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

Re: Quick Secondary Comment

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

This is me, reading too much "THe Ballad of Jake the Snake and the Rock and Roll Kid."

I had an idea of an old west where gunpowder was never invented. And an image of a woman who looked a specific way riding into town out of the sunset, her broadsword on her back. (it turned into a conventional western when I couldn't pull off the world-building in my head)

I value all the input. Better a negative reaction when we have 1000 words of Matt Court trying to settle in a new town than hair-tearing and shouting later when it's published.

I know white/Mative American marriages happened in the era. My great-great grandmother was in one. That was probably where the problem of my hyper-creativity started. I got to playing with my family history and extrapolating.

Basically, at this point we're going with the "nobody knows anything about her, including that she's female" thing.

I do my research, but Time-Life's The Old West series is a product of its times, and very sketchy on some things. Thanks.

Re:

[the-willow.insanejournal.com (from livejournal.com)]

I'm... a little confused. You can't manage the world building for an old west without gunpowder but you can or thought you could manage world building to write in a PoC point of view?

Also, seriously? You need to watch some Anime. I highly suggest Claymore. Because Swordslinger in Western Seeming Town is all over Japanese animation.

As for the Time Life Western Series - You are so lucky I can't reach through the internet and thump you friendly like at the back of your head. Calling it 'a product of it's times' is being genteel and docile.

Please please please don't encourage me to start comparing you to LKH, she of NO research at all. I expect her not to figure out black history would not be contained within those pages. Black history / Native History as opposed to White History's brushes with Other. Of course if LKH tried writing about a WoC and actually cracked open a resource book, I'd be a hell of kinder to her in order to encourage the crawl back to sanity.

You remember not even a month ago the shit that stirred with Cassie Edward's plagiarism and cultural appropriation, right? And now the brown and smelly hitting the swiftly rotating over Ms. Peggy Seltzer 'I wanna be a half native ganster' - yes?

Now is not the time to start falling down in the area of thoughtful awareness.

Re:

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

Does it help on the Time Life books if I say I have them for the pictures, many of which are primary source material for the period?

This is at the noodling/research planning phase.

We've weighed all the options. And i think we're writing the Robin Hood piece instead.

Re:

[the-willow.insanejournal.com (from livejournal.com)]

Does it help on the Time Life books if I say I have them for the pictures, many of which are primary source material for the period?

Actually, that helps some, yes.

I'm truly sorry if I seem harsh. But I'm not at a place to be writing right now and so I really look to the writers I know who're working steadily to be, DECENT and AWARE and using their opportunity to have a voice heard.

Re:

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

(They're also my inheritance from my late grandfather)


I can take a hint. Or, you know, a direct clue-by-four. 8)

When EVERYONE I know--friends, respected writers--is saying "This is a bad idea," it's time to step back from it and say "Bad idea."