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Colonial Soul
Relations between American Indians and European settlers were often grim, but these Christian historical novels find a few hopeful stories.
Reviewed by Elesha Coffman | posted 8/08/2008 12:33PM
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Colonial Soul
By Elesha Coffman, associate editor of CHRISTIAN HISTORY
Last week I stumbled across a rerun of the Thanksgiving episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (Before you mock me, I was looking for the Cubs game. If you want to mock me for being a Cubs fan, go ahead.) The episode was actually very interesting. From what I could gather, an American Indian spirit-warrior had awakened and
was avenging the centuries-old mistreatment of his people by killing folks in
Buffy's town. Buffy found it difficult to slay him, because he seemed to have
a legitimate cause.
Buffy's friends were divided
on the issue. One girl had researched the tribe's history and unearthed the
atrocities perpetrated against them: massacre, slavery, being herded into missions
full of nasty European diseases, etc. She argued that the Indians had been "fluffy
indigenous kittens" before whites came, and that it was the responsibility of
the evil conquerors' descendents to make restitution. The male characters on
the show disagreed, saying that nothing could make up for the past and everyone
should just try to get over it.
The point here is not that
we should all learn our history or ethics from Buffy, but that Americans—particularly
those schooled with the "new" history books—have no healthy framework in
which to process what we know of our nation's past. In the textbook clash of
two seemingly monolithic groups (tomahawk-wielding "kittens" and shockingly
vicious white Christians), nobody acts like a real person. We can't relate or
understand—and there's certainly nothing to celebrate.
Into this dark drama steps
Christian History contributor Mark Ammerman (see the Gallery in our current
issue) with a historical fiction series called The Cross and the Tomahawk
(Horizon). Ammerman, who counts Rhode Island founder Roger Williams among his
ancestors, was drawn to these stories by an interest in the Praying Indians
of colonial New England. Their chapter in history is seldom told—partially,
I imagine, because it is essentially a missions story, and partially because
these early converts to Christianity don't fit into either camp of recognized
combatants. But in these native Christians, and in the men and women who ministered
to them, Ammerman found plenty to celebrate.
The series so far comprises
three books. The first, The Rain from God, follows Katanaquat, a Narragansett
warrior, from birth to death, with lots of physical, interpersonal, and spiritual
battles in between. He's fictional, though well researched, and he interacts
with several historical figures, including Williams, William Bradford, Squanto
(the original Indian guide), and native sachems Canonicus, Massasoit, and Miantonomi.
Katanaquat's son Job Kattenait, a historical figure himself, narrates the second
book, Ransom; events are adapted from his written accounts. The third
book, Longshot, shifts the focus to westward expansion, and its narrator
is based on one of the first Englishmen to explore west of the Ohio River. This
book also features Kattenanit's daughter and grandson, for the family's spiritual
journey is the thread uniting the series. Chronologically, the books begin before
the landing of the Mayflower in 1620 and end in the 1750s.
At the end of each book,
Ammerman bends over backwards to show how much research stands behind his fiction.
In addition to a bibliography, he gives a glossary of Narragansett words used
in the book and historical notes on the characters and events. The "Summary
of the Gospel among the New England Indians in the Seventeenth Century" at the
end of Ransom is particularly helpful, describing in about five pages
evangelism's tentative steps forward in the region. The endeavor's precipitous
slide back during King Philip's War is detailed at the end of Longshot.
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