The Homesteader

Jean Baptiste is a hard-working man whose only dream is to make a life for himself in Dakota. However, even as a black pioneer, he is doomed to be separated from the love of his love due to racial laws prohibiting interracial marriages. Thus, to avoid the all-consuming loneliness, he instead decides to get married to Orlean. However, his new father-in-law is a nightmare from hell and although a preacher, all his attention is focused upon him rather than in the service of god. Can Baptiste survive the ordeal or will he succumb to the psychological pressures? The novel is semi-autobiographical and was also adapted into a critically acclaimed silent-era film featuring an all-Black film cast. Extract: "Their cognomen was Stewart, and three years had gone by since their return from Western Kansas where they had been on what they now chose to regard as a «Wild Goose Chase.» The substance was, that as farmers they had failed to raise even one crop during the three years they spent there, so had in the end, therefore, returned broken and defeated to the rustic old district of Indiana where they had again taken up their residence on a rented farm. Welcomed home like the «return of the prodigal,» the age old gossip of «I told you so!» had been exchanged, and the episode was about forgotten…"