1444 The Forgotten Years Dakar, Senegal

Description

Imagine being betrayed by the one man you trusted most. Imagine your own uncle selling you into slavery for profit.
At just ten years old, Demba Idrissa is torn from his family and forced onto one of the first Portuguese slave ships to cross the Atlantic. He survives the horrors of the Middle Passage, the cruelty of bondage, and years in a foreign land where every sunrise is a struggle to stay alive.

Then the impossible happens.

The very man who bought him comes to respect his honesty, intelligence, and unwavering character so deeply that he grants Demba his freedom. With papers of emancipation in his hands, Demba is given the chance that almost no enslaved child ever received.

He can return home.

Yet freedom is only the beginning.
Across an ocean lies the man whose betrayal destroyed his childhood, shattered his family, and changed the course of his life. How many others did his uncle sell? Will Demba seek justice, revenge, forgiveness, or something far greater? Can one man confront the evil that sold him without becoming consumed by it?

Inspired by the earliest years of the Atlantic slave trade, 1444: The Forgotten Years is an unforgettable historical novel of betrayal, survival, redemption, and the resilience of the human spirit. It is the story of one boy whose journey through history reveals how courage can outlive family cruelty, and how hope can survive even the darkest chapter of human history.