An Algerian university professor and former prisoner of France struggles with the symbolic implications of getting advice from an elite French visiting professor.

The Chief of the Chickasaw tribe brings his nephew to the United States capitol to be judged by a reimagined Jacksonian era President after the mysterious death of a white man on Chickasaw property. The rest of his people follow to witness the trial, and the President quickly becomes overwhelmed and avoidant of the droves of indigenous peoples he looks down upon, and goes to great lengths to clear them from the capitol.