The novel is set during 1824–25, ten years after 1812: The Rivers of War. The United States, under the influence of Sam Houston, the Commissioner for Indian Affairs, has signed a treaty with the southern Indian tribes, establishing a confederacy of chiefdoms in the territory that in our time line is composed of the State of Arkansas west of the Red River, and the State of Oklahoma without the Panhandle, roughly the boundaries of the historical Arkansas Territory.