For J. Reginald Culpepper and his succeeding generations, the Jewel of Africa was both a treasure and a curse. Decades before the 1880's South African gold rush, in a youthfully energetic search for riches, young Culpepper journeys to the Limpopo River region in search for gold. When a deadly Venda tribal attack takes the life of his partner and sponsor, Culpepper's only safe refuge is the very mine in which the men had worked to find not gold, but the largest diamond ever discovered. Culpepper survives his ordeal and the diamond he calls the Jewel of Africa forever colors his life as well as the lives of his descendants. "Jewel" is a powerful story of faith, love, the terrible price of great wealth and the struggles against those who would unjustly usurp it.