Mixed race character in a historical

[valarltd]

We were bitten by the heterosexual Historical bunny.
So "Yellowstone River Blues" is in the works.

Basically, imagine a middle-aged Erroll Flynn falling for a slightly-less middle-aged Thandie Newton.

The problem is, Paz appeared as profoundly mixed in my head.

Her father is the son of a runaway slave and his Apache wife.
Her mother is the result of a wealthy Texas landholder's liaison with his Mexican cook.
Her parents were burned out and murdered by ranchers/US military who were trying to open the land to white settlers.

Is this too complicated? Is it too Mary-Sue or fanfictiony?


Also, what period appropriate term would she use for her grandfather?
I'm thinking Negro was the polite term in that era.

Would you, as a reader, hurl a book across the room if a sympathetic character referred to her ancestry in such terms?
(unsympathetic characters will have less polite terms)


And if anyone can point me to a website featuring prices in the 1890s, it'd be much appreciated.

Comments

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking of dropping the Mexican cook, and making mom half-white and dad Cree or Kiowa.


She's not interested in her heritage, really. None of them want her. She is, however, resentful about the treatment she gets. They wire her to come to town and kill who they need killed, and won't even let her sit down to dinner in the restaurant.

Oh and toss in the "thirty year-old virgin" trope too

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

Way too complicated, yes. Four different races is far too much--especially if, as you say, she's not that interested in her heritage in the first place. Plus look at all the backstory:

Paternal grandfather: a runaway slave. Plenty of drama right there.
Paternal grandmother: Apache (http://impurplehawk.com/apache.html). And a rich heritage there as well, combined with the fact that by the 1870s, the American government was trying to get all of the Apaches onto reservations.
Depending on what culture their son was raised in, he would refer to himself as "Negro," "black Indian," or "Inde" or "Nide" (the Apaches' term for themselves). Also, there are six different sub-tribes he could belong to.

Maternal grandfather: Rich Texas landholder.
Maternal grandmother: Mexican cook. I know you said "liaison," but given the differences in their class and socio-economic position, I automatically thought that Paz's mother was the child of a rape.

So. Slavery and post-Civil War prejudice against blacks. Highly matrilineal society/Indian wars/forcing Indians onto the reservations. Probably coerced sexual relationship ("Have sex with me or lose your job, and I'll tell everyone you're a slut anyway").

And, of course, three-quarters of the mixed heritage, interesting as it is, doesn't really matter all that much in Paz's life. Paz is a quarter black, which in this era legally means that she's ALL black. (The polite terms for her in that era--though they aren't polite nowadays--would probably be "quadroon," "colored," or "Negress.")

And if she gets involved with a white man, this is going to make a huge difference. Not a happy one, either. (At least I hope it would make a huge, unhappy difference. I'm very tired of so-called historicals where the characters have twenty-first-century beliefs and sensibilities. That erases a lot of perfectly good conflict, and for what?)

Would you, as a reader, hurl a book across the room if a sympathetic character referred to her ancestry in such terms?
(unsympathetic characters will have less polite terms)

I wouldn't hurl the book across the room because she referred to her ancestry in such terms. I would, however, be suspicious of her specialness and go on high alert. I WOULD hurl it across the room and start ranting to friends if any of the following happened:

1) Paz is a perfectly poised and proud young woman, accustomed to speaking her mind and holding unpopular opinions. (Not impossible for a woman in any era, but women in historical romances are notorious for being anachronistically proto-feminist and proto-activist, even in eras and situations where this would be a VERY bad idea.)

I see danger of this already. A mixed-race female gunslinger-assassin would qualify as being anachronistic. Yes, there were women gunfighters, but most didn't live openly as women, and the ones who did (like Belle Starr) were outlaws. And a dark-skinned person killing whites? Can you imagine how well this would go over in the Old West?

Her reaction to normal treatment for the time--"They don't even let me sit down in the restaurant!"--is likewise anachronistic. Good gravy, until the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which said that public places and things (like transportation) had to be desegregated, NO ONE with dark skin, male or female, would have had the right that she was complaining about. The concept of civil rights as we know it today wouldn't have even existed back then.

So you're going to have to watch this one.

2) No one except the bad characters has any legal, religious or social qualms about Errol/Paz, or takes any notice of it at all, save to be supportive. (Yeah, I know, Errol Flynn is a movie star, but I don't know what the character's real name is. So consider "Errol" a placeholder name.)

3) Errol and Paz court openly. There are no repercussions from this.

4) Errol and Paz get married. Legally. There are no repercussions from this, either.

I can't tell until I read an excerpt, but right now--based on the specialness of Paz's background and occupation and her anachronistic expectations of courtesy--I'm seeing strong evidence for a Mary Sue in a wallpaper historical. And the anachronisms would bother me more than the Sue would...which is saying a lot.

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

Darn. I knew when she showed up and started talking that she was too much for a novella.

Am considering having her live as a man. It would be safer for a woman on her own, especially a drifter. I was very worried about my own sensibilities creeping in (one of the many reasons I hate writing female characters) but it looks like they got there.

I wanted her light enough to pass for Native American. (The only reason the black made it in is because in my head, she's Thandie. The only reason the white got in is I needed her eyes to be a very pale brown)

The whole town is scandalized when Matt treats her with the same respect he treated the banker's daughter. They're also a little surprised to find out she's a woman. And very angry when she doesn't ride in, kill Matt Court and ride on, like she's supposed to.

Courtship=patching her up after she's shot, providing her with a place to relearn to shoot, feeding her, telling her funny stories. (oh man, hurt/comfort! augh) And the local folks are horrified that he takes her in, and tongues wag like crazy.

Marrying her means he ends up loses the whole spread he built with his own two hands,and they both end up moving on. The only reason they're able to marry is the parson really likes Matt.

We're still at the plotting stage. I'd rather ask questions now and get told "Augh! You hack! That will never work!" when I can still fix it, than get hideous reviews later.

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

I wanted her light enough to pass for Native American. (The only reason the black made it in is because in my head, she's Thandie. The only reason the white got in is I needed her eyes to be a very pale brown)

Doesn't matter. An Indian killing whites is just as bad--especially since the Apaches had an ongoing war with the whites during this period. The bottom line is that if you have a dark-skinned minority killing whites in the Old West, you're going to have a fair number of white people killing blacks, Mexicans or Indians in revenge, because they'd operate on the theory that the minority would inevitably know who and where the killer was. If they didn't know, they'd be presumed to be lying, and they'd be killed.

So Paz would cause a LOT of problems.

The whole town is scandalized when Matt treats her with the same respect he treated the banker's daughter.

*sighs* No. The racial divide would be stronger than that. It wouldn't a question of treating an odd cross-dressing woman as well as the banker's daughter. First, if she's living as a man, EVERYONE would have to believe that she IS a man, for her own safety; a woman who ran around and assassinated people would surely be considered insane, because women did not do things like that. Most of the women gunslingers were quite homely and often badly scarred. They could pass as men with ease. Often they married or lived with other women, and claimed the other women's children as their own.

And second, this is nineteenth-century America. There is racism, and a LOT of it. A dark-skinned male would in no way be as good as a white lady. And "lady" didn't just mean woman--the banker's daughter would be, automatically, of a higher social class because of her color as well as her father's money.

The local folks shouldn't be horrified that Matt is taking Paz in if she's living as a man. Logically, they'd believe that she IS a man.

Marrying her means he ends up loses the whole spread he built with his own two hands,and they both end up moving on. The only reason they're able to marry is the parson really likes Matt.

No, marrying her means that he's breaking the law, because marriage between blacks and whites--and by law, she's all black because she's part-black--is illegal. The laws forbidding racially mixed marriages in America didn't end until the Supreme Court case of Loving v. Virginia (1967) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia).

So it doesn't matter if the parson likes Matt or not. She's the wrong race in the wrong place and time. Legally, they cannot marry. And if they try to marry, or if Paz passes herself off as white so that they can marry...they'd be thrown out of town at least. Possibly arrested. Possibly lynched. Like I said, they're living in a racist society.

The thing is, you do have material here for a tragic romance set in the Old West--a love that, because of the attitudes of the people in that time and place, couldn't be. But I don't think that's the kind of story you're looking for.