It's the year 1838. Pieter de Witt, a young man and progeny of the nation that will later be called the Afrikaner, finds himself in trouble with the British forces of the Cape Colony. Accused of "hunting without a licence", he is arrested. He escapes and flees to the North to search for his own Canaan, along with thousands of other trekkers. Along the way he meets an English missionary and the two become involved in a heated struggle between a Mpondo girl and her fiancé who wants to murder her because of her love for another man. Pieter unwittingly becomes involved in the dispute and and is soon back on the road to Canaan with Eerste (First), his "first" servant, a few steps behind him. En route he also finds himself a wife and so the three of them eventually arrive in the area close to Weenen, where Pieter measures out his farm, and christens the land Donkerland.