Caleb's Crossing Theodine Brooks Analysis

Caleb’s Crossing, by Geraldine Brooks, explores the life of Bethia Mayfield and how she grew up in a New England settlement where she befriended the Wampanoag Indian Caleb who later comes to an english University. The American Pageant, by David M. Kennedy and Lizabeth Cohen, gives detailed information on the history and interactions between the New World settlers and the Natives that lived there for centuries. In Caleb’s Crossing the Indians and English settlers form close ties with one another even during major conflict, but in The American Pageant as soon as conflict starts the Indians and English forsake each other and a horrific war ensues. Caleb’s Crossing also gives a more in depth view of the personal relationship between Indians and

In Caleb’s Crossing there are more kinds of transculturation and more deeply explained than The American Pageant. In The American Pageant the only types of transculturation deal with language, religion and farming. Kennedy talks about how ambassadors of the Indians would learn English, how the Indians passed their knowledge of how to sow and reap a bountiful harvest to the settlers, and how the settlers taught the natives about God in an attempt to convert them. However, in Caleb’s Crossing the two cultures transgress even more. Joel and Caleb came to study at college and learn Latin, Greek, Hebrew and get a full education. Bethia and her family learned to speak the natives language which was not seen in the textbook. Furthermore, Caleb also taught Bethia about his tribes’ polytheistic religion which was not even broached in the textbook. In The American Pageant the transculturation is mainly the Indians gaining and giving knowledge in order to help the English, but in Caleb’s Crossing Bethia’s village gives their knowledge to help the Indians prosper and incorporate them into