan girl Indian living on Grand Bahama Island in the early 16th century. The Spanish have been capturing Lucayans in the Bahamas for slaves to replace Taino labor 0n Hispaniola and Puerto Rico. Atabeya’s people are threatened when a Spanish slave ship wrecks on their shores. She and her lover, Yocahu, join other young people in an attempt to drive the slavers off their island, which fails. They are captured and enslaved. Atabeya is taken to Hispaniola to work as a domestic for Ponce del Leon’s helmsman, a person of Moorish and African ancestry from Cadiz. She becomes pregnant and leaves to join Ponce’s household on Puerto Rico, where she warns his family of a Carib raid. She is taken by Ponce to Spain where she meets the royal court and experiences a very different place. Returning to the Caribbean they are attacked by Carib warriors while collecting water at Guadeloupe. Atabeya is captured and fears being eaten by what she has heard are cannibals. Instead she experiences a remarkable reunion .