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Thursday, February 17, 2011

Reflections on a Sorrowful Past


After fiddling around with several images, I was able to crop Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze's famous painting, Washington Crossing the Delaware, to fit. Particularly appropriate for Crucible of War too. And it goes nicely with the existing color scheme, so I don’t have to worry about changing it!

I’m currently cleaning up the first 3 chapters of this volume, which portray the crossing and the Battle of Trenton. Then Elizabeth and Tess will take off for New York to continue spying on Howe, sadly leaving Blue Sky behind to deal with now being basically a camp follower. And Andrews increasingly struggles with conflicting allegiances to her and the Shawnee and to the Americans, who aren’t all that tolerant of the native peoples.

An understatement, of course. The story of the indigenous peoples of this continent is fraught with intolerance, greed, injustice, and violence, as is the story of the blacks, both slave and free. The more I research this period, the greater my anger and sorrow grows at the treatment of the non-white populations in our history.

And the realization of how alike we all are. We all want to live in security and peace, to love and be loved, to provide for our families, to improve our situation and learn and grow and be happy. Think how wonderful a world it would be if we all lived according to God’s precepts and loved and extended mercy and grace to one another as He did for us. That would be heaven indeed!

2 comments:

  1. So well said, Joan. Can't wait to get my hands on this next book of yours. After researching the Shawnee and their bitter end on the Ohio frontier for my last book, I was heartbroken and ashamed. Bless you for your wonderful blog.

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  2. Thank you, Laura! I totally share those feelings. But I'm grateful we're in a better place now as a nation, although our history has left deep scars. There's still much to be done to achieve true justice, but thank God our founders planted the seeds in written documents like the Declaration and the Constitution that would sprout and grow and open the way to a better future.

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