Publisher's Synopsis
This novel presents early American historical events in chronological order from 1600 through 1646. Most of the history was recorded by English witnesses, but the action is viewed through the eyes of many Native American characters, some fictional, some historical, caught in the sudden glare of English intrusions and settlement. Adding to the fictional characters are English fishermen, who were the first to establish favorable working relationships with North American tribes. The most prominent character is Nuttah, a Pequot Princess. She is introduced in 1600 at the age of ten. Two years later, in 1602, Captain Gosnold attempted to settle near Martha's Vineyard with 30 Englishmen. They didn't last long. When Nuttah is 15, in 1605, the object of her affection is 17-year-old Neemat, a Mohegan Prince, on a "quest" to discover more about totally mysterious Europeans. From there, life becomes desperate for Nuttah and Neemat. Fifteen years before our First Thanksgiving, we travel with our two Native American teenage lovers as they launch a quest to find the truth about Europeans. They travel to Maine, and find English fishermen working closely with Abenaki Americans. They learn that the Abenaki have been working with the English for generations. It was about trade. But even before 1605, English Royals and Earls and Barons, and others of the "better sort", grew hungry for gold in North America, following the success of the Spanish in Central America. To explore North America, the English only needed to know what "savages" already knew. And to get that information, they turned to abduction and intimidation. Remember the tall Indian fellow, Samoset, who walked into the middle of the Pilgrims and shouted, "Welcome!" Or perhaps you remember Squanto, from your grade school introduction to the Pilgrims. He spoke excellent English and taught the Pilgrims how to plant corn. Remember? Ever wonder how Squanto learned fluent English before the Pilgrims arrived? Our teenage lovers fall into one of the English abduction traps. Nuttah is taken to England with five Abenaki males (the abduction of the males is a well-documented event). The males are turned into translators and "guides", while our heroine is kept in London. Finally, she is put on a ship to Jamestown, where she stays for several more years. Then, she is returned to New England, just in time for the arrival of the Pilgrims. Thirty-years later, Boston is over-crowded with new Puritan arrivals, and many of those people move to Connecticut. That English intrusion resulted in horrific fighting, massacre, and the first attempt by the English to eradicate and terminate an entire tribe. Nuttah's tribe. Nuttah serves our story as the perfect witness to every major event that shaped our history from 1600 to 1646. The history, complex and simple at the same time, includes the settlement of Jamestown, the shipwreck of 150 Jamestown-bound settlers stranded on the Island of Bermuda, the Dutch settlement of the Hudson Valley and Manhattan, the Pilgrims arriving in the Mayflower, the arrival of the Winthrop 1000 in Boston, and the Pequot massacre at Mystic. Herein you will find hard-to-process suffering. So, there is some comic relief provided in the form of extreme irony. You'll know it when you see it. If your first introduction to early American history was presented as a fairy tale, then beware... This is no fairy tale. The main characters and storylines are works of fiction, but the historical people and events are real. You can google those people and events and dates, just to satisfy your ongoing brain query: "did that happen?" "Oh...," you will say. It did...
