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

[reannon.livejournal.com]

Wikipedia says the term was "negro" in that time, not capitalized until the 20th century. I personally would not find it inappropriate for her to use that term, given the time period. A modern-day character of course would seem anachronistic.

However. WAY too complicated. You've got four different races and multiple family traumas all boxed up in one person. I think it might be one mix too many for a single character. You could spend the whole book in character study on her and the various ethnicities she explores, but then you'd have a 300-page character study.

I do not define "Mary Sue" the way you have referred to her here. But "too complicated" I get. Oh yes, I get.

[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

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

Yes and yes. You've got four different races and multiple family traumas all boxed up in one person -- this is what's ringing the Mary Sue bell, because one definition of MS is that she's an overloaded operator, she's Qui-Gon's daughter AND Obi-Wan's first girlfriend AND Palaptine's niece AND the fastest pilot in the galaxy AND speaks fluent Wookie. The character here is overloading, too, unless everything else is fleshed out to novel length to counterbalance her.

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

Yeah. My top end is 30K
And I knew when I saw her, she was overloaded.

I just wanted her lovely, all golden, even to her topaz colored eyes.

[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.

The D-Man checks in

[(Anonymous)]

Way too complicated, especially for a character whom you say has no real interest in her racial heritage(s) anyways--since nobody wants her. A quick blurb about it for basic background, plus the character's personal sentiments on it, and then who cares? If it ain't ever gonna come up or benefit her after that, it's just wasted words that will bog down the story. She's a mixed-blood, so nobody much cares for her... It's just an excuse for the pure-bloods on all sides to scorn and abuse her, and she's been bitter about it since childhood... Life ain't fair! Enough said.

I believe a typical enough term for Africans back in that time period was, "Darkie." Being as they were just slaves (property), I doubt there needed to be a "polite" term for them, any more than society at the time (or even today) needed a polite term for any other form of livestock/chattel. A goat's a goat, a horse is a horse... a slave is a slave. Is it worth keeping or not? Do you wanna sell it or not?

From my own research, the typical slave sold for about $8,000 in the mid to late 19th century... at least in America. Adjusted for inflation, that would be about $40,000 today. Ebay often has authentic paperwork and bills of sale up for auction that you can look at from this time period. Just reference/search, Slave Girl.

Just a common sense question: Would it be wise to call this character into town to take out certain unsavory persons her family doesn't care to have around, and then object to their paid killer sharing a table with them? If we don't like her, and she don't like us... what's to keep her from just turning around and killing us too if we don't show her some respect after she does our bidding--even if for a price? What's to keep her from taking contracts our rivals might then put out on us? At least if we tolerate her better than anyone else, and give her a shred of respect... and maybe a place to call home on a limited basis... we could keep her interested in at least keeping us alive, since she's got nobody else and nowhere else to go to.

Yeah. Note to self - the romance trade is NOT for me.

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

I'm glad other people commented. I took one look at the scenario you laid out and had to remind myself who you were. I've been seriously bitter lately.


Just...

My reaction when I finally read the comments and saw you wanted a brown skinned woman to run around killing white folk was that you MUST be telling a supernatural ghost story cause that is one dead negress.

Then all this too was coming on the heels (some two weeks) of my being linked to information about just why it is quite a few of those towns in the mid/west don't even have one black family living there. Because they took up arms to chase the black families off, shooting, burning, threatening and then annexed the land for themselves.

I can't imagine a scenario where a black woman kills a white man, and manages to be successfully harboured by a white man. Cause the few and far between white families that spoke up against that sort of stuff? They got run out too.
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/banished/
http://soulphoto.net/index.php/Main/comments/banished_american_ethnic_cleaning/

I'm also glad as heck someone's pointed out to you that a -red- woman murdering and killing would get shot as soon as looked at. And I have to admit to some 'WTF is going on in her head!?!' that that didn't occur to you at all.

I know the West gets romanticized a lot. But man... when I think of you I think of a writer who does research. Is this us doing some homework for you? Or you just testing out if your mind was just clearly not seeing straight up and down facts?

Yeah.. see, I waited and waited thinking I'd be calmer and now I'm finding I'm not as calm in choosing my words as I want to be.

If all you want is a woman who's scorned and looked down upon doing a seeming man's job in a man's world in the west - you could just as easily have her be the known child of a whore, or the child of perhaps some white family that was made so broke by the bank that they had to go live in the wild off the land like 'Indians' *attempts not to gag*

If you want to attempt to explore an individual who has that many ethnicities mixing up in their history - try someone from the Caribbean or South America. No, for real. You'll find Spanish/Venezualeans, East Indians, Lebanese, Syrians, Chinese, African Descendeds, Amerindians and Whites on the island of my birth alone. And those whites were French, English and Spanish.

In other countries of the tropics and below the equator there'll be Amerindians, Whites (Germans, Dutch, Spanish, French, English), African Descendeds, Chinese, East Indians & more.

Then again, that wouldn't have your gun slinger romance, would it. And it likely wouldn't have your white men rescuing the WoC with his love. And yes I say rescuing, cause you call her bitter, and then having him tending to her and the hurt/comfort trope of that is soul rescuing, or rescuing from emotional despair and bitterness.

Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman was a show not reality and a prime-time, network show at that.

Quick Secondary Comment

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

If you want to write about an amber eyed mixed race female assassin, scorned by her family who's called back to take care of some business and is nursed to health unexpectedly by the Western Town's prerequsite loner widow/bacherlor etc...

Why does it have to be the OLD WEST?

I'd think the current democratic race and commentary shows plainly that racism is NOT dead in these 'modern' times.

If you wanted to show a character with long reaching roots in the area (Great Granpappy was a runaway slave, Great Granmammy was result of a rich white man raping his mexican cook - but they survived and their children) who comes home to kill - why is that not an acceptable story?

Heck least that way the bachelor doesn't have to be lily-white and if he's a widow, then his prior wife doesn't have to be lily-white either.

Maybe you saw Thandie cause she's of modern times.

But this is just me trying for a comment that's not quite full of 'from hell's depths I stab at thee'.

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."