The Light in the Forest and A Company of Strangers

It was almost like I couldn't read any more of Conrad Richter's work until I had thoroughly examined The Lady. As soon as I had written my thoughts on the subject, I took out copies of A Company of Strangers and The Light in the Forest and finally read them.

As an adult, if I like one book by an author, I seek out other books by that author. I remember as a child seeking out all of the books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, for instance. I must have done that with other authors that I read when I was younger. For some reason, I didn't seek out the other books by Richter. I think that because they were not "classics," they were not on the school library shelves, and as a teenager I had little access to a public library. I think that The Lady was available to me because it was a Book-of-the-Month or something like that. I had always intended to read his other books, but my intention got snowed under by all the other things I had to read and do. My reading for pleasure came willy-nilly, based more on availability and recommendations/hand-me-downs from friends than choice. Gradually over the years, I lost sight of this intention until something recently jarred my memory.

To be honest, I have been let down by rereading books that I liked many years earlier. I turned away from books that I had formerly liked, fearing disappointment.

Richter had said that he wrote The Light in the Forest trying to present a balanced view of colonial America's native problem. In the Introduction to The Light in the Forest, he writes:

"The author wants to acknowledge further his gratitude to those readers who have sensed what he was trying to do – not write historical novels but to give an authentic sensation of life in early America. In the records of the Eastern border, the author was struck by the numbers of returned white captives who tried desperately to run away from their flesh-and-blood families and return to their Indian foster homes and the Indian mode of life. As a small boy he himself had tried to run off to Indian country without the benefit of ever having lived among the savages."

By his words, Richter indicates that he believes that the attraction of the native way of life was freedom. It is a tribute to him that he manages to present a case study in marginalization in spite of his beliefs. Possibly not understanding the story he was telling, he told it so authentically that the true story is there.

After finding one generalization about Mexicans after another in The Lady, I was a trifle apprehensive about these two books. What I read was a balanced portrayal of the problem of the clash of two cultures. Richter portrays both sides in shades of gray. The Native Americans are illiterate savages, capable of atrocities; the European settlers are semiliterate savages, equally capable of atrocities. Individuals on both sides are kind, loving and giving. Individuals on both sides commit terrible crimes.

The innocent victims of this struggle, True Son and Stone Girl, kidnapped under cruel circumstances, returned to a "home" after a decade in a different culture, represent all the innocent victims of this conflict. They understood the culture that they have been raised in; they could not understand the culture to which they have been forcibly returned. They and all like them are marginalized, neither fish nor fowl, neither native nor settler.

In his Introduction, Richter goes on to say:
"Not that the novel represents the novelist's particular beliefs or opinions. He can understand and sympathize with either side. His business is to be fair to both."

While Richter truly does try to maintain an even portrayal, the truth is he can't. The natives come off better than the Europeans almost in spite of themselves. The Native Americans are not "noble savages" a la Rousseau. The Natives are illiterate and harbor doubts about the usefulness of reading. They harbor a multitude of doubts about the European's religion. They understand their environment and use it in ways that the Europeans can't. Most of all -- there is no dichotomy between what they believe and what they practice.

This is the truth that Richter can't conceal and doesn't try to. This is the "yes, but…" in the story of the conquest of America. Richter emphasizes the freedom in the native way of life, but doesn't duck the fact that what the natives did was congruent with their professed beliefs about the world and their place in it. The same cannot be said for the white settlers. They went to church and professed to worship Jesus Christ who said "Love one another," then proceeded to rob and kill.

Some native orators have some pithy comments about Christianity.

Personally, I think Christianity is the world's greatest untried religion. While the people of Europe have been claiming to worship Jesus for nearly two thousand years, they and we, their descendants, still haven't given it a real trial. One needs to look no further than the recent invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. No "turn to him the other cheek" (Matt. 5: 39) there. No "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." (Matt. 5: 44) Unless one considers it an adequate expression of Christianity to pray for the innocent of our supposed enemies on one hand while striking them down with the other. Jesus commanded us to "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To him who strikes you on the cheek, offer him the other also." (Luke 6: 27-29) Also in the Gospel According to Luke, Jesus asks "Why do you call me 'Lord, Lord,' and not do what I tell you?" (Luke 6: 46) Two thousand years and we still have no answer.

Where in these teachings are the settlers justified in murdering natives, in stealing their land, in destroying their homes, their food, their way of life. Some of the Europeans even managed a great feat of incongruency by professing to be saving the Natives by killing them.

What happened to the Native Americans is no different than what has happened hundreds of other tribes and peoples in Europe and Asia when for whatever reason a stronger group decided to muscle in on their territory. I don't doubt that a few native tribes moved in and pushed out a few other tribes. The linguistic evidence alone supports this contention. There are stories among the tribe called the Sioux that they once lived in the abundant lands around the great lakes rather in the harsher environment of the great plains.

But I repeat – the Europeans claimed a religion that taught a different way of life, a religion that ordered them to behave in a differently.

Conrad Richter was the son, grandson, nephew and great-nephew of clergymen. His father was a Lutheran minister. He could not have not known what was right in front of him. The evidence was there. He may have misled himself about the story he is telling was about the freedom of the Native way of life, but more likely, he sugarcoated an unpopular position. Otherwise, he might not have been able to publish these two books. Nevertheless, he doesn't mislead us.

Some contemporary authorities consider The Light in the Forest as Conrad Richter's greatest novel. They might be right.

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Incidentally, for what it is worth, my father's family, both his parents, had Native American as well as European ancestry. Two of his uncles married women who had more Native American ancestry than either of his parents. I grew up in Oklahoma which now claims the title "Native America." So it is and so it was.

My brother and my cousins have married women and men of Asian descent. We are the true Americans -- made up of the descendents of many races and peoples.
Some writers have glorified the Native American way of life. It is true that before the Europeans came they lived better than the average European. Their way of life was cruel, but no crueler than life in Europe. But they weren't saints, they weren't "Noble Savages." They were people.

What happened in the Americas was no different in kind from what happened in Europe during World War II. The difference was one of degree.