1863 Virginia: A short story

Abstract

The question that motivates “1863 Virginia: A short story” is rooted in interracial solidarity and whether it exists outside of a common enemy. During this time in U.S. history, free and enslaved black people; slave-owning and poor white people; and assimilated and resistant native people co-existed. The story follows Indi, a Pamunkey woman, and Abram – a self-liberated and formerly enslaved African man from White House plantation. Due to her tribe's Black Laws, Indi is exiled for giving birth to a child of a Black man. Abram loses the love of his life to his murderous master Mr. Lee and runs away from White House plantation where he stumbles across Indi, Baby Joseph, and another person Indi took in during her time in exile named Sophia. Slave catchers come to Indi’s home looking for Abram and she must decide whether she will give him up or defend him. The text seeks to understand the interior character of people surviving impossible realities while also staying true to the connection of human beings and nature. There is a character Mae, a horse, who expresses herself and the river Pamunkey, who speaks.