Tidewater

A straightforward, easy-to-fall-into novelization of what MIGHT have happened in the early 1600s, in the lives of Pocahontas and John Smith.

Picture, if you will, a swampy bog near Washington DC. The year is 1600mumble mumble. The English - rancidly smelly in their rancid ass wool - have just disembarked in the shittiest part of what-is-to-become-Virginia and are seeking (1) GOLD, (2) A PASSAGE TO INDIA, and (3) GOLD? Meanwhile, you, dear reader, are a feisty, ambitious prepubescent hellion named Amonute - you do NOT smell like rancid ass wool, but are instead super cool and interesting and fun, running around your pretty damn idyllic Tidewater/Tsenacomoco/world.

This book is a vivid portrayal of what life may have been like. I keep emphasizing the “might” and “may” because I actually felt a little uneasy about Libbie Hawker (sorry, Libbie Hawker) cuz I was like, wait, are you Native American? wait, are you a historian? wait, ahem, what gives you the right? But, after doing some extremely minimal googling, I was satisfied that this was, if anything, well-intentioned, reasonably well-informed (?), and, above all, REASONABLE. Like, obviously we don't have access to Pocahontas's inner life, and John Smith's diaries are all apparently like “and they were just jealous and I was awesome again and everyone clapped”, but we do know the commonly-agreed on facts: Pocahontas's 3 names (Amonute, Mataoka, Rebecca), her conversion to Christianity and her visit to England. And just the popularity of her myth is telling; something about her left a deep impression on the English.

I found the story itself very beautiful and sad. I was reminded, just like after reading Charles Mann's 1491 and Kim Stanley Robinson's The Years of Rice and Salt, of what an enormous, unforgivable loss the Columbian exchange was: an entire hemisphere of culture that was almost entirely wiped out. I just wanted to learn more about Tsenacomoco, and Pocahontas's realization and pain when she visited London - and what a dystopian nightmare that felt like!! - was so, so acute. I really felt for her. And I wish we (the white/Euro settlers of the New World) could have better integrated into this indigenous world.

In fact. An aside on colonialism. After finishing this book and crying for a bit, I then asked ChatGPT about the differences between the colonization of the New World vs. the Indian subcontinent. Like, today, indigenous Americans live on reservations, a tiny fraction of their previous populations, their culture very very marginalized. Meanwhile, South Asian culture is thriving and has, indeed, deeply influenced the UK (wonderful British-Asian literature, food, etc). WHY? ChatGPT gave me garbage vanilla answers. I thought if it was maybe Acemoglu and Robinson's institutionalist theories: that is, extractive colonies vs. inclusive colonies. But the latter - inclusive colonies - basically meant, “we'll (Euros) come and build and stay”. Which may have led to, indeed, better GDP outcomes for these eventual colony-countries than the extractive colony-countries, but at tremendous cost - the near-extinction of indigenous societies? e.g. USA, Canada, Australia, etc...

Anyway, as you can see, this got me thinking. The book itself is much more human-sized and it's very touching and, tbh, I loved all the characters and really felt for them. Pocahontas was one of those people who stood at the intersection of history and really, frickin, just SAW IT ALL. What an amazing life.