Caleb's Crossing

by Geraldine Brooks

“Your grandfather felt he could do better. So he bought these patents, which were outside the purview of Winthrop’s governance, and gathered several like-minded men who were prepared to accept the light hand of his direction. Me, he sent—in 1642—to make the first crossing. It is a matter of pride to me, son, that your grandfather insisted, even though he had paid the English authorities for the patents, on paying the sonquem of this place also. Every hut and house we have built here is on land willingly sold to us through negotiations that I conducted honorably. You will hear, perhaps, that not all the sonquem’s followers agreed with their chief in this matter, and some now say that he himself did not fully understand that we meant to keep the land from them forever. Be that as it may, what’s done is done and it was done lawfully.” I thought, but did not say, that grandfather could hardly have expected the fine points of English property law to count for much to some three thousand people whose reputation, prior to our landing, had been ferocious. If there was pride to be taken in the matter, it could only be pride in the canniness of grandfather’s plan, and of father’s courage and tact in executing it.