In 1900, Weli Wimsey, a mixed-blood Cherokee, hopes his home life will change for the better after he signs up for the Dawes Rolls at the urging of his white wife, Florence. During the questioning, he is stunned to realize how little he does know about himself and his identity as a Cherokee, as the heritage he has taken for granted his whole life comes into question.

In 1903, thirteen-year-old Alma Wimsey, the mixed-blood daughter of Weli and Florence, is manipulated into an arranged marriage so that her white grandfather can exert control over her tribal land allotment and control miles of acreage along the railroad right-of-way through Tulsa. But Alma, just as willful and wily as the old man, rebels against and destroys Josiah's plans of empire.

In 1920, Alma's grown son James, raised as white by his grandmother Florence, has to rethink his life when confronted with his Cherokee mixed-blood relatives, and chooses to stand with them in a time of racial oppression, culminating in the Greenwood Massacre in 1921.