“Oh, so that’s all,” said Alex with heavy sarcasm.
“Of course not,” his sister said calmly. “But it’s a start.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I wish to thank a number of kids and adults for their particular support of this book, and I hereby induct them to the Most Worthy and Honorable Order of the Friends of Snipesville.
The following are dubbed Companions of the Order of Snipesville (COS), in recognition of their having read and critiqued drafts, and so having made this book better than it would otherwise have been. They are entitled to use their title, abbreviated to COS, in their correspondence:
Kristi Craven
Melinda Cannady Jacob Cohen
Cristina Dover Mary Flad
Dusty Snipes Gres Jane Hall
Joanna Jarrell
Hazel Kirby
Sophie Lichtman
Sara McCracken
Bryan Ogihara
Ryan Owens
Cathy Skidmore-Hess Kathleen Smith
The honor of Member of the Order of Snipesville (MOS) is hereby conferred upon the following, for their support of the creation of Look Ahead, Look
Back : William Thomas Ansley
Janice Bass
Theodore Bloyd
Christa Campbell
Christian Cotten-Dixon
Nancy Cvetan
Adam Holsomback
Mary Keith
Luke McGrath
Matthew McGrath
Neil Norby
Jessica Rao
Kaley Whittle
Jennie Goloboy
LaQuita Marie Staten
Janet Moores
The title of Dame of the Order of Snipesville (DOS) is awarded to:
Kelley Callaway, for services to book design.
Deborah Harvey, for services to cover design and marketing.
Kathleen Smith, for services to copyediting and proofreading (all errors, and I do mean this, doubtless flow from my failing to heed her sage advice.)
NOTES ON SOURCES
(for those adult readers who care about such things)
Kids: BOREDOM ALERT. Please don’t read this next bit unless you want to be very, very bored. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
So much of the historical background to Look Ahead, Look Back depends on my knowledge of early American history, acquired over the past quarter-century. I cannot always tell you my original sources, and the lovely thing about fiction is that I don’t have to! I will fess up, though, that I have far greater knowledge of eighteenth-century South Carolina than of Georgia, and I freely admit that I’ve transferred things that happened in rural South Carolina to backwoods Georgia, but only when I think they could have happened there, even if they didn’t.
This sleight-of-hand in my using history does not make my primary message any less valid: We don’t need founding fathers and redcoats to make the eighteenth century fascinating.
The earlier part of that period is when so many developments took place that shaped modern America, including the large-scale rise of slavery and slave societies in the South, the rise of evangelicalism, and the emergence of consumer culture (another academic interest of mine) among the planter class.
Religion and the Supernatural
My choice of an Anglican missionary as a major supporting character in Look Ahead, Look Back was hardly accidental: My historical scholarship has focused on eighteenth-century popular religious culture, through the lens of the Church of England in America. Mr. Osborn was loosely inspired by an Anglican minister named Brian Hunt, who was chased from his South Carolina parish in 1727 amid accusations of drunkenness and other misdeeds. I wrote about him at length in “A Very Immoral and Offensive Man”: Religious Culture, Gentility, and the Strange Case of Brian Hunt (The South Carolina Historical Magazine, Volume 103, No. 1 , January, 2002). The fate of Brian Hunt (and, by extension, his alter ego Mr. Osborn) is not atypical: I have read accounts of English missionaries in America being required to live in leaky barns, being subjected to their parishioners’ tailgating during services, and, if they complained, being accused of drunkenness and other forms of “immorality.” If you’re really keen to learn more, you may want to read my doctoral dissertation: All Things to All Men: Popular Religious Culture and the Anglican Mission in Colonial America, 1701-1750 (University of California, Riverside, 1995) It’s a good cure for insomnia.
In my research on missionaries in the eighteenth-century British colonies, I became fascinated by their interactions with slaves. I was perplexed to discover that most historians had assumed that slaves were indifferent or even hostile to Christianity, because the evidence, while not necessarily endorsing the opposite view, certainly didn’t support that assumption. The product of my interest was the most important work of my modest body of scholarship: “Heathens and Infidels”? African Christianization in the South Carolina Low Country, 1700-1750 (Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation,Vol. 12, No. 2 , Summer 2002). The opening anecdote is the one on which I based Mr. Osborn’s encounter with slaves seeking holy communion.
The negotiation of Christianity among slaves, slaveowners, and Anglican missionaries is one that has fascinated me for a long time, and it was such fun to have the opportunity to fictionalize it. If I tried your patience with theological discussions, I do apologize. You have no idea how much I cut before this book was done.
In general, what I have tried to get across is that fascinating phenomenon we have dubbed syncretism, whereby people adapt Christianity to existing cultures and belief systems. As I have written elsewhere, it is absurd to view this as an exclusively non-Western phenomenon. The prevalence of Green Man imagery in English history is one of the most delightful bits of evidence that refutes that assumption.
Unlike the common folk of the eighteenth century, I’m a modern person, and I really don’t think much in terms of the supernatural. Despite my extensive work on eighteenth century popular religious culture, I had major gaps in my understanding that became painfully apparent to me as the book developed. I realized that I needed to get acquainted with folklore, and for that, I was delighted to have the assistance of Dr. Heidi Altman, anthropology professor at Georgia Southern University (Heidi bears NO resemblance whatsoever to Dr. Sonya Barrett in the book, just in case the thought should occur to you.) She introduced me to Cherokee folklore, including the Yunwi, and to the body of literature on Southern folktales. I can especially recommend for your enjoyment Storytellers: Folktales and Legends from the South, edited by John A. Burrison (University of Georgia Press, 1989). Anything I got wrong is absolutely and utterly my own fault, and not Dr. Altman’s.
Extensive interactions among Africans, Europeans, and Native Americans make nonsense of the idea of an entirely separate storytelling tradition for each group, something I have tried to demonstrate in action. The oral tradition on which storytelling once depended is also nicely demonstrated by Tony’s having acquired the gift from Sukey, and, of course, by the kids learning from them both.
Sukey’s story about the snake-man is my own retelling of a traditional Cherokee tale, as given in James Mooney’s classic Myths of the Cherokee (1900) which is available in reprint editions, and free in Google Books. Her story of Master Smith and the h’ant is loosely based on a South Georgia folk tale that I found tacked to a bulletin board at Obediah’s Okefenok (a brilliant roadside attraction/folk museum that also helped me imagine the houses of colonial rural Georgia.)
As for Tony’s story of Pompey and the sinkhole, I made it up. However, it is true that there is a locally famous sinkhole in rural Bulloch County, Georgia, and it looks exactly as I describe. The legend in these parts was that the sinkhole was bottomless, until it was dredged in the 1920s after a car belonging to a fleeing murder suspect from Florida was found nearby. I am grateful to my former student Emerson Chester and his brother Thomas for this information, and for taking me to see the sinkhole, which is on their family’s farm. For a wonderful description of the sinkhole, see t
heir website: http://sinkholefarms. webs.com/aboutus.htm.
Conspicuous Consumption
I have long been intrigued by the phenomenon of those wealthy eighteenthcentury planters who exchanged a once-parsimonious life, in which they reinvested their income into land and slaves, for a luxurious lifestyle characterized by conspicuous consumption. The Gordons’ experience, starting with their beloved tea set, is my re-imagining of what this transition might have looked like for a couple who belonged to the emerging upper class.
Living Outdoors
The first draft of this book revealed to me a gaping and shameful hole in my knowledge of eighteenth-century American culture. First, although I once spent a stimulating and entertaining three months wandering Colonial Williamsburg, I really didn’t understand what it was like to spend one’s life mostly outdoors. To rectify this problem, at least in part, I bought a pass to the Georgia State Parks and learned to enjoy hiking through something other than the British countryside, while keeping a watchful eye out for snakes and other critters.
I also had an enjoyable time at Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. On a boat ride through the swamp, I accepted the tour guide’s invitation to step from the boat onto a peat bog in my bare feet. I enjoyed the sensation for a few seconds before my left leg vanished into the muck, just as a ten-foot alligator came over to take a look at what we were up to. Two Dutch tourists helped pull me out, and a good time was had by all. I couldn’t figure out how to work this little gem into the story, so here it is, for your reading pleasure. It wasn’t entirely wasted experience as far as the story was concerned, because Hannah’s “freeway for elves” came from my boat trip up a canal in the Okefenokee. Learning to paddle a canoe was something I did myself at George L. Smith State Park, near Twin City, Georgia, with advice from my long-suffering husband.
Crime and Punishment
Attitudes toward criminals in the early twenty-first century can sometimes mirror those of the eighteenth century, which is why I think it’s good to be reminded that there is a reason to sustain a humanitarian impulse toward penal reform.
“Jane’s” crime is basically lifted from the trial of one Catherine Hawes in 1744, whose case I discovered in that terrific database, the Old Bailey Online: http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/ It is impossible to overstate the importance of this resource to historians, for it has opened up to us mountains of details on the lives of ordinary people in eighteenth-century England.
As for the actual court experience at the Old Bailey, I based that on the short and sweet discussion on the same site: http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/static/ Trial-procedures.jsp Apparently, the executioner did take bribes to fake brandings (see http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/static/Punishment.jsp#branding), but I have had to make an educated guess as to how on earth he faked them, since the convicted were branded in open court before an enthusiastic audience.
For my descriptions of Newgate Prison, I referred to Stephen Halliday, Newgate: London’s Prototype of Hell (Sutton, 2006).
Thank you (I think) to Dr. Jon Bryant, professor of Georgia history at Georgia Southern University, who says that he has concluded that the story of convicts coming to colonial Georgia is a myth. The only imported felon he has ever discovered in the records, he tells me, was the state’s founding father, James Edward Oglethorpe, who spent time in a London jail for killing a man in a bar brawl. Bet they won’t teach that in Georgia schools. Jon did allow, however, that a boatload of indentured servants was allowed to settle in Georgia after they were detoured to Savannah following a devastating storm. I ran with this as plausible evidence that such a thing could happen, and the result is that Hannah ends up in Georgia. Phew.
Language
Recreating the spoken language of eighteenth-century people is a tall order. The language of Mr. Osborn is as close as I can get (without hopelessly confusing my readers) to how educated eighteenth-century Englishmen might have spoken. I make no claims for its accuracy: I am no expert in historical linguistics. I have, however, read more than 10,000 letters written by Anglican missionaries in America to the Bishop of London, and I hope that my familiarity with their written English has been helpful. I also flipped through Moll Flanders for inspiration. Sukey’s speech is based mostly on my long acquaintance with speakers of English as a second language, my own fumbling efforts in French, and what I learned about traditional Cherokee understanding and expression of the passage of time. I probably got it wrong. The accuracy of the speech of the slaves is also my best guess, tempered with a need to keep things clear for my readers, and that is all. It is not “accurate”, and as any honest and reputable historian will tell you, how on earth could we know how they spoke?
Random Stuff
I thank pharmacist Minette Ugorji for her advice on which drugs could be dispensed to a minor without too many awkward questions being asked. However, it is only fair to say that policies do vary among pharmacists.
Hannah Glasse’s The Art of Cookery (1747) is available in a reprint edition, and also free on Google Books, for all your eighteenth-century cooking needs.
For more about colonial medicine, I recommend Physick: the Professional Practice of Medicine in Williamsburg, Virginia, 1740-1775 by Sharon Cotner et al., (Colonial Williamsburg, 2003).
Mrs. Jenkins’ characterization of Englishmen in America (that they looked and dressed like Indians) was apparently a common misapprehension in England until the Revolution. Or possibly to the present day.
If you have any questions about the historical background to Look Ahead, Look Back, please visit my website at AnnetteLaing.com
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Table of Contents
Dedication
Copyright
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1: STARTLING DISCOVERIES
Chapter 2: ANOTHER BALESWORTH
Chapter 3: CHANGING COLORS
Chapter 4: THE FORTU
NES AND MISFORTUNES OF HANNAH DIAS
Chapter 5: INTO THE WOODS
Chapter 6: SHOPPING AND SLAVERY
Chapter 7: WORK AND WONDERS
Chapter 8:
Chapter 9: IDENTITIES REVEALED
Chapter 10: UP IN FLAMES
Chapter 11: BRANDON AND ALEX INVESTIGATE
Chapter 12: THE WHITE WITCH
Chapter 13:GOING QUIETLY
Chapter 14: LOOK BACK
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
NOTES ON SOURCES
Look Ahead, Look Back (The Snipesville Chronicles Book 3) Page 33