When Octavian hears that Lord Dunmore, governor of Virginia, will free all slaves who join his "Ethiopian Regiment," the recent runaway gladly signs up. Upon enlisting, Octavian is reunited with his friend Pro Bono. The two comrades, who once shared a master, are thrilled to meet again, but their joy quickly subsides.

Various diaries, letters, and other manuscripts chronicle the experiences of Octavian, a young African American, from birth to age sixteen, as he is brought up as part of a science experiment in the years leading up to and during the Revolutionary War. It sounds like a fairy tale. He is a boy dressed in silks and white wigs and given the finest of classical educations. Raised by a group of rational philosophers known only by numbers, the boy and his...