Caleb's Crossing

“I love the fogs that wreathe us all in milky veils, and the winds that moan and keen in the chimney piece at night. Even when the wrack line is crusted with salty ice, and the ways through the woods crunch under my clogs, I drink the cold air in the low, blue gleam that sparkles on the snow. Every inlet and outcrop of this place, I love.” 

Through the novel, the island will be a place of refuge and home for Bethia. It is the first place she thinks of later when trying to shelter Anne, and the place she comes to when Caleb is dying. Here, every detail reinforces Bethia’s powers of observation and her innate connection to her place of birth.

“I thought, but did not say, that grandfather could hardly have expected the fine points of English property law to count for much to some three thousand people whose reputation […] had been ferocious.” 

Bethia is deeply aware even as a girl of the unfair treatment of Native Americans at the hands of settlers. Even on the island, where the Wampanoag and settler communities get along better than other places, the original compact is a one-sided one.

“We named the things of this place in reference to things that were not of this place—cat briar for the thickets of vine whose thorns were narrow and claw like; lambskill for the lowgrowing laurel […] But there had no cats or lambs here until we brought them. So when he named a plant or a creature, I felt that I heard the true name of the thing for the first time.” 

Bethia loves hearing the Indigenous names for the plants and animals of the island. She recognizes that settler names have little to do with the land and are much more about recreating memories of the Old World than learning about the new one where they find themselves. Names are deeply important in the novel, as Native Americans often find themselves obligated to take on English names in order to interact with settlers, while settlers make little effort to even learn how to pronounce Wampanoag names.

“Of course, I thought it all outlandish. But […] it came to me that our story of a burning bush and a parted sea might also seem fabulous, to one not raised up knowing it was true.” 

Through Caleb’s eyes, Bethia begins to see the Biblical stories she has always accepted on faith as questionable and relative. Here, the story she tells Caleb about Moses only reminds him of legends of the great Wampanoag warrior Moshup. Caleb is eager to learn about her traditions, but has little interest in taking them for his own. His attitude towards Christianity echoes Bethia’s respectful and fascinated reaction to Wampanoag ceremonies and rites.

“My mind was brimming with corrupt fancies […] I thought of that familiar chestnut-brown body, pared by ordeal, naked in the darkness. And of Satan, in his serpent form, twining about those bruised thighs, hissing out his tempting promises of potency.”

Worried about Caleb’s aspiration to become a pawaaw, Bethia asks her father about the Wampanoag rite of passage and afterwards imagines vividly Caleb entering into a pact with demonic forces, as Christianity defines Native religion. Bethia’s imagination readily translates her Biblical reading onto the real world, fueling remorse and self-recrimination as she decides that by dwelling on this topic she has sinned and thus caused her mother’s death in childbirth.

“Because of him, the sea to me is no longer an opaque mystery, but a most useful lens.” 

Even as Bethia is about to enter into indenture so that Makepeace can continue his education at Master Corlett’s school, she considers the way her relationship with Caleb has enlarged and opened up her world. Makepeace is about to sign away her freedom in order to pursue an academic goal forced on him by his now dead father; in contrast, Caleb has shown Bethia how to understand nature and use it for her own benefit.

“‘You are like these […] There is no end to them. You will pour across this land and we will be smothered […] We must find favour with your God, or die […] I say it is braver, sometimes, to bend […] That is why I will go now to the Latin school, and the college after, and if your God prospers me there, I will be of use to my people, and they will live.’” 

Caleb explains his motivation for seeking out English knowledge. Inspired by his uncle’s prophesies about the innumerable numbers of settlers who will crush the Native population with their inexhaustible supply of people, Caleb has decided to learn everything he can about the culture of the invasive new population. Unlike Tequamuck, who will resist until he breaks, Caleb decides to try a different strategy: bending now in order to preserve his people and their traditions later.

“In time, even Samuel came to wonder if our austere form of worship was the only way to be godly.” 

His time in Italy, where he interacts with an incredibly diverse population, changes Samuel’s mind about the absolutism of Puritan thought. Much like Bethia’s exposure to Caleb transformed her understanding and gave her newfound tolerance and empathy, Samuel’s exposure to other cultures has opened his mind.