The Dagger X (The Dagger Chronicles) (38 page)

“You know something, Kitto?” Duck said.

“What?”

“Da. He would be so proud. Of us, I mean,” Duck said.

Kitto felt tears rising into his eyes. He reached out with each hand and gave his mother and his brother a squeeze.

“I am sure of it, Duck. Very proud indeed.”

The world of 1678 was caught in the midst of a huge global shift. Since the late 1400s, Portugal and Spain had pretty much split the Western world between them (check out the Treaty of Tordesillas, 1494). Spain claimed all of the Americas except for Brazil—which Portugal had already staked out—and Portugal claimed all of Africa. This was a wonderful arrangement for the Spanish and Portuguese, but a horrifying one for Native Americans and the inhabitants of West Africa. Spain had hit it rich quick by conquering Native American kingdoms and stealing (as well as mining) the incredible quantities of gold and silver located there. Portugal, after being initially disappointed at discovering little gold or silver in Africa, had nonetheless found the continent teeming with an incredibly precious resource: humans. By trading goods they brought with them from home (often metal items like nails or pots and pans), the Portuguese found that African leaders they encountered were happy to give up members of enemy tribes who had been captured in battles. Portuguese traders took these people across the Atlantic Ocean and sold them to their countrymen in Brazil and to the Spanish in other areas of Central and South America. Humans were desperately needed for labor in the growing plantations both countries had established there for growing crops like sugarcane,
which grew far better in places like Cuba and Brazil than it did in Europe.

The three geographical points (Europe, West Africa, the Americas) formed a triangle, and the trade that revolved clockwise around the Atlantic Ocean is often referred to today as the triangle trade. Manufactured goods (metal objects, cloth, tools, etc.) left Europe for Africa where they were exchanged for human captives; these prisoners were shipped west across the Atlantic Ocean (this gruesome leg of the journey is often called the Middle Passage today) and forced to work. The efforts of their work (chiefly sugar, after mining silver and gold became less profitable) headed on other ships back to Europe, where it was sold for a profit. Part of that profit was spent on more manufactured goods (metal objects, cloth, etc.), which were loaded onto ships bound for Africa. And so the cycle continued, over and over.

By Kitto’s time, the rest of the countries of Europe had long grown tired of watching only Spain and Portugal get rich. They wanted part of the action. The Dutch were the first to find an avenue to another source of great wealth—spices—which they mostly got from islands in modern-day Indonesia. (It is odd to think that Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands—countries that no one would call huge global players today—were immensely wealthy and formidable in 1678.)

The people of the British Isles had not stood idly by either. By the time of this story, the people of today’s United Kingdom had elbowed their way into this trade of slaves, sugar, and spices. Through its success in this trade, the UK would grow so large that by 1800 it was an empire “on which the sun never sets.”

Ontoquas speaks several words in her native Massachusett language throughout the story. As a member of the Wampanoag tribe, she is a descendant of the Native Americans who first welcomed and provided critical aid to the “pilgrims” from Europe who arrived in Plymouth in 1620. By Ontoquas’s time, however, tensions had built up between the native peoples and the new arrivals. When English settlers began taking over tribal lands without permission, the tribes of the area banded together and began to attack English settlements. The result was called King Philip’s War, a catastrophe for the Wampanoag people. This conflict resulted in the death of roughly 40 percent of the tribe. Many of the surviving Wampanoag people were sold off by the settlers into slavery in the West Indies, explaining how Ontoquas (and Black Dog) might have ended up so far from home.

Massachusett Words

netchaw:
brother

nippe:
water

nitka:
mother

noeshow:
father

quog quosh:
make haste, hurry

suckis suacke:
a clam, clams

tunketappin:
where you live

wawmauseu:
an honest man

weneikinne:
it is very handsome

wompey:
white

Alexandre Exquemelin was a real person who is on his way in this tale to writing a bestselling book about pirate history that will be in print for centuries. Little is known about the man. He was likely French by birth but spent time in Amsterdam, and his famous book was first published in Dutch. Throughout the tale he sprinkles his speech with French and Dutch words and phrases.

Exquemelin’s Garbled Tongue

allons-y (French):
let’s go

ezel drol (Dutch):
donkey turd

helemaal niet (Dutch):
no

jongen (Dutch):
boy

krijgt die schoft (Dutch):
get that child of unwed parents

mes amis (French):
my friends

moeder (Dutch):
mother

ongelooflijk (Dutch):
incredible

venez, les petites filles (French):
come, girls

vous vous réveillez (French):
you wake up

Today’s Caribbean islands were densely populated with African slaves by about the mid-1600s. In Jamaica, these captives were forced to work primarily on sugar plantations. Jamaica is a large and mountainous island, and throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, vast areas remained uninhabited and very difficult to access. Escaped slaves would make for these regions, banding together with other fugitives and forming colonies. Some of the colonies grew quite large. The people were called “maroons” from
a Spanish word that means “living on a mountaintop.” The character of Nanny in this story is based on a historical person who lived somewhat later. She was the leader of the most significant maroon colony in Jamaica’s history. She organized attacks on plantations and is credited with freeing hundreds of slaves from bondage. Today Nanny is considered a national hero in Jamaica.

History of the Bouccaneers of America
by Alexander Exquemelin was published originally in Dutch in 1678. This bestselling eyewitness account was translated into several languages and is still in print today. In the original version of the book, Exquemelin claimed that Henry Morgan had been an indentured servant as a young man. Outraged, Morgan sued the publisher for libel. He won the case, and the subsequent editions of the book made no mention of the claim. Other interesting books about pirates include
The Pirate Primer: Mastering the Language of Swashbucklers and Rogues
by George Choundas,
Pirates
by John Matthews, and
Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates
by David Cordingly.

I read this manuscript to Jack and Keyes when I was not yet through with it, and their excitement and suggestions helped me get it gritty. And some weekday mornings when they bicker at each other over the kitchen table, I like to think, “What would Spider do?” That has been . . . educational. Hayes continues to be a monkey, so there has been inspiration aplenty there. Jesica is my Sarah: my lantern, my optimist, the one whose glow keeps me from the rocks. Whenever I began to think #1 was a fluke, she was there to lighten me up.

My official readers aided me greatly. Chief among them is Natalie Bernstein, the librarian extraordinaire at the Paideia School. Among other things she helped me tone down from a PG-13 rating the scene where Ontoquas liberates Bucket. Then of course there are my kid readers. They are all turkeys, but I feel I should acknowledge them, either in alphabetical order, or in the order of how many Charms Blow Pops they begged me for throughout the year. They are: Linden H., Keb B., Erin M., Analla R., Sam B., Daywe M., David C., Grace H., Hector G., Sophia W., Nick V., Aiden O., Isabella C., Leo S., Alex W., Elijah H., Camille J., Aree P., Jack R.,
Sophie S., Jack P., Laney C., Liv C., Lucinda “Coop”, Julian S., Hanna Z., Nora S., and Eliza G. Thanks as well to Jonny Poulton for putting up with my distractibility. Andy Sarvady and Gary Bannister each offered creativity and experience to assist me in marketing, and I am grateful to them both.

Neither this book nor its prequel would have been possible without my agent, Carolyn Jenks, as well as the creative force that is the team at the Carolyn Jenks Agency: Jonathan Hu, Siah Ruh Goh, AnneMarie Monzione, Michael Tucker, Rebecca Hartje, Phoenix Bunke, and Eric Wing. I have been fortunate to work with such an accomplished editor as Paula Wiseman with Paula Wiseman Books/Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers. Her suggestions helped me to see this project with fresh eyes and make it more accessible to more readers out there. Many thanks, too, to Laurent Linn for his design skill and for getting the fabulous Amy June Bates on board for cover art. Heather McLeod did an amazing job of sleuthing for errors in the copyediting phase. Thank you, Heather, but please don’t tell my students how many grammatical and usage errors I make.

Final thanks must go to Henry Morgan for living such a thrilling and ethically dubious life. Don’t worry, H., I’ll dwell on you plenty in the final installment of this tale.

Also by Brian Eames

T
HE
D
AGGER
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First Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers hardcover edition November 2013