Blood for Pearls - 1498-The First American Genocide

2025 American Writing Awards Winner Category: United States - History

🏆 2025 American Writing Awards Winner — History: United States
🏅 2025 American Writing Awards Finalist — Historical Fiction
📘 2025 Kindle Book Review Awards Semifinalist — Literary Fiction
🌎 2025 Independent Author Network — Book of the Year Awards Finalist

Blood for Pearls: 1498 – The First American Genocide

A Legacy Written in Blood and Pearls…

Blood for Pearls is a sweeping, emotionally powerful historical novel based on real events that transformed the entire Western Hemisphere. Set during the third voyage of Christopher Columbus, this richly detailed narrative unveils the violent birth of the pearl trade in the Caribbean, the rise of Spanish colonialism, and the catastrophic destruction of Indigenous and African communities along the fabled Pearl Coast of Venezuela.

In 1498, Columbus reaches Cubagua—later known as “Rich Island”—a barren speck of land hiding immense wealth beneath the sea. Its shimmering pearl beds ignite one of the earliest resource-driven frenzies of the New World. But behind the beauty of each pearl lies enslavement, forced labor, cruelty, and what historians now regard as the first genocide in the Americas.

At the heart of the story are two unforgettable characters:

• Charaima — a courageous Indigenous Guaiquerí boy captured from his homeland and forced into servitude.
• Dembe — a powerful West African warrior sold into slavery and condemned to the deadly world of pearl diving.

Their lives collide in a world shaped by greed, brutality, and the earliest systems of colonial oppression, Indigenous displacement, and the transatlantic slave trade. Through friendship, endurance, and defiance, they fight to reclaim their humanity in a landscape engineered to destroy it.

⭐ Judges’ Praise & Literary Recognition

In awarding Blood for Pearls top distinction, judges commended the novel’s:

• Historical rigor and research depth

• Narrative execution and emotional power

• Rich portrayal of early colonization, slavery, and cultural destruction

• Literary craftsmanship and immersive world-building

The story’s exploration of the forces that shaped the early Americas—colonial expansion, exploitation, and the origins of the Atlantic slave trade—was recognized as both historically significant and deeply resonant.

🌎 For Readers of Powerful Historical Fiction

This novel is ideal for fans of:

• Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

• The Kingdom of This World by Alejo Carpentier

• The Book of Night Women by Marlon James

• Fiction exploring the African diaspora, Caribbean history, Indigenous resistance, and colonial-era truth-telling

What You’ll Find Inside

• A vivid depiction of Spanish conquest and early colonial brutality

• The origins of the transatlantic slave trade and Pearl Coast genocide

• A powerful narrative of slavery, resilience, cultural survival, and forbidden love

• Meticulous historical detail drawn from archival sources, archaeology, and oral traditions

Available in Kindle eBook, Paperback, Hardcover, and Audible Audiobook.

⭐ A Story That Rewrites the History of the Americas

Blood for Pearls illuminates a chapter of history rarely taught—yet essential to understanding the early shaping of the Western Hemisphere. It is a haunting, immersive, and necessary story about the true cost of wealth in the Age of Exploration and the people whose lives were shattered in its wake.