Africa is but a brief setting in Ajeemah and His Son. Most of the action takes place in Jamaica, where the two are forced to labor on plantations. The cruelty of a slave's life is depicted in plain English, allowing the terrible reality of lives without hope to manifest itself in an honest, unsensational way. There is no romantic adventure here; even the strong willed Ajeemah is unable to find a way to fight against his oppressors. The slave society of Jamaica seems to have thought of everything: No matter what hope a slave may have, the slaveowners have a way of anticipating and crushing that hope. For instance, Atu raises a horse by his shack, hoping to run away on it when it is full grown, but nothing a slave owns actually belongs to him, it all belongs to his owner. In addition, no slave is allowed...