Author's Note: Content alert: this chapter depicts an interaction between a colonial man and Native Americans, for the purpose of this story I am choosing to use the term Indian in text.
I made that decision for a few reasons.
First, it would have been the term used at the time, and pretty much the only term that would have been used at the time (well, maybe not the only term, but certainly the only one I feel comfortable using)
However, I would not have chosen historical accuracy over cultural sensitivity, and I would not use the term "indian" if it was unanimously agreed upon to be insulting, however as someone who lives in a mixed race household, I know that opinions on the words Indian, Indigenous, and Native American varies wildly from person to person. Some people like the term Indigenous or Native because they want to be acknowledged as the original people of the land. Some people only like being referred to by their tribe ethnicity like Ojibwe or Chippawa because they want people to acknowledge not all tribes are the same. Some people like the term Indian because they think political correctness is hollow without any actual change. And some people, like the people in my household, actively don't give a shit and use multiple terms interchangeably (including several terms that I'm fairly sure that I, as a white person, am not allowed to use but I digress). However Native culture is not a monolith, and the opinions and beliefs of my family do not reflect the views of all Native Americans anymore than the culture and values of the Ojibwe tribe (my family's tribe) reflect the culture and values of the Quinnipiac Tribe (the people depicted in this story.)
In addition, I acknowledge the early interactions between Natives and settlers were vast, complicated, painful, and nuanced. It was neither the peaceful harmony represented in the propaganda of Thanksgiving, nor was it the one-sided genocide that it later became. Relationships varied from settlement to settlement and tribe to tribe and ranged from tentatively friendly and mutually beneficial to hostile and mutually destructive.
The morning after arriving in the New World, Caleb woke to a stream of sunlight directly in his eyes. A man was disassembling their make-shift shelter and loading the crates onto a cart. Philip moaned and stirred on Caleb's lap.
"You kids best be moving along." The man packing up the crates warned. "This isn't a safe area."
"Do you need any help?" Caleb asked, immediately, seeing the opportunity to find some work that could potentially put food in their bellies.
"Are you looking for a job, boy?"
"I'm looking for anything that might help us survive, sir."
The man considered them for a moment.
"I'm heading further inland to deliver supplies. Come with me, we'll see if we can figure out something to do with you."
Caleb wasn't sure if he liked the idea of going further into the wilderness, but he certainly didn't want to be around any more sailors, so he nodded.
"Make yourself useful and help me load up."
Caleb quickly jumped into action. The crates were just about too heavy for him, but he was determined not to show weakness. He bit his lip and put everything he had into it.
"You were a rich boy back in England, weren't you?" The man said with some amusement after observing Caleb struggling to lift the crates.
Caleb felt his face grow warm, knowing just how obvious his lack of experience with physical labor must be.
"We certainly weren't poor, but we didn't have a bunch of servants or anything. I know how to do things on my own. I can chop wood and haul water. What I don't know yet, I can learn, and I can grow stronger if given the chance."
"You're gonna have to. You won't survive here very long unless you do." They finished loading up the cart and the man finally remembered to introduce himself. "My name's Fuller by the way, William Fuller. And you are?"
"Wittebane. I'm Caleb. My brother is Philip."
"I take it your folks are at the bottom of the Ocean."
Caleb winced.
"That is a very forward way of putting it, but yes, our father died on the way over."
"Bet he wasn't the only one, either."
Caleb felt uneasy remembering how sickness had run through the ship taking far more people than just his father with it. He remembered the storms that washed away half of the crew and sank three of the seven ships that had departed England. He remembered little Timothy Heald, the three-year-old who had made a game out of hiding from his mother and ended up getting crushed to death when a barrel rolled onto his hiding spot. He remembered Rebecca Danvers, who was leaning too far over the railing when a wave hit and sent her toppling into the sea, he remembered her mother jumping after her without a second thought.
"No, he wasn't."
Mr. Fuller put a hand on Caleb's shoulder.
"The ocean is a traitorous Mistress." Something in his voice made Caleb wonder who the man lost.
With the cart loaded up, Mr. Fuller lifted Philip up to sit on top, then he and Caleb got in the front. He reached into his satchel and pulled out two pieces of hardtack. He gave one to each of the brothers. They accepted it gratefully. Hardtack was not tasty nor was it easy to eat, but food was food and they were hungry. Caleb had to suck on the piece for a long time in order to soften it up enough to bite without chipping a tooth, but once he managed to swallow it down it sat heavy in his belly, finally quelling the sharp pains that had been plaguing him since the day before.
The ride itself was rough. There was no road, just a narrow path that seemed to twist and bend. The cart jostled with every rock and tree root they went over. Mr. Fuller didn't seem bothered by this, but Caleb wondered if the cart's wheels were going to fall off in protest.
"What is the name of the settlement you're taking us to?" Caleb asked when he had finished eating.
"Depends on who you ask. When it was first settled they called it Harper's Hollow. But now most folks have taken to calling it Grave Field."
Caleb felt a wave of unease.
"Why did they change it?"
Mr. Fuller shrugged his shoulders.
"Life is a lot harder here than it is in England. A lot of people weren't prepared for that."
Caleb looked back at Philip, his unease growing. He remembered hearing the rumors about Roanoke, the entire colony vanished after three years. Was he bringing Philip to their doom? Mr. Fuller seemed to read Caleb's mind.
"Try not to worry, it won't help. All you can do is act smart and work hard, pray to God the rest of it works out."
They rode in silence for a while after that. Caleb tried to ignore the constant jostling of the cart and the incessant buzzing of mosquitoes. He instead focused on the birdsongs coming from the trees. He recognized some of the calls, but others were foreign to him. If he looked closely he could spot colorful feathers as they darted around the sky. He whistled back, copying the high pitch trill the best he could. There was a pause, and then a reply. Caleb whistled again. After the third call, a small bird with brilliant blue feathers flew out of the foliage and landed next to Caleb on the cart. It hopped a few times, tilted its head at Caleb, pecked at the crumbs of hardtack left on the seat, then flew off.
"That's quite a talent, you got there, boy." Mr. Fuller said.
"Caleb loves birds." Philip said from the back. "He used to be able to get the ones in our garden to eat out of his hand."
After a while they stopped by a stream to rest and water the horses. Caleb and Philip both took off their shoes and stockings to splash around in the cold water. Philip nearly jumped out of his skin when a fish passed by his leg. Caleb tried not to laugh as his brother fell bottom first into the water, he failed. Mr. Fuller pointed out a berry bush and let the boys eat as many as they could pick.
Caleb got the feeling they were waiting for something, and after a while he discovered what that something was.
He was chasing after Philip who, after six months on a ship, was excited to get to run around again. Suddenly, Philip stopped in his tracks. His whole body went stiff as a board as he looked up at something. Caleb slowed to a walk and followed his brother's line of sight.
In the trees stood several tall men with dark skin, black eyes, and long black hair. Philip stumbled backwards, and ran to hide behind Caleb. Caleb did not know what to do. He had heard about Indians, the wild men that lived in the woods, but part of him thought they were like boogiemen, tales parents told children to keep them from wandering too far from home.
Mr. Fuller was not surprised. Instead he called out to them in words Caleb didn't understand. The men looked over to him and returned the greeting.
They began talking familiarly in a discordant mix of English and the other language. One of the men pointed at Caleb and Philip.
"William's sons?"
"No, friends." Mr. Fuller replied.
The Indian grunted, and looked closer at the boys. Philip hid, but Caleb was just as curious about the strange man as the strange man was about him. He stood tall and squared his shoulders, trying to look bigger than he was. The Indian was apparently impressed by this, he patted Caleb's head.
"Strong boy." He said, then he continued in the other language.
Mr. Fuller shook his head and replied. The Indian looked disappointed but not angry. Caleb wondered what he had asked.
Then the Indians gathered around the cart. Mr. Fuller opened some of the crates to show off the contents, the Indians produced baskets and bundles of their own and showed him what they had. Caleb watched as the men negotiated. By the time they were done, each Indian was carrying a crate, and Mr. Fuller was securing several baskets to the cart.
Mr. Fuller bid the Indians goodbye, as they were leaving the man who had taken a liking to Caleb slapped him on the back and said something. Caleb couldn't understand the words, but his tone was friendly. Caleb smiled and waved him goodbye.
Only after they had been gone for several minutes did Philip emerge from behind Caleb's back.
"That was horrible!" he said, his big brown eyes wide with fright.
"I thought they seemed nice."
"Nice?!" Philip sounded completely affronted. "They were terrible! They were half-naked with no shame at all! And did you see the animal pelts they wore? It's just like that story Nan told us about the man who put on the wolf skin so at night he could run through the villages and eat children! And that one touched you! What if he would have hurt you?"
"He wasn't going to hurt either of you." Mr. Fuller said as he finished securing the baskets. He lifted Philip up and put him back on the cart.
"Then what was he doing?" Philip demanded.
"He was asking to bring Caleb back to his tribe."
"What?" Caleb said as he climbed back into his seat. Mr. Fuller took the reins and they continued onward. "Why?"
"A disease ran through their village a couple of years ago, Smallpox if I remember correctly. A lot of children died. That man lost his only son. He was impressed by Caleb. He wanted to adopt him."
"No!" Philip cried out.
"Don't you worry, I told him you needed a chance to at least see Harper's Hollow before deciding something like that. As he was leaving he was encouraging you to think about it. Honestly, it's not a bad offer. They've taken in a few white orphans, and they seem to treat them well. The Indians know more about surviving here than we do."
"Live amongst the savages!?" Philip sounded completely mortified. "I heard that Indians attack settlements and take people as slaves."
Mr. Fuller shrugged.
"Sometimes. Sometimes English men attack their villages and take their people as slaves. I've met my fair share of nasty blights, and I've met some mighty honorable ones. Same can be said for any kind of man, I suppose. Some are going to help you out, some are going to stab you in the back the second you turn around."
Caleb thought of the sailor from the day before, and all the people who turned a blind eye to his struggle. Those were his own countrymen, yet not a single one of them stepped up to help. Perhaps living with the Indians wouldn't be that bad.
"You expect us to believe Godless men can be honorable? How can they understand the morals and virtues of the Bible if they can't even read it?"
"Have you ever thought it might be possible to be honorable without reading the Bible?"
"That's blasphemy!"
Caleb sighed, how could he even think about going off to live with the Indians. Philip would never agree to go. He returned to looking for birds in the trees and allowed himself to daydream about joining the wild men, wearing only animal pelts and living amongst the trees. It was quite an exciting story.
After a few more hours they passed a large stone arch, then they reached a clearing in the trees. They started seeing headstones long before they saw the palisade of the settlement. Caleb tried to count them, but he lost track. Grave Field began to make a lot more sense.
Mr. Fuller must have noticed Caleb's uneasiness. "The people here weren't prepared last winter. This winter, they will be. Entire families were completely wiped out. It's a damn tragedy, but it also means houses and tools were left abandoned. No one will stop you from moving into one."
Author's Note: Hope you are enjoying it so far. I decided to give Gravesfield a slightly different name in its early history because realistically, that is how place names tend to work. Sometimes a place will be named after a person, but a lot of times things end up being named after things or features associated with it and then over time modified by people saying it over and over until it becomes comfortable to say.
The other historical note I want to point out is the Indian man asking to adopt Caleb, this actually was a pretty common practice after European diseases swept through the tribes. There is a really good Dear America book called Standing in the Light that I can't recommend enough if you like this time period and want to learn more. For many tribes children are considered sacred and so orphans are almost always adopted right away. This actually provides a pretty devasting obstacle when it comes to Blood Quantum laws determining whether you can be considered actually Native or not. Because there are people who have grown up on reservations their whole lives, learned Native culture their whole life, been members of the tribe for generations but legally can't be considered part of the tribe because they have too much white blood in them, which can lead to a lot of feelings of rejection and makes it much more difficult for the tribe to grow. Social justice warriors also, however well intentioned, can be incredibly hurtful. I know my platonic life partner always feels nervous dressing our very ginger baby in the regalia that her dad's family makes for her because she is afraid someone will call her out for cultural appropriation in spite of the fact our baby is, infact nearly half native and actively wants to be a part of her daddy's culture.
This is starting to turn a little more ranty than historical, but I figured it is just as important to include modern day ramifications of the history as well as the history itself.
I am not sure whether or not the Native characters are going to be recurring depends entirely on whether or not I can find historically accurate Quinnipiac names, because as much as I love the idea of Caleb continuing to foster a friendship with the man who was impressed with him, I don't want to just continue calling him "the Indian" nor do I want to just make up a generic sounding nature name like "Tall Tree" or something like that. Again, Native culture is not a monolith and while there are some tribes that have nature sounding names, there are a lot who do not.
Please leave a comment or share if you like what you're reading so far. It would mean the world to me