Nwamgba, a woman living in pre-colonial Southern Nigeria, marries Obierika, a man she loves. However, she is wary of his cousins, Okafo and Okoye. Traditionally, a man marries more than one wife; however, even after Nwamgba has many miscarriages, Obierika is reluctant to take other wives, despite his cousins' urging him to do so. The other woman gossip about and fear Nwamgba, seeing her miscarriages as a curse.

Nwamgba decides herself to find another wife for Obierika. Her best friend, a well-traveled trader named Ayaju, who is of slave descent, suggests a candidate. However, Obierika delays their meeting and eventually Nwamgba successfully gives birth to a child, named Anikwenwa, after the earth god Ani.

When Obierika days one day, Nwamgba suspects his cousins poisoned him. His cousins take his valuable possessions, yams, and goats. Nwamgba thinks about how to secure justice and safety for her and her son.

Ayaju, back from a trading journey, tells Nwamgba about white traders who raised a village, Agueke, when the elders refused to obey them. She talks about their better guns. Ayaju has decided to send her child to a white men's school.

White men of the Holy Ghost Congregation come to Nwamgba's tribe. Ayaju tells about white men setting up a courthouse, where they ruled in favor of a lying man who spoke English over one who didn't. Over the following years, Obierika's cousins take a chunk of Nwamgba's land and the elders side with them. She worries they will sell her son into slavery to get rid of him. She decides he needs to learn English, to take them to court and win, and so she sends him to a white men's school at the Catholic Mission.

Anikwenwa is baptized as Michael. At first, he doesn't like to attend the school, where they harshly discipline children. Nwamgba is alarmed when he is flogged, and she threatens the teacher if he ever does it again. However, over time, Anikwenwa begins to assimilate at the mission and to view his mother and the tribe as savages, refusing to participate in their rituals and telling his mother to cover her breasts. He marries a girl found by the mission, Mgbeke, baptized as Agnes, who sometimes comes to Nwamgba crying and is beaten by members of the tribe for insisting on wearing clothing to Oyi's waters, where one must be naked.

After a few miscarriages, Mgbeke gives birth to a boy and a girl. Though the girl is baptized as Grace, Nwamgba calls her Afamefuna. Nwamgba falls ill after Afamefuna leaves for school, but she returns on her own accord to see her on her deathbed, even though Anikwenwa says she won't.

Afamefuna, also called Grace, goes on to learn about history and to question it. She works as a teacher. She questions how history is taught. She studies abroad across Europe. She becomes an academic. She writes a book called: "Pacifying with Bullets: A Reclaimed History of Southern Nigeria." She divorces her husband, George, another academic who thinks it "misguided of her to write about primitive culture instead of a worthwhile topic like African Alliances in the American-Soviet Tension." She finds great success and, near the end of her life, changes her name from "Grace" to "Afamefuna."