Digging Deep: The Research Journey Behind the Novel

Dear friends,

Those of you who have read my latest novel, Conflicting Roots, already know of

my life-long interest in Native American culture and history. During the month of April, I

will be publishing a series of posts concerning aspects of the deep research and reading which enabled me to create a novel with a positive message from such a negative history

This post is the Preface from Conflicting Roots. It explains why and how the novel came to be. The second is a full transcript of a Peace Ceremony which took place at Boston University in April, 1974. It was my attendance at this event that inspired me to learn more about King Philip's War and to, eventually, write a novel with it at the center.

The last two posts will be short stories which take place in Georgia during the tragic

Cherokee "Trail of Tears" two centuries after King Philip’s War. “First Killing” and “Soquilli”

show that genocide was not limited to New England and didn’t end with the near

annihilation of the Eastern Woodland peoples.

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This excerpt from "Conflicting Roots" shares my writing journey for the novel. From inspiration to creating a positive story from a negative period on history.

Preface

This is a novel I was meant to write. The story lines and characters have been percolating in my mind and spirit for fifty years. Thankfully, the narrative has matured since December 20, 1974, when American poet Robert Bly reviewed the first draft:

“So, you do well with the narrative, I think. The weakness of it is the piety that is implied somehow in the whole tone. White men write about Indian things now with a tone of piety.” He warned me to “toss the pious tone and figure out something else.”

It has taken half a century to figure out what that something else could be. I hope it works for you as a reader.

In spring of 1974 I was unemployed. The economy had tanked because of inflation and the first OPEC oil embargo. There were very few jobs available in the Boston area for which I was qualified, and while scanning the newspapers for employment opportunities, I came across a small posting for a volunteer position with a committee organizing what came to be called Boston American Indian Week. For months, news about the Occupation of Wounded Knee battlegrounds in South Dakota by the American Indian Movement (AIM) made headlines in both print and broad- cast media. Two protestors, Frank Clearwater (Cherokee) and Buddy Lamont (Oglala) were killed by FBI sharpshooters. Like many white people, I was angry with the federal government’s siege of AIM’s protestors at the site where over 300 Sioux were massacred in 1890 by the U.S. Army. Here was my opportunity to take right action.

Our committee worked with the Boston Indian Council,2 a social services organization that was celebrating the opening of a new location in the city’s Jamaica Plain neighborhood. We set an ambitious goal of scheduling one full week of public programs to be held in Boston University buildings in Back Bay. These events would focus on the study of Native American philosophy, religion, and political activism in light of three hundred years of genocidal government policies.

We were able to bring leaders from four Native Nations to speak and teach for the week.

Participants were Lakota Medicine Man (Wikasa Wakan) John Fire Lame Deer from the

Rosebud Reservation, Chief Beaman Logan of the Tanawanda Seneca People, Tall Oak

Weeden of Narragansett and Wampanoag Peoples, and Rod Skenendore of the Blackfoot.

They appeared at the opening ceremony hosted by Boston Mayor Kevin White on April 13, 1974. All these leaders are now dead.

Following that successful week, I was inspired to write what I thought was my first novel. There was no internet then to assist in doing my research, so for the next six months I spent my free days at the Boston Public Library reading every available book and document on the history of the Eastern Woodlands Indians who lived in Massachusetts and Rhode Island before Europeans arrived. These were the first indigenous people to be annihilated by the wave of European “civilization.” I collected information on 3 x 5 cards filed in a wooden card box. I was there so frequently that librarians often came to my regular spot in the main reading room, leaving books and documents, unknown to me. I then proceeded with my “novel,” which I called Trading with Indians. It was actually a collection of

short pieces: poetry, myth, and short fiction. I sent the draft to Mr. Bly just before starting a real paying job. By the time he responded several months later, there was no time left in each day to spend figuring out how to revise. The draft was set aside in a large manila envelope and tucked into my desk drawer.

Over the last five decades, that envelope has been packed in a cardboard box of my relics and moved unopened from residence to residence. During the COVID pandemic in 2020, Geraldine found the box stashed under our bed and asked me what was in it. I had forgotten. When I opened the box and sorted through the contents, I found an envelope of fading typed pages and read it.

“Bob, at the age of seventy-three, maybe you should do something with that book or else throw it away,” she suggested.

This novel is what I did with it.

January 19, 2024