Caleb's Crossing (41 page)

This book grew out of the remarkable environmental and cultural stewardship of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head/Aquinnah. It was in materials prepared by the tribe that I first learned of Caleb, and the many inspiring programs offered to the public by the Aquinnah Cultural Center have helped to inform and shape my thinking. Individual tribal members have been encouraging and generous in sharing information and insights and in reading early drafts. Others have been frank in expressing reservations about an undertaking that fictionalizes the life of a beloved figure and sets down an imagined version of that life that may be misinterpreted as factual. This afterword attempts to address those reservations somewhat by distinguishing scant fact from rampant invention.

For the early colonial history of Martha’s Vineyard I am indebted to the late Anne Coleman Allen, whose Short Course on the History of Martha’s Vineyard was indispensable for the depth of its research on the Mayhew regime and for its inclusion of insights by June Manning, genealogist of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head/Aquinnah. Jannette Vanderhoop’s class on Wampanoag culture at Adult and Community Education of Martha’s Vineyard was similarly enlightening. I also relied upon David J. Silverman’s 2005 book,
Faith and Boundaries
(Cambridge, UK, and New York: Cambridge University Press). I am thankful to the Martha’s Vineyard Museum for access to its archives; to Chris Henning for his Latin expertise; to early readers, including Graham Thorburn, Clare Reihill, Darleen Bungey and Elinor, Tony and Nathaniel Horwitz. As ever, I am fortunate in my agent, Kris Dahl, and my editors, Molly Stern and Paul Slovak. The students and faculty involved in the Harvard Yard Indian College archaeological dig and the Peabody Museum’s remarkable “Digging Veritas” exhibition welcomed me into the material culture of seventeenth-century Harvard.

The fictional exchanges between Bethia and Caleb regarding matters of faith rely heavily upon John Cotton, Jr.’s account of his conversations with native islanders in his 1660s missionary journals, and upon marginalia in religious texts and bibles, written in the Wôpanâak language in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

While the Mayfields in my novel borrow a few biographical facts from the lives of the missionary Mayhews, my characters are all works of fiction, especially Bethia, who is entirely invented. Makepeace Mayfield resembles Matthew Mayhew only in one respect: his failure to matriculate from Elijah Corlett’s school. That there may have been tension between Matthew and Caleb was suggested to me by the arresting fact that when Matthew’s son, Experience, penned a detailed history of the Christian Indians of Martha’s Vineyard, Caleb—certainly among the most illustrious—was not mentioned.

Colonial archives contain no surviving female diaries before seventeen hundred and very few letters. To find Bethia’s voice I have relied on such sources as the captivity narratives of Mary Rowlandson, the court testimony of Anne Hutchinson, and the poems of Anne Bradstreet. Her job in the buttery of Harvard College was suggested to me by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s introductory essay in
Yards and Gates: Gender in Harvard and Radcliffe History
(New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). I have been informed by the work of several scholars of the period, especially Jill Lepore, Arthur Railton, James Axtell, Jane Kamensky, Lisa Brooks, and Mary Beth Norton. I began research for the novel while a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, for which opportunity I remain most appreciative.

In recent years, two Vineyard Wôpanâak, Carrie Anne Vanderhoop and Tobias Vanderhoop, successfully completed graduate degrees at Harvard.

I think Bethia Mayfield would be pleased that a woman president of Harvard, Drew Gilpin Faust, now presides at commencement. Among those to whom she will award a BA in 2011 is expected to be Tiffany Smalley, the first Martha’s Vineyard Wôpanâak since Caleb Cheeshahteaumauk to complete an undergraduate degree at Harvard College.

Vineyard Haven, November 1, 2010

About the Author

Geraldine Brooks was born and raised in Sydney. As a foreign correspondent she covered crises in the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans before turning to fiction. Her novels
Year of Wonders
and
People of the Book
were international bestsellers, and her second novel,
March
, won the Pulitzer Prize. She currently lives on the island of Martha’s Vineyard with her husband and two sons.

Other Books by Geraldine Brooks

FICTION

People of the Book

March

Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague

NONFICTION

Foreign Correspondence:

A Pen Pal’s Journey from Down Under to All Over

Nine Parts of Desire:

The Hidden World of Islamic Women

Fourth Estate
An imprint of HarperCollins
Publishers

First published in 2011 by Viking Penguin,
a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
First published in Australia in 2011
by HarperCollins
Publishers
Australia Pty Limited
ABN 36 009 913 517
harpercollins.com.au

The right of Geraldine Brooks to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her under the
Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000
.

This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the
Copyright Act 1968
, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

HarperCollins
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National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

Brooks, Geraldine.
Caleb’s crossing / Geraldine Brooks.
ISBN: 978-0-0073-3353-0 (hbk.: C format)
ISBN: 978-0-7322-8922-5 (pbk.: C format)
ISBN: 978-0-7304-5238-6 (epub)
A823.3

Cover design by Jaya Miceli, adapted by Darren Holt, HarperCollins Design Studio

Cover images: © William Waterway Marks; (man) © Donald Carter

Map by Laura Hartman Maestro

Letter from Caleb before Author’s Note by The Royal Society