slavery Archives - Author K. Williams

Atypical Lives – Open Book Blog Hop #368

March 20, 2023 By Captain Maiel 4 Comments

♦Welcome to another edition of the Open Book Blog Hop!♦

Topic #368

Tell us about the day in the life of one of your characters.

Welcome back to another Open Book Blog Hop! The authors included in this ongoing series wish to thank you for your reads. Even more so, we appreciate that you share our writings with friends. If you’re new to the series, welcome aboard. The authors engage and impress weekly. Prepare to become a regular reader.

The books I write follow some unconventional character lives. Blue Honor, the US Civil War drama, is the only one that follows a semi-normal track. It is historically set, so the days in the lives would still be different from what we know today. That said, they’re a little closer to home.

During the US Civil War, life was hard–especially for women, indigenous, and Black people. There was nothing typical for the latter two of that list. Lives torn apart in the upheaval of colonization, they were no longer on their familiar territories and there cultures erased to force assimilation to the current power structure. Survival against the evils of the times really made the day to day mundane we would think of a lot more dangerous. Just walking to anywhere could be death sentence.

For the main characters of that novel, Emily in particular, mundane life was blown to bits by war. Emily was bored with her northern dairy farm life. However, the winds of change still reached that deep into Vermont and brought change. She had thought things would just grind on as they were, and the expectation of her marrying and carrying on exactly the same would wear her life away.

Why was it so boring for her? She was the daughter of a former New York City well-to-do mother and a thriving dairy owner father. Her mother, a pious and austere woman, had certain ends in mind for her daughter. Yet, her son was free to rise in the ranks and go out into the world to do so. This did not set well with Emily, who was raised far more independently by a father who did not want his child to only aspire to marriage and family. His dairy, in the end, would likely go to her and her husband. She would need enough education to help that business continue to thrive. The man they had in mind would expand their lands, and make it a greater endeavor to deal with for both young people.

Emily did not see herself in that life. True to the Victorian Novel, she had aspirations of adventure and lives spent elsewhere. Fetching eggs from the coop each morning was not her fate. Up to the start of the book, that was where she was trapped. The change that came for her mingled with the plans that her parents painstakingly placed. They hired young women and girls to assist with the maintenance of the home. The girls, from neighboring farms and villages, would provide Emily with the knowledge of running a staff.

Although she wasn’t fetching eggs anymore, Emily’s life wasn’t exactly headed in the direction she wanted. The marriage portion was fast approaching. You see, the young man in mind was soon to graduate from West Point and, therefore, present an honorable match at last. He had land, rank, and standing, which would mean that he could take Mr. Conrad’s place as intended.

The pair were tight friends, but had no intentions of ever becoming lovers. If this came to pass, nothing would change for Emily. This also failed to mention her intended’s penchant for chasing women. Although he deeply cared for Emily and respected her, it was only a matter of time before his eye roved and with it his feet. No one would bat an eye at this, but this would betray Emily’s heart. She had expectations for her life aside from adventure, and a good match was necessary if she was to be forced into one at all.

Farm life and the drama of womanhood in the 1800s was pretty typical for Emily. Her brother and friend, however, faced far different lives. The young man alluded to above is Evan. He came from a smaller, far less wealthy farm. That said, his father had a lot of land, though he couldn’t afford to process it and make it produce for him. That would take paying wages and having equipment. While he could make enough to maintain the property as it was, and support his small family, they were saving to help their eldest son find a better position in life. Buying equipment to clear the land and paying hands would certainly benefit them in the long run, but they need an immediate solution.

Evan’s family also had the misfortune of a sickly child in their midst. Paying for medical care was taxing their income, making it far more difficult to make ends meet, and still reach their goal for their eldest. While their neighbors helped as they could, by sending Emily, who was very talented in the ways of medicine to assist, they still had to bring in doctors and buy medications.

Michael is Emily’s brother. He comes from greater privilege and it was easy for him to find his way into West Point. Their family thrived and so did their bank accounts. Evan was lucky to know the Conrads, who were a giving sort–even though it was spurred by ulterior motives. Their intentions saw to their aiding him into a seat at the Point ahead of their own son, just because it was necessary to the joining of the farms and the children. The arrangement was not on paper, which lended the wiggle room those young people needed to escape it.

The day to day for Evan was attending classes and training at the military academy. Comradery and order were his culture. Michael arrived sometime after, inspiring Evan with a plan to escape the arrangement he found himself bound to. A little finagling, and the war willing, he would be able to pull it off. After all, time off to visit family was expected.

In that time, travel by train, carriage, or horse was the norm. It took a lot longer to get anywhere. Letters took longer to travel, instead of instantly via internet. Determining one’s exact arrival time wasn’t as accurate either. You could give a couple days as an estimate, if all went well.

Another typical aspect of the time was the threat of disaster from current technology. Not only could trains wreck, carriages topple, or horses go lame–but a fire was really easy to start in any type of dwelling or structure. Because people used lamps (oil) or candles, and many items in the home were combustible (let’s not even get into wallpapers with arsenic), fires were quite frequent. There is a great series on YouTube that goes into the dangers of the Victorian Home, and I highly recommend it, even though it covers the British nation not the United States. Things were very similar.

So much could kill you at home, thus war was hardly a stretch of difference. For the men of Blue Honor, they spend a great deal of the book away on war campaigns. They’re cavalry soldiers, but marching is also part of their daily experience. The household tasks were conducted by lower ranks, while the upper ranks administered and executed the battles. The dangers of the home would be with them, even in the camps. Fire, poison, accidents, and disease were still top threats, but they also faced the addition of mortal wounding by lead bullets or bone shattering cannon shot.

Don’t let me leave you before mentioning the lives of the Maynard family. They play an important role in the changes that sweep Emily off the family dairy. Because Evan went to West Point, he met the Maynard’s son Joseph and became fast friends. The pair so hit it off that they remained inseparable and end up deployed together. Joseph also provided the exit strategy for Evan from an ill-fated marriage. Evan knew that this was the right man for his friend.

What was it about the Joseph that clued Evan in? The lives of the Maynards were closer on par with what the Conrads would ultimately want for their daughter. Emily deserved something better than running a farm that he knew bored her to tears. Though she loved the animals there, living marginally satisfied was not acceptable. She deserved to go out into the world, too. She had gifts that only Joseph would be able to support and shield from the conventions of the time. The Maynards lives had led them to be rather progressive–abolitionists and feminists!

Evan would be free to pursue his life as he saw fit, and hopefully not on a farm in the great north of the States. Boy did he relate to Emily’s need to get out of town!

Looking back on the setting of the Victorian times, I always see it with a dreamy, dusty veil filtering the images. The inference of that symbolism is clear, I think. A day in the life of my Victorian characters exists with many threats leading them to misery and death that the time is shadowy.

Let’s hop on over to the other author’s answers by clicking on their links below. Please subscribe to this blog and get an email on Friday’s to link you to the new installment.

Wounds So Deep – Open Book Blog Hop #313

February 21, 2022 By Captain Maiel

♦Welcome to another edition of the Open Book Blog Hop!♦

Topic #313
What’s the worst wound (emotional or physical) one of your
characters has ever had to deal with? How did you react to writing the scene?

Spoilers ahead.

Some folks may argue that the worst wound I’ve written would apply to the gruesome abuse that Captain Maiel survives. While domestic violence is one of the most horrendous things I can think of, there is another character who has gone through some serious experiences as well. Henrietta Benson is a survivor of slavery. I can’t imagine worse. I’ll tell you why.

While Maiel goes through all of the horrors of domestic violence, including sexual assault, Hettie has had that and her humanity stripped away simply for existing in black skin. It was not just one perpetrator but an entire nation and culture. There was unlikely any escape from it. Her life hung on the line at all times, as well as the lives of every single person she held dear. That is a lasting and deep wound.

Burning Down, The Trailokya Trilogy, author K. Williams, book series, fantasy books — Maiel, Moon Order, Captain, Guardian

Hettie doesn’t just have to worry about herself but her family. She carries the physical scars forward right along with the lingering racism that threatens her at every moment throughout the rest of her life. For Hettie, there is no end to the abuse. The ever present danger is dancing on the fringe. That wears on a body, preventing healing if any can be achieved.

While Maiel survives beatings and an assault by someone she trusted and loved, watching her family fall apart in the mix of it, she is able to reach safety again. She is able to heal these wounds in time. Hettie’s friends and family can only make her so safe from the rest of the society in which they live. She doesn’t have super human connections. There is no alternate dimension in which to retreat.

Writing Hettie was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my writing thus far. This is directly due to her wounds. It is a perspective of which I can never truly understand every aspect to the depth I feel necessary. All I can do is be considerate of that which I’ve been told by those similar to her, who are closest to the history: Black Women. My respect and admiration to them. It is my hope that I did justice to Hettie and her experience, her wounds, exposing the nuance of privilege that surrounds her and the ripples of her trauma.

Writing Maiel’s assault was emotionally taxing, as well, but I cannot say that I felt more terror than when I wrote Hettie. Throughout each of Hettie’s scenes a threat looms, always present. There is no erasing such a wound. Safety is a dream for her; something she pretends to get through each day. Trauma is constant and retraumatization, too. Wounds only begin to heal before they are torn open again.

Reflecting on Hettie fills me with the greatest angst, as well. I recognize the desire to sweep in and save her conflicting with the knowledge that nothing can be done, because the history is set. Authentically facing the enslavement of kidnapped Africans in America is a hard journey of also facing the darkness of white history. Acknowledging the crimes of the past is a worthwhile endeavor, however. I cannot express that enough–especially for Americans. We really need to do this work, because it has never been addressed sufficiently.

While I don’t shy away from difficult topics, I am not sure I will revisit this story with a sequel. I have thought of a follow up, but cannot find a good reason to rehash the trauma that it would contain for the sake of fiction. The one story line that pushes at me to write, an offshoot via minor characters, is just not formed enough or making a good enough case.

Let’s hop on over to the other author answers via their links below…

5 Seconds – Open Book Blog Hop #306

January 3, 2022 By Captain Maiel

♦Welcome to another edition of the Open Book Blog Hop!♦

Topic #306
It’s your book. The next 5 seconds are the most important. What happens?

I’d have to engage this from the standpoint of the screen adaptations of my books. 5 seconds in a book is but a few words. Whereas, in a book 5 seconds can offer up a bevy of happenings. Time is such a funny thing. Let’s have a gander. Roll the dice, which book are we in?

My daughter picked Blue Honor. So, I hope you’re on the same page…

5 seconds in Blue Honor could be the difference between alive and dead. This historical novel deals with the very precarious life of a federal cavalry soldier during the US Civil War. 5 seconds in war changes lives–forever. It’s ironic in the light of the main protagonist, a dairy farm heiress, who feels that her life drags on and on painfully slow and in only one direction. She’s bored out of her mind to the point of despair. How many of us have been there? As the book goes on, Emily’s life changes within moments due to a barn fire. The painful dragging of time becomes agonizing for other reasons thereafter.

Having met and come to an attachment with a young army man, Emily spends the years of the war counting every second, not knowing what has become of her beloved. In the exchange of letters, through the newspapers her father reads, and rare events where they meet again–she tracks every second no longer bored, but terrorized by possibility. It is true that possibility terrorized her prior to the fire, but the idea of being married to a man she thought of more as a brother than a lover is far more tame than the death of all that could be.

Emily, likewise, is facing the reality of her privilege through the eyes of her friend Henrietta, an escaped slave. The counting of time in this case offers Emily a sense of security. The further the years run, the less likely anyone is to come for Hettie. Yet, there is the knowledge that those years could make insurmountable distance between her friend’s family and a safer future in Vermont. Both women assume that family is still enslaved on the farm in Mississippi that Hettie escaped, but Hettie also is aware of the violence that the slavers can act upon their prisoners. Her escape would have undeniably angered the slavers. Hettie bears the marks in her skin from the proof. 5 seconds is not nearly enough time to find safety and be sure of your allies.

Emily’s vantage, as a young white woman doesn’t give her the vantage to clearly understand these matters. Hettie fears making it clear to her, lest there be retaliation from the girl’s parents. Although they have been loving and provided as much as they know to provide in the way of care, healing, and space, they’re still white, and they could turn on a dime. Emily remains oblivious to these differences, creating tensions that could erupt in seconds, turning Hettie’s world upside down again.

Emily’s brother, who serves in the military at this time, is under the careful watch of the man that Emily loves and her dear friend. These men, Joseph and Evan respectively, do all that they can to make sure that her brother Michael is as safe as they can make him. But, Michael is as headstrong as his sister, if not more so. Their privilege and innocence has somehow created a sense of invincibility that endangers them. In 5 seconds, Michael could make a decision that not only bears him to the grave, but gouges a rift between his sister and those she loves.

In the heat of battle, the men could make the fateful decision to lean left or right into the path of an oncoming round. They could be charging too fast or too slow through a hail of bullets. Should their mounts be seconds too fast they could land right in the path of a cannon ball. The choices to hesitate or hasten meaning your life sounds all too stressful, to be honest. We get a glimpse into that with the pandemic: should I stay or go? Sending your child to daycare or keeping them home. Masking but applying the mask after passing by someone who might be infected. To vaccinate or not…

There are hundreds of thousands of individuals who die in war as well as pandemics, not to place blame upon their shoulders, but due to the roll of the dice in something as simple as looking out from behind cover at the wrong second. Everyday, you might say, there are folks making such choices, but those choices aren’t exponentially raised to dire consequences such as what war and rampant disease pose. It’s disingenuous to equate unequal matters.

Then, of course, there is the fact that our choices ripple outward to affect others, taking choice from them. And, then that becomes our karmic debt. Imagine being those cavalry men, and calling the charge–you’ve just asked a squads of your soldiers to follow you into the fray. A good number will not return. That weight must have been quite heavy to bear. War is suffering for so many reasons. 5 seconds could add so much to an already overburdened plate, or it could serve a final meal.

I do not envy military personnel, past or present. Their jobs are difficult and they carry terrible burdens. My dad was drafted during Vietnam, and I am forever grateful that he did not see the fields overseas. However, many of my uncles and my godfather did. I am proud of them (as they were really and truly good and great men), and thankful–grateful for their sacrifice. I don’t have to agree with the conflicts in which they served. Warriors will probably always have my heart. Somehow, I understand what it is that they give up in adhering to duty.

5 seconds is enough time to change your timeline forever, ask Maiel from Trailokya–speaking of warriors.

Click on the links below to find out what 5 seconds could mean in the other authors’ books.

Open Book Blog Hop, time management, computer organization time calendar

The Corruption of Rugged Individualism Into Savage Bullying

April 27, 2018 By Captain Maiel

Once upon a time, people in the United States of America valued individualism alongside congeniality. Somewhere along the path, within recent years, Americans have veered away from friendliness to isolationism. I guess it was always a matter of time before this nation’s people began to reflect its long held (claimed anyway) foreign policy. Antisocial behavior, and/or tribalism, has won rank as the seminal characteristic of American strength, and the ideal American male. With this comes excessive greed and anger.

But, what has made American’s so cold?

The corruption of rugged individualism into savage bullying has been underway, I’d wager, for as long as the United States has existed. There has always been an element among the citizenry that prides its independence, freedom, and cloistered way of life. Think of the folks stories of the Hatfields and McCoys.

That story has something else in common with the current state of affairs in America: male violence. Certainly everyone in those two families got involved regardless of what gender with which they identified. But, that is the way of toxic masculinity. It is patriarchal and it lies as king over families or groups (you may think of Waco, or other religious communal groups that have become infamous). This form of masculinity demands unyielding loyalty and obedience from the deemed lesser members of the group. It is hard and arrogantly focused. One might notice the similarities this has with Domestic Violence perpetrators.

Not ironically, victims of domestic violence often grow up to become abusers. This is how the problem perpetuates itself. The survival of such a system relies on convincing the victim that they deserve the treatment, as well as understanding it as a necessary thing. The abuser manipulates the mind of the victim to simultaneously think they are the greatest thing that has ever happened to the abuser, and that they are a terrible person who needs to be closely kept by the abuser. Do you see the average American here in the shadow of their abusive overlords?

Part of that manipulation relies on allies to back up the stories the abuser tells. So if those who believe they should be the ruling class in America want to maintain power over the sovereign citizens of America, they must convince them to abdicate their power unto them. They will need to be convinced they require protection from the would be ruling class, because they are too weak to defend themselves. In the middle of this, they will be told they cannot trust one another, because we can’t have victims speaking to victims about what they’ve been told. And the manipulations spiral on from there until the people are divided. That division is a long existing trench put in place prior to the close of the revolution that birthed the nation (slavery being the millstone on which that grain was ground).

Rugged individualism was a value that was employed to leverage the emotions of Americans. It has been wielded for generations, plucking the heartstrings with nostalgia of a time that exists only in stories. For, Americans never did anything without relying upon each other. Even when conquering the west, settlers leaned upon their groups, towns, and larger legions. Yet, it is spun that each family was headed by a tall silent patriarch who single-handedly carved out the ranch and defended against intruders (usually a person of color painted as a blood-thirsty savage, hell-bent on taking the rancher’s women). Why not just talk about cavemen bopping women over the head and dragging them back to a cave?

in·di·vid·u·al·ism (noun) : individualism

the habit or principle of being independent and self-reliant.

self-centered feeling or conduct; egoism.

a social theory favoring freedom of action for individuals over collective or state control.

Regardless, the point is, that true individualism in the United States has been corrupted into men vying for power over one another. In each heart is held a deep suspicion that his neighbor will steal him blind if he lets his guard down but a moment. A cycle of abuse thus embeds itself into practically every niche of the culture.

Underlying this is the ideology of mammon, or the gaining of wealth for the sake of wealth. The United States has been here before, in the 1800s when robber barons ruled the day, and the train system was erected. It came after the turn of the century, too. Sectors of the populace believed it was a god given right to abuse the less fortunate and build wealth upon their backs, because that is a manly thing to do, both manly and aristocratic.

Boys don’t cry, you’re incapable of amassing wealth because you are weak, and other tall tales are tools of abusers. When such abuse is prolonged and as exhaustive as it has been in the United States, you are left with anger. This year has seen a devastating rise in the expression of that anger, especially among the white males of the nation, school shootings being the most visible locus. Yet, school shootings are not the prime materialization.

If one has spent any time at all on the internet, for instance, on Facebook or similar social media, then one would see the incessant abuse of strangers. The easiest place in which to see this flood of vitriol is in the comments section of any celebrity’s post. Another popular place is in the comments of feminist posts, as feminism is seen as threatening to the way of masculinity (although it seeks to simply put genders on equal footing with one another). These men claim they are preserving freedom (of action?). In truth, they are clawing at the power they wield over others instead of the freedom to choose for themselves. No longer is the desire to cooperate in an effort to achieve greatness together, as it has been replaced with repressive and angry compulsions to control.

Is it any wonder that with the rise of technology, when we are at our most connected state ever, it is being manipulated by those in power to keep us divided?

Thus, conservative elites, who pretend to emulate the greatest of American values, and the supposed liberals working beside them, exploit the people of this nation through savage bullying, and have broken the very meaning of republic.

Shagbottom Theater Presents: Andromache by Euripedes

May 8, 2017 By Captain Maiel

It’s time again for another episode of Shagbottom Theater!

This time, Miss Shagbottom will read from Andromache by Euripedes…

Andromache:

‘Twas no bride Paris took with him to the towers of Ilium, but curse to his bed when he brought Helen to her bower. For her sake, Troy, did eager warriors, sailing from Hellas in a thousand ships, capture and make thee a prey to fire and sword; and the son of sea-born Thetis mounted on his chariot dragged my husband Hector round the walls, ah woe is me! while I was hurried from my chamber to the beach, with slavery’s hateful pall upon me. And many tear I shed as I left my city, my bridal bower, and my husband in the dust. Woe, woe is me! why should I prolong my life, to serve Hermione? Her cruelty it is that drives me hither to the image of the goddess to throw my suppliant arms about it, melting to tears as doth a spring that gushes from the rock.

Andromache by Eurpides