Just me and Francis here in Plymouth. I tried to send him north to find his place away from these puritans, but he is as oxen as his father. He finds himself in court too often.
The raised skin on my back is smooth now, thin like pine roots, but pinker than the rest of me.
Governor Bradford has written quite the story, borrowed from myth, it is, Of Plymouth Plantation. A failed colony his was, but preserved in his writing as he wished it would have been. More lies than truth, just like the man. It was Tom Morton who spoketh the truth: my husband, beloved by many, wronged by the leaders of Plymouth.
We gave them our best bodies. We gave them our workhorse years. And what did they give us? Murder. Banishment. Starvation. Revoking on what was rightfully ours. My husband killed a man, yes, it is true, but that land was ours.
Once, being a Billington was a mark of bravery. It was my husband who found the first brook here, my husband who was brave enough to see first what was beyond the forest’s edge, and my son who found the lake. Now, even in colonies farther north and south—in Massachusetts Bay, in New Netherlands—they think of Plymouth as cruel and unpredictable.
A place in God’s favor? Ha. They’ve made again what they claimed they wished to leave. They have the indentured English, but also Indians they’ve coerced or forced into servitude. The only difference is they are the ones in power. They are the ones to blame.
Go on, I told Francis. Leave me in this rotting corpse of a colony. There is nothing here for you.
When he tried to be kind and stay, I was mean to him. This was the only way for him to outlive his lineage. I insulted him to make sure he dothn’t come back. But back he came, and finds himself in court for not attending town meetings and sundry other petty accusations.