Prejudice vs. Reality

 

As I’ve mentioned in past posts, some of the people who joined the California gold rush took a route across the Isthmus of Panama. My current work-in-progress follows that path.

Once the gold seekers reached the eastern shore of Panama, the next leg of their trip was up the Chagres River. The vast majority seem to have hired canoes with native crews, as each of the men in my collection of journals did. So it makes sense for my protagonist’s family to do the same.

But here’s the problem. The journals give the impression that the natives were untrustworthy and lazy. At first glance, it appears to be a stereotype fueled by prejudice. But maybe it isn’t. The natives’ behavior is a common theme and the narratives include concrete details. In some cases, the natives weren’t anywhere to be found at the time contracted for departure. In other cases, they left during a rest stop and had to be rounded up before proceeding. Sometimes it even took an extra payment to get them to provide the services they had promised. The native crews did eventually get the men to their destination, but it was a frustrating experience for the travelers.

So here’s my dilemma. Good historical fiction portrays reality, and the reality appears to be that the natives had a different work ethic than the American and European gold seekers. If I describe the situation the way the journals do, I open myself to a charge of prejudice. If I don’t, I open myself to a charge of altering history. I can’t win.

Or maybe it isn’t as bad as it seems. My protagonist is a twelve-year-old workaholic, and I can play into that. My current solution to the dilemma is to have her father contract for a canoe with a native crew the night before with the agreement that they will leave first thing in the morning, but they don’t show up until the afternoon. When Lizzie complains to Pa, he says the natives have a different culture than the Americans, who are always impatient and uptight. Then he tells Lizzie that she can learn something from the natives because she needs to relax more.

That solution may change with subsequent drafts, but I won’t sacrifice historical reality to sanitize my story.

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The image at the top of this post shows an 1850 oil painting by Charles Christian Nahl titled The Isthmus of Panama on the Height of the Chagres River. It is in the public domain in the United States because of its age.