1788. The slave ship 'Africa' set sail from Gambia, West Africa, its berth laden with a profitable but highly perishable cargo-hundreds of men, women and children bound in chains--headed to American shores. Six months later, a handful of survivors would find themselves for sale in Natchez, Mississippi. One of them, a 26-year-old man named Abdul Rahman Ibrahima would make a most remarkable claim to Thomas Foster, the tobacco farmer who purchased him at auction: As an African prince, highly educated and heir to a kingdom, his father would gladly pay gold for his return.