“James” takes place in 1824, beginning in a Fante village when James Richard Collins is about 17 years old. The Asantes have recently defeated the English at war, but James jokingly warns a group of children they may be the English’s next target. Quey invites James to participate in a conversation where he learns that his maternal grandfather, Asante chief Osei Bonsu, has died, and his death has been blamed on the Fante as a revenge killing for the death of British Governor Charles MacCarthy. James believes it is the fault of the English, who benefit from wars between the tribes. The next day, Quey, Nana Yaa, and James leave to attend the funeral in Kumasi, while Effia stays home with James’s younger siblings.

As they travel north, James’s parents torment each other. James thinks about a time from his childhood when his mother screamed at Quey for giving her son “three white names” (90), which Quey says are “powerful,” insisting James will still be “a prince to our people and to the whites too” (90). He knows his parents are in a loveless, political marriage. On the way north, they stop to stay with David, a friend of Quey’s from England.