Despite earlier tensions, the colonists at Marshall’s Creek had welcomed the latest visit by the crew of the Eikhoorn. Especially by Maria. Not just because she was the first white woman most of them had seen since leaving England, but also because of her medical training in Grantville. She had made the rounds, treating the illnesses and injuries of Marshall’s people.
“All right, you’re going to need to hold still now,” she told her patient. She cleaned the wound with a warm decoction of bark. She took out a little rubber pouch—it was easy to come by, now that the Indians near Marshall’s Creek were tapping the local rubber trees—and squeezed out an ointment. It was the thickened sap of another tree. Maria had learned about both the bark and the sap from Indians downriver, near the new Swedish colony of Gustavus.
Of course, the Marshall Creek Indians had their own remedies. As the Gustavans’ “Science Officer,” Maria spent quite a bit of time learning native medicine, everywhere she traveled.
Maria wrapped cotton around the man’s leg, to protect the wound while still allowing it to breathe. Even though the local cotton was gray, it still stood out against the black of his skin.
For the first time, she had met Marshall’s other people . . . his African “servants.” There weren’t many of them, but their existence had been concealed from her and Heyndrick de Liefde on their previous visits. She wasn’t surprised. Even if Marshall had not been told, when friendly relations were first established, that slavery was illegal in the Gustavus colony, he might have feared that the interlopers might try to incite the slaves as a cheap means of wiping out their upriver rivals.
Heyndrick, the cousin and agent of the founder of the Gustavus colony, had told Marshall that the Gustavus colony would not, for the moment, insist that Marshall free his slaves, and wouldn’t encourage the slaves to flee, but he also warned Marshall that it would not return any fugitive slaves who made it downriver.
But that didn’t mean that Maria couldn’t attack the institution in subtler ways. “I have tended to this man’s physical needs, but what have you done for his spiritual ones? Has he been instructed in the Christian faith?”
Marshall shook his head. “Of course not. He is only an ignorant savage.”
“His ignorance can hardly be surprising, if you refuse to instruct him.” Maria knew that this was a sensitive point with English slave owners. Since one of the justifications they gave for enslaving the Africans was that they weren’t Christian, they feared that if they converted their slaves, they might be forced to free them.
Marshall temporized. “We don’t have a minister of our own.”
“I understand. I wish I could do something about that. But, I know that as a captain, you have read aloud from a prayer book. Surely your African servants can be allowed to listen and to learn what they can.”
“Very well.”
“And have you tried to teach any of them to read and write?”
Marshall laughed. “Mevrouw Vorst, few of my Englishmen have their letters.”
“That is most unfortunate. In this new world, illuminated by the books of Grantville, being literate is going to be of great importance. Is that not true?”
Marshall nodded slowly.
“Well, I will see what primers we can spare, and all I ask in return is that at least one be dedicated to the edification of the Africans among you.”
Based on the reading she had done in Grantville, Maria was fairly confident that there would be trouble over slavery, sooner or later. But for the moment, the colonists in Gustavus had more immediate issues to worry about. Like survival. And she agreed with Heyndrick that it would be better if the confrontation came after Gustavus was bigger and stronger.
* * *
The music faltered. The dozen or so Surinamese Indians, resplendent in body paint and not much else, stirred uneasily. Until then, they had been an excellent audience.
“Don’t stop!” Maria whispered sharply to her assistant, and made a circular motion with her hands.
The English settler who had been given the honor of turning the crank on her mechanical phonograph nodded sheepishly, and brought the player back up to speed.
The violins, viola and cello played by the musicians of another universe went back to work, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik” once again overrode the clicking and chirping of the insects of the rainforest.
Later that night, Maria tried putting on a Louis Armstrong record. Louis Armstrong had given the world such titles as “Alligator Crawl,” “Trees,” and “Rain, Rain.” Despite this evidence of affinity, the Indians of Marshall’s Creek were unimpressed, indeed, a little agitated. It appeared that the rainforest was not yet ready for jazz.