Dreams of Freedom

Millions of immigrants were entering America’s heartland. Anti-Catholic bigotry and the seething national divide over slavery were about to erupt in mob violence. Thousands of religious zealots could be heard chanting at revival meetings in Upstate New York. Native people were being forced off their lands. In this chaotic setting, twenty-year-old Irish immigrant Aileen O’Malley comes in search of her indentured father and kidnapped siblings, stepping into the epicenter of a growing maelstrom of violence along the Erie Canal.