Throughout the novel, Brooks includes accounts of known historical figures to bring a sense of historical accuracy to Bethia’s world and story. However, some of her information is imagined fiction. She mentions the story of a man who persuaded the soquem people that there was no harm in “Coatmen”, the name the natives called the Englishmen (Brooks, 2011 p. 9). The term coatmen was in fact a term the Wampanoag natives used for the English, and the English did convince the natives that they came in peace. Bethia explains the meaning of the name Wampanoag as easterners (Brooks, 2011 p. 11) and this is accurate according to the remaining traces of the Wampanoag language. An unproven tale, however, consists of her statement that the foundation of their name derived from the word wop, relating to the word for white in the native language, and that it “carries sense of first milky light that brightens the horizon before the sun appears” (Brooks, 2011. p. 11).
In another story, however, Bethia explains that her grandfather sought to patent the island between himself and other Englishmen (Brooks, 2011 p. 8) when …show more content…
He was one of the founders and was elected in 1629. In the novel Bethia explains that it was painful to hear of the “terrors of John Winthrop”. She claims that he ordered cruel punishments against those who did not obey or agree with his ideas, and he ordered, more than once. that a man had his ears cut off or nose slashed open. The stories stretched to the expulsion of pregnant woman into the wilderness and horrors done to the Pequots that were so bad that it was not for children’s hearing (Brooks, 2011 p. 8). History tells about the Pequot war being an annihilation of the Pequot people and leading to the loss of the Pequot tribe as a polity. However, no historical records can be found that confirm all of these actions by Winthrop that Bethia
In another story, however, Bethia explains that her grandfather sought to patent the island between himself and other Englishmen (Brooks, 2011 p. 8) when …show more content…
He was one of the founders and was elected in 1629. In the novel Bethia explains that it was painful to hear of the “terrors of John Winthrop”. She claims that he ordered cruel punishments against those who did not obey or agree with his ideas, and he ordered, more than once. that a man had his ears cut off or nose slashed open. The stories stretched to the expulsion of pregnant woman into the wilderness and horrors done to the Pequots that were so bad that it was not for children’s hearing (Brooks, 2011 p. 8). History tells about the Pequot war being an annihilation of the Pequot people and leading to the loss of the Pequot tribe as a polity. However, no historical records can be found that confirm all of these actions by Winthrop that Bethia