Peace in Our Time

... they made peace with [Massasoit] (which hath now continued this twenty-four years) in these terms:
1. That neither he nor any of his, should injure or do hurt to any of their people.
2. That if any of his did any hurt to any of theirs, he should send the offender, that they might punish him.
3. That if anything were taken away from any of theirs, he should cause it to be restore, and they should do the like to his.
4. If any did unjustly war against him, they would aid him; if any did war against them, he should aid them.
5. He should send to his neighbors confederates, to certify them of this, that they might not wrong them, but might be likewise comprised in the conditions of peace.
6. That when their men came to them, they should leave their bows and arrows behind them.

-William Bradford, "Of Plymouth Plantation"

The Peace Treaty of 1621 - John Carver and Massasoit agreed to a treaty containing only a few essential and enforceable conditions:
(1) Indians and Pilgrims vowed not to injure each other, and if it occurred the leader of one group would surrender the instigator to the other for punishment.
(2) Indians and Pilgrims would not steal from one another.
(3) If either party was engaged in an unjust war, the other party would aid them.
(4) All the Wampanoag tribes would honor the peace treaty.

"Pilgrims and Wampanoag: The Prudence of Bradford and Massasoit," by Robert Jennings Heinsohn, Ph.D

While researching this journal entry, I was really surprised to find the above quoted passage by Dr. Heinsohn! The passage he references is one in which I wrote several notes in the margin of my Norton Anthology -- but none of my notes matches what Dr. Heinsohn says. Why is my reading of the text that different from his? Did he read the same text I did? I wondered if he was a Puritan Scholar and his quote represented the prevailing view of the 1621 agreement, so I decided to google Dr. Heinsohn. Turns out he's not a Puritan Scholar, after all (or at least not professionaly), he's an Environmental Engineer, and that means I can disagree with him with relative impunity. So, what was I waiting for? Here goes:

(Note: In Bradford's agreement, "he," "his," or "him" refers to Massasoit and his people, while "they," "them," or "theirs" usually refers to the Puritans. (I say "usually" because Bradford sometimes loses track of his pronoun's referents, as I'll point out later.))

First off, Heinsohn combines #1 & #2 from Bradford's agreement. Heinsohn writes:

(1) Indians and Pilgrims vowed not to injure each other, and if it occurred the leader of one group would surrender the instigator to the other for punishment.

But that's not what Bradford said. Bradford wrote:

1. That neither he nor any of his, should injure or do hurt to any of their people.
2. That if any of his did any hurt to any of theirs, he should send the offender, that they might punish him.

Bradford's agreement doesn't say that the two groups "vowed not to injure each other," but rather that Massasoit & his people vow not to injure the Puritans, and that if an Indian does injure a Puritan, that Indian will be turned over to the Puritans for punishment. The Puritans did not agree not to harm the Indians, or to turn over their own people to the Indians for punishment.

Secondly, Heinsohn's claim that "If either party was engaged in an unjust war, the other party would aid them" just doesn't hold water. Bradford's agreement says: "If any did unjustly war against him, they would aid him; if any did war against them, he should aid them." Notice the very careful choice of words and the difference between "him" and "them." It really promises that the Puritans will help the Indians in war if and only if the war being waged against Massasoit & his people is "unjust" (in the Puritans' opinion), but Massasoit promises to help the Puritans no matter the reason for the war (that is, whether or not the Indians think it is just).

Heinsohn's third claim, that "all the Wampanoag tribes would honor the peace treaty" is closest to the truth. According to Bradford (whose use of "them" and "they" is a bit confusing, but not overly much), Massasoit does promise to "certify" to his neighbor tribes that he has entered into this agreement & ask them to honor it, too.

Finally, Bradford continues with point #4, which Heinsohn doesn't even mention. Bradford's pronouns are harder to follow here, so I will do the bracket thing to try to clear it up a bit: Massasoit promises "That when [the Indian] men came to [the Puritans], [the Indians] should leave their bows and arrows behind them." In other words, the Indians would come to the Puritans unarmed. The Puritans make no such promise; they are free to approach the Indians while carrying guns or other arms. That doesn't sound like a very fair agreement to me! (However, it makes me chuckle that there seems to be a loophole here: the Indians have promised only to "leave their bows and arrows behind them," but that doesn't mean they can't carry guns themselves! I wonder how that one slipped past Bradford's company?)

So, I don't know what the good Dr. Heinsohn was reading, but it certainly wasn't the agreement that Bradford reported. I wonder where he got his interpretation?



ADDENDUM: When I was doing my research for my journal on Anne Bradstreet, I ran across this bit about William Bradford's wife:

other women refused to come (such as the wife of the Reverend John Wilson, who had to return to England himself to persuade her) or took one look at the glorious New World and threw themselves overboard (the wife of William Bradford)

- Paula Kopacz, "To Finish What's Begun: Anne Bradstreet's Last Words"

Then, when doing research for this journal, I came across both of these:

"In the next four months, half of them would be dead," we learn. And yet, said Bradford, who would lose his beloved wife Dorothy when she fell over the side of the anchored Mayflower and drowned, "what could now sustain them but the spirit of God and His Grace?"

- Jeffrey Lord, "The Answerable Courage of William Bradford," The American Spectator

On December 7, 1620, before the colony was established, Bradford's wife died. Dorothy Bradford died while the Mayflower was at anchor in Provincetown Harbor. However, there are no contemporary accounts of the circumstances of her death, only a later mention of drowning by Cotton Mather in Magnalia Christi Americana. Bradford included only brief mention of her passing in his own writing. There is a widely circulated story that she committed suicide because the Mayflower was a moored ship, but this is derived from a work of historical fiction published in the June, 1869 issue of Harper's New Monthly Magazine. This claims that they had decided to leave their young son in the Netherlands, and his wife was so stricken with sadness that she took her own life. Regardless of this fictional treatment, there is no proof of suicide. Although it is more likely to be referred to as an accident of her falling off the front side of the ship.

-Wikipedia, "William Bradford"

What's the truth here? Did Dorothy Bradford kill herself out of despair, or was it an accidental death? Bradford never mentions her in the reading we were given and Norton, of course, doesn't deign to say anything about it (Norton doesn't even tell us her *name*!!).

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It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma...

In critic's hands beware thou dost not come,
And take thy way where yet thou art not known;
If for thy father asked, say thou hadst none;
And for thy mother, she alas is poor,
Which caused her thus to send thee out of door.

-- Anne Bradstreet, "The Author to Her Book"

Anne Bradstreet was especially fond of poetry, which she had begun to write herself; her works were kept private though, as it was frowned upon for women to pursue intellectual enlightenment, let alone create and air their views and opinions. She wrote for herself, her family, and close circle of educated friends, and did not intend on publication. One of her closest friends, Anne Hutchinson, who was also a religious and educated woman had made the mistake of airing her views publicly, and was banished from her community.

-- from the biography at AnneBradstreet.com

... but perhaps there is a key, after all.

In class today, we talked about Bradstreet's poem "The Author to Her Book" and how it could be read as either a humble attempt to down-play her own talent and worth as an author, or as a brilliantly clever way to *seem* humble while really taking pride in her work. We talked a little bit about the historical context, in that women of the time - and especially Puritan women - were not to be outspoken or to be seen to be usurping a man's public authority in any way.

What we didn't talk about was specifics such as Anne Hutchinson and the influence that may have had on Bradstreet.

In our modern times, we tend to lose sight of the *serious* consequences that women faced for violating patriarchical rules. It wasn't like today where a woman would just be labeled with "bitch" or "harridan" or "shrew" but would still be legally allowed to participate in society, even if some people didn't like her (and yes, I know there's more that can be - and is - done to women who buck the patriarchy in some ways). We forget that in Bradstreet's time, women were legally the property of their fathers, then of their husbands, and finally of their sons or other male relative. A woman did not exist as a separate legal individual; she could not vote; she could not own property. In such circumstances, to be banished from her community was practically a death sentence.

Coming so soon on the heels of Hutchinson's banishment, this must have seemed a very real and present danger to Bradstreet.

In light of this context, I think "Upon the Burning of Our House" is especially interesting, starting with the title. She claims part ownership of the house: it is "our house," not "my husband's house." She refers to "my goods," "my pleasant things." When speaking of herself in the third person, that is, to "my heart," she says, "thy wealth." She also asserts that she will have her own house in heaven ("Thou has an house on high") rather than considering herself as part of her husband's eternal entourage.

Yes, it's true that the use of "my" here can be taken to be in contrast to "God's," but I also think it can be read in a feminist light, as a claim to equality with men. Was she as subtlely subversive as Phillis Wheatley?

... which leads me to this: When searching for pictures to include in this post, I was really struck by the similarities of this portrait of Anne Bradstreet:


to this one of Phillis Wheatley:


Back when we were studying Wheatley & Equiano, we talked a bit about the way each of them were portrayed in, well, portraiture. I brought up the point that Wheatley is shown with her hand raised to her face, which can be taken to be a pensive gesture, the artist peering into her mind, so to speak, but which can also be taken as hiding her face from the public view. This may have been a way of showing her (Wheatley, a black slave woman) in a posture that would be taken by her audience (mostly educated white men) as non-threatening. I think it's interesting that Bradstreet, a Puritan wife and mother, is shown in the same posture, one that shows her as humble and modest. Bradstreet's Wikipedia page says, "The purpose of the publication [in London of The Tenth Muse] appears to have been an attempt by devout Puritan men (i.e. Thomas Dudley, Simon Bradstreet, John Woodbridge) to show that a godly and educated woman could elevate the position held by a wife and mother, without necessarily placing her in competition with men." When was this portrait made? Was it made to go with the book, or perhaps a later edition?

ADDENDUM: I feel like a broken record, but Norton is being weird again with Anne Bradstreet's work. They are usually "really good" (read: "somewhat obsessive") about pointing out references to the Bible in the authors included in their anthology. They will often include a reference for a single word or short phrase, or even a concept. For example, in "Here Follows Some Verses Upon the Burning of Our House," line 14 says "I blest His name that gave and took," which has a footnote reading, "'The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord' (Job 1.21)."

So I was really surprised to get to the end of "To My Dear Children" and find this sentence (which is a separate paragraph from the rest of the text): "Now to the King, Immortal, eternal and invisible, the only wise God, be honor, and glory for ever and ever, Amen." Where is the footnote telling the reader that this is word-for-word 1 Timothy 1:17 in the King James Version? (also, did Norton "correct" her spelling from "honour" to "honor"?)

I don't know what to make of Norton's inconsistency in this regard. Is there a deeper meaning, or is it just a symptom of shoddy editing?

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Context is Everything

5. The devil stands ready to fall upon them, and seize them as his own, at what moment God shall permit him. They belong to him; he has their souls in his possession, and under his dominion. The Scripture represents them as his goods, Luke 11.12. The devils watch them; they are ever by them at their right hand; they stand waiting for them, like greedy hungry lions that see their prey, and expect to have it, but are for the present kept back.

--Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angy God

9 And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.
10 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
11 If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent?
12 Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?
13 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?

--Luke 11:9-13, King James Version

I've been a church musician for 20 years. I've heard a lot of sermons in my time, everything from Baptists, Charismatics, Methodists, Brethren, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Catholics, etc. Pretty much everything from across the spectrum of Christianity. I'm familiar with most of the denominations' interpretations of various points of Scripture, and have heard any number of sermon illustrations used to, well, illustrate the point.

Out of all of those sermons, Jonathan Edwards' Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God stands out to me as the one that wins first prize in the Let's Take Scripture Out of Context contest.

Edwards does, of course, use a lot of Scripture references in his sermon. That's normal; that's The Way It's Done. What bothers me is the way he uses the Scripture.

Sometimes, he names the passage and then quotes from it, as in:

"... and when he does fall, he falls at once without warning: which is also expressed in Psalm 73.18-19: 'Surely thou didst set them in slippery places; thou castest them down into destruction: How are they brought into desolation as in a moment!'"

This is a perfectly normal and reasonable use of Scripture.

The problem comes when he names the passage, but then doesn't quote from it. Case in point, the quote at the top of this post. When I got to that point in the reading, I wrote in my book, "WTF? How the heck does Luke 11:12 'represent them [sinners] as his [the devil's] goods'???" Edwards has taken this passage in which Jesus is reassuring his audience that God loves them and would do anything for them, and has twisted it into ... something that doesn't even make sense here!

It all reminds me of a story I heard (ironically enough) in a sermon preached at a Brethren church in which the pastor was admonishing the congregation not to take Scripture out of context. He told the story of a Puritan preacher way back in Cromwell's time who, for whatever reason, didn't like the ladies' hairstyle of the time, the top-knot. He decided to preach against it and chose as his text Matthew 24:17, and asserted that Jesus himself had decried the hairstyle, saying, "Top-knot come down!"

Of course, the problem is that Matthew 24:17 really says, "Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house." It's in the middle of a passage warning about the coming trials and tribulations of the Jewish people. Nothing about hair or hairstyles at all. ScriptureReferenceFAIL!

Context is everything.

***

I mentioned to one of my classmates that I had included in my journal a pic representing Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God done in Lego. This, of course, led to me promising to provide a link to the Brick Testament. I especially recommend Genesis and Revelation as being extraordinarily well-done.

NOTE: The Brick Testament is not a parody, nor does it make fun of the Bible or religion. it is simply an attempt to illustrate scenes from the Bible in Lego. From the site's "about" page:

Rev. Smith has stated that the goal of The Brick Testament is to give people an increased knowledge of the contents of The Bible in a way that is fun and compelling while remaining true to the text of the scriptures. To this end, all stories are retold using direct quotes from The Bible.

Also: the Lego pic above is *not* from The Brick Testament.

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It's a Puzzlement

We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inherent and inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness....

--Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence (original wording)

The fathers of this republic waged a seven years war for political liberty. Thomas Jefferson taught me that my bondage was, in its essence, worse than ages of that which your fathers rose in rebellion to oppose.

--Frederick Douglass, address in Baltimore, 17 Nov. 1864

I am a first-generation American. Both of my parents were immigrants*, though they came to the US at different times and in very different circumstances. I don't know if it's because my mother found herself in small town America up against anti-immigrant sentiment, or if it was just because my mom believes in throwing herself whole-heartedly into everything she does, but she was always extremely patriotic (she even crocheted an American flag that I believe still hangs in the Ohio Governor's office) and taught me to be, too. I grew up waving the US flag, singing patriotic songs, and basically believing that the Founding Fathers were paragons of virtue and excellence. George Washington never told a lie. Ben Franklin was a genius inventor. Thomas Jefferson believed that all people were equal.

Or did he?

His original version of the Declaration includes a long paragraph about the evils of slavery, calling it "this execrable commerce" and "this assemblage of horrors," but the paragraph was removed by Congress. Our reading from last week, Ronald Takaki's A Different Mirror, says "as a member of the Virginia legislature, he supported an effort for the emancipation of slaves. In his Notes on the State of Virginia, he recommended the gradual abolition of slavery, and in a letter to a friend written in 1788, he wrote: 'You know that nobody wishes more ardently to see an abolition not only of the [African slave] trade but of the condition of slavery."

And yet he himself kept over 200 slaves until his death. He was of the opinion that blacks were inferior to whites. He was dismissive of the accomplishments of Phillis Wheatley and Benjamin Banneker. He quite possibly fathered children by his slave Sally Hemmings (who also happened to be his wife's half-sister).

How could there be such a vast difference between what Jefferson wrote in the Declaration and how he lived his life?

It's a puzzlement.



ADDENDUM: I want to make it clear that I don't think Jefferson's personal views diminish the incredible power of his words. I think he is, after all, only human.

I recently read at the Racialicious blog a post titled "Civil Rights, but Just for Me," in which the author talks about how Ghandi argued that Indians (that is, people from India) should have more rights than Africans because, well, because they're not like *those people*. The author concludes with this paragraph, which I think sums up my feelings really well:

I think, this is also true: it does not matter what Gandhi thought of black people or what Martin Luther King thought of gay people. For all the deification, they are both just men, fallible men–men of a different time and place (Mohandas Gandhi was born in the 19th century, for goodness sake.), men who were just as influenced by the biases of their day as any of us are, men like those who wrote “all men are created equal” and yet owned men, women and children as property. Do we even know whether MLK would have approved of a woman (his daughter or no) as head of the SCLC? His views and treatment of women were not exactly enlightened. That Gandhi did not believe in the inherent equality of all brown people; that King may not have approved of gay marriage–I couldn’t care less.

ADDENDUM #2, FRIDAY MORNING: Um, ok. Re-reading the first addendum, I see that saying "I couldn't care less" makes it sound like I think that it's ok Jefferson kept slaves, etc. In fact, I *don't* think it's ok. What I *do* think is that his words -- his ideas -- are more powerful than his actions were.

He was a flawed human being, as we all are, but we should always strive to uphold his astonishingly crazy and revolutionary idea that "all men are created equal" everyday of our lives.

***

*It's actually more complicated than that, as life usually is. My dad was born in the US, but his parents (both naturalized US Citizens) took the family back to the Old Country to settle some family business, then returned to the US when my dad was 7 years old (his younger brother was born in Europe). My dad spoke no English and was faced with the same pressure to assimilate that other Eastern European immigrants in the 1920's faced. So, even though he was born a US Citizen, both by blood and by birth, he was still an immigrant. My mom came to the US from Germany in 1968 and was naturalized in the early 70's. I was born here.

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Growing Pains

It is pleasant to observe by what regular gradations we surmount the force of local prejudices, as we enlarge our acquaintance with the world.

-- Thomas Paine, Common Sense

He was far ahead of his time. He courageously opposed monarchy, aristocracy, racism, slavery, superstition, and sexism when all of these constituted the conventional wisdom. He was unswerving in his criticism of conventional religion.

-- Carl Sagan


I admit to feeling some trepidation upon seeing the name "Paine" on the syllabus. I knew that he had written something called "Common Sense," but I had never read any of it - or anything else of his. I have also heard many right-wing conservatives use arguments from the Founding Fathers to justify their own political views. I was afraid I was going to have to just grit my teeth and force myself to read his writing.

Before I got down to reading, however, I employed some "avoidance techniques" cleverly disguised as "doing my homework" -- since we are required to include illustrations in our journal entries, I did a Google image search for pictures of Paine. After wading through what seemed like endless pages of the same freakin' picture of Paine I finally got to this:


That made me giggle, but didn't "break the ice" enough for me to actually sit down and read his work. Not yet.

My next step was to try to find some quotes about Paine. I came across the one from Carl Sagan above. Carl Sagan is someone I have always admired and respected. Contact is one of my most favorite movies of all time - I've even read that book as well as others of his, and really, who can not love Mike Myers on SNL as Carl Sagan presenting "The Global Warming Christmas Special"?

Carl Sagan: Dean, the mean temperature in Las Vegas will one day rise to 156 degrees, making it uninhabitable and rendering such landmarks as the Aladdin Hotel stark monuments to an age of self-indulgence.

Dean Martin: Ooh, well what about Tahoe?

Carl Sagan: It'll be fine.

So, if Carl Sagan says he likes Paine, I guess he can't be all *that* bad! Finally, I was ready to sit down and read Common Sense.


I came away thinking, "Wow, that was nothing like what I expected!" In Common Sense, Thomas Paine doesn't come across as some frothing-at-the-mouth conservative zealot sputtering about the evils of Big Government and how the Invisible Hand of the Market will save us all. Instead, he comes across as someone who cares deeply about ending tyranny (and knows what tyranny actually is).

In light of Sagan's quote above, however, I must admit to being a bit shocked by this sentence: "There are thousands and tens of thousands, who would think it glorious to expel from the continent that barbarous and hellish power, which hath stirred up the Indians and Negroes to destroy us...." Didn't Sagan say that Paine opposed slavery and racism? Why does he then create separate categories for "Indians and Negroes" and "us" (presumably white Americans)? Paine goes on to write: "the cruelty hath a double guilt: it is dealing brutally by us, and treacherously by them," which doesn't really answer my question, but at least he seems to understand that "they" are receiving a raw deal, too.

Unfortunately, the Norton Anthology we're using for class doesn't contain the entire text of this pamphlet, so I won't have an answer to this until after this quarter is finished (when I'll hopefully have some time for some pleasure-reading & can read the rest of Paine's pamphlet).

One more thing: when I was googling for quotes and pictures, I came across this comment posted by "Larry" at the "Ecstatic Days" blog:

I always feel guilty about not having the time to cover Paine in my classes – when I taught 8th grade, all I was supposed to do is say "Thomas Paine wrote Common Sense and The Crisis, which inspired the colonies to declare their independence." In 11th grade, we focus strictly on post-1865 US society, so there's no time to explore the ideas of someone who had a great influence on two of the three great 18th century revolutions (the other being the Haitian Revolution).... Dude still is too revolutionary for most American textbooks to handle without extreme caution. I love that about him.

This reminded me of the very first chapter we read out of Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me -- the chapter "John Brown and Abraham Lincoln" -- in which he laments "This... is what textbooks omit: they give students no inkling that ideas matter."

I am looking forward to reading more of Paine's ideas and discovering how they matter. "A new method of thinking hath arisen," indeed.

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Sub Rosa Subversiveness

O that my eyes were more open'd to see the real worth, and true excellence of the word of truth

--Phillis Wheatley, Letter to John Thornton, London, "The Bible My Chief Study"

Her surviving works have endured and been subjected to levels of awe and loathing in the centuries since her death. In some camps, Phillis Wheatley is a mother of the slave narrative, in others a sell-out, an Aunt Thomasina making her then masters happy.

--Wendy Marie Chabot, User Review at Amazon.com for the book The Trials of Phillis Wheatley: America's First Black Poet and Encounters with the Founding Fathers

I didn't immediately recognize the name "Phillis Wheatley" on the syllabus, but as soon as I started reading her bio in the Norton Anthology, I realized where I had heard of her before. My English 1-B teacher talked about her briefly when giving us examples of critical writing - my teacher had once written an essay focusing on how word choice and the interpretation of a comma in Wheatley's poem "On Being Brought from Africa to America" could radically change the meaning of the last sentence, and indeed the whole poem.

From this, I knew that her poetry was often considered to be subtly subversive -- on the surface it seems that she accepted slavery and even acknowledged it as a positive influence on her life, but digging down below the surface, an argument can be made that her tone and word choice indicate her true anti-slavery feelings.

For an example of how tone changes everything, look at this excerpt from her letter to John Thornton (which Norton titles "The Bible My Chief Study"):

I thank you for recommending the Bible to be my chief Study, I find and Acknowledge it the best of Books, it contains an endless treasure of wisdom, and knowledge. O that my eyes were more open'd to see the real worth, and true excellence of the word of truth, my flinty heart Soften'd with the grateful dews of divine grace and the Stubborn will, and affections, bent on God alone their proper object, and the vitiated palate may be corrected to relish heav'nly things.

One could read that as a sentence of genuine gratitude, but I think it's better read with a sarcastic tone. It seems she asked Mr. Thornton for advice on what other literature to study (Norton tells us that she studied the Bible extensively, plus the English poets Milton, Pope, and Gray, as well as some Latin & Greek mythology) and he replied with "read the Bible". Her response to him, when read with a sarcastic tone, is basically: "Thanks so very much, you jerk, for suggesting that I go read a book I've already read a zillion times. I guess I'll just go read it again and think about God's grace and glory and the goodness of things to come rather than concern my poor widdle feminine slave head with things that are obviously outside my comprehension. Oh, and by the way, have YOU actually read your precious Bible??"

Sometimes Wheatley's situation reminds me of that old adage: "The wonder of the dancing bear is not how well it dances, but that it dances at all." People were shocked to discover that a Negro - and a *woman* at that - could actually write poetry. Her page on Wikipedia says, "Many white Americans of the time found it hard to believe that an African woman could write poetry, and Wheatley had to defend her literary ability in court in 1772. She was examined by a group of Boston luminaries.... They concluded she had written the poems ascribed to her and signed an attestation [to that effect]."

Yesterday I posted to my Facebook status that I was reading Wheatley's poems. A friend commented, "These are interesting poems. She was a very bright woman, but very much in thrall to the slavery mind-set."

I tend to disagree.

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The Whole Picture?

In the preceding chapter I have set before the reader a few of those many instances of oppression, extortion, and cruelty, which I have been a witness to in the West Indies; but were I to enumerate them all, the catalog would be tedious and disgusting. . . . I shall therefore hereafter only mention such as incidentally befell myself in the course of my adventures.

--Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life

But it's hard to blame W.W. Norton (as one poster does) for the shortage of Hemingway and Fitzgerald when the real culprit is Scribner's, which gives anthologists extremely limited rights: one story from each writer. (The writer's original publisher is also to blame for the amount of T.S. Eliot here: no more than 1000 lines allowed.)

--J. Smith, Amazon.com Customer Review



I have to say that I don't like what Norton has done with this work. I think it's wonderful that students (and other readers) are finally given the opportunity to read works like Equiano's -- we certainly didn't read this stuff mumblemumble years ago when I was in high school! -- but I think that Norton cut too much out this time.

As I read these excerpts, I was struck by how many times Equiano says things like "they all used me extremely well" (678) and "their treatment of me made me forget that I was a slave" (681), and "my master treated me always extremely well" (689). What point is he trying to make here? Why does he keep talking about how well-treated he was?



I read on, hoping that there'd be some grand statement to the effect of "no matter how well a slave is treated, they are still a slave," but there was nothing. Does such a statement appear in the original, complete Narrative? I don't know - Norton doesn't say.

I do know there's more to the story than what's included in Norton, as my curiosity compelled me to find out more. I found a long essay by Cathy N. Davidson in which she talks about events in Equiano's Narrative that happen after he received his manumission - which is where Norton's version ends. Apparently, Equiano was in grave danger of losing his freedom more than once and his fine captain refused to stand up for him as he did when Equiano got the manumission from Mr. King in the first place.

I have to wonder what other important things we're missing in this version. We're not seeing the whole picture.

ADDENDUM: I found these video clips of actor Joe Williams as Equiano reading extracts from the book: Olaudah Equiano on Africa, Olaudah Equiano on the slave trade, Olaudah Equiano on the plantation owners, Olaudah Equiano on England.

ADDENDUM, after class on Thursday: In class today while discussing Phillis Wheatley's poems, we briefly talked about the hymn "Amazing Grace." I mentioned that there was a film about it in which Equiano is a character - it's actually about the end of the slave trade in England (and the hymn figures prominently in the movie's story). Here are two trailers for the movie:





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Blast from the Past: Sonos Quartet does "Pick a Winner"

I posted this on my blog at the Handbell Community site, but apparently never posted it here, so at long last: (cue trumpet fanfare!)

Listen for Life is a non-profit org that brings music to under-served people, mostly kids, but adults too. They filmed a Sonos concert a couple of years ago. Here's a video clip of the Quartet (me, Jason Tiller, Adam Miller & Rick Hoffmeister) playing "Pick a Winner".

It's a high-quality Quick Time video, so it takes a long time to load [a *really* long time, so go grab a sandwich & be patient!!]. Of course, it's totally worth it because there's a close up of me! ;-)



ps. "Pick a Winner" is by Lew Gillis & arranged for quartet by Ardis Freeman, published by Cantabile Press. I think it's also available for full choir, but it's LOTS more fun as a quartet! (esp because Jason used to play in Ardis' group & so insisted that we play the notes that had to be left out for publication!)