***

Ahsennamenshi explained: "Before, we always had either a war sachem or a peace sachem. But now? It isn't war, but it doesn't feel like peace either. It feels more like wartime. So we have a new kind of sachem. He's a we-have-to-travel-and-find-new-homes sachem. So we're kind of making up some of the rules as we go along."

"What do you call this ( Read more... )

[1793-4]

My sister-in-law Maggie (wife to my big brother Luke) was, despite her marital seniority, three years my junior in age. I met her when Mama, Luke, Michael, and I traveled back to Maryland to spend Christmas of ninety-three with our kin there, while Mary and Hal were minding the farm.

I found Miss Maggie O'Hara to be not only a ( Read more... )

She was born in Cuba in 1809. Her father Diego Limón Ruiz was Spanish and her mother María Conchita Robles was a free Black Indian woman of the Taino nation. They lived a modestly comfortable life in a suburb of Havana. Juanita went to a high school for girls run by nuns in Havana, where she studied English. But Juanita's dad died when she was ( Read more... )

It was in November of ninety-three that Dad departed this life. One day his face had gone gray as though the life were draining out. He left work in the midafternoon, saying he felt poorly, and asked for a glass of whiskey. When I fetched it to him, he smiled and gave me a blessing. Then he relaxed into a deep sleep. By morning his sleep had become ( Read more... )

Charity Marks and her children are another example of how my people have crossed racial boundaries ( Read more... )

Upon my visit to Philadelphia, whither one of my old friends had moved, I took lodging in Germantown in the home of Michael's mother's kinsfolk, and recalled the gentleman there to whom Mrs. Smith had recommended me. So one morning I put on my bonnet and walked until I found Queen Lane, where I made inquiry for a Mr. K-- and was soon knocking on ( Read more... )

"It was back in June of seventy-seven, when I was a lass of fifteen years, that the trouble reached here. Mother was away visiting her kin at the time. I remember that morning my father suddenly pulling Michael and me out the door and opening the cow pen. 'Jane,' he urged, 'we must flee at once! The damned Redcoats have set the Mohawks upon us. We ( Read more... )

Once in each year we journeyed back to Maryland for supplies and renewing of old acquaintances. Before leaving on one such trip, Dad got a letter from his nephew Bartholomew McGuire who had come over from Ireland as an indentured servant. My cousins had a farm near Huntingdon, Pennsylvania-as the Standing Stone village was now called-and sought a ( Read more... )

The next spring, I heard Mama wishing out loud we had more herbs on hand for cooking and healing, and that she was going to plant an herb garden as soon as she found some free time. I thought to myself this would be a fine time to hunt for herbs in the hills. That day in April was uncommonly warm and I wandered far along the ridge gathering Squaw ( Read more... )

Poor old Dad was all of seventy-one years when we finally went over Allegheny Mountain to settle ( Read more... )