The East Indian is a work of historical fiction set in the Jamestown settlement circa 1640. The main character, an East Indian boy who goes by the name Tony, finds himself an unwilling indentured servant there, and through him author Brinda Charry shows the reader the early days of Jamestown and the rise of slavery and bigotry based on skin color. Charry includes plenty of interesting historical facts about Jamestown as well as bits and pieces about witchcraft, Shakespeare, medicine and herbs, Native Americans, colonialism, and more.
The reader is introduced to Tony when he is just a boy. The son of a beautiful courtesan in India, which has been colonized by the British and Dutch, Tony is exposed to a world of powerful white men, English language, and literacy. We learn a little bit about the British East India company and then a newly orphaned Tony is on a ship to England. While he would like to apprentice to a doctor, he has no money and therefore no prospects for that kind of tutelage. On his brief stay in London, he meets a few other East Indians before he is grabbed off the streets with a bunch of other poor and/or orphaned children and shipped off to the North American colony of Virginia to become an indentured servant. The ship ride to America is eventful, with the execution of a witch onboard and Tony’s introduction to several other characters who will play an important role in his new life in Jamestown.
The descriptions of everyday life in Jamestown are grim but full of interesting detail. Some men are there by choice, others by force of the law. As hard as life is there, many of the men and boys believe they can build a prosperous life as farmers after their indenture ends, something that would never have happened for them in England. But such hopes are held primarily by white men. The first ships of enslaved Africans have arrived, and the hopes of advancement and acquiring land do not apply to them. Tony finds himself in an unusual position. He has dark skin like the Africans he meets, but he had been on friendly terms with white people until Jamestown. He will quickly learn that being “East Indian” means little to most white people; he is brown and therefore “less than” in most settlers’ eyes.
I am struggling to come up with the words to describe the plot of this novel because it’s a hodge podge of characters and information. It feels as if the author wanted to include every interesting detail she picked up while doing research on Jamestown to the detriment of actual plot development. I suppose it is a story of Tony growing up and making his own way in this world that did not welcome him but requires his labor. Tony’s apprenticeship to a German doctor leads to him finally learning medicine, and I would have liked to learn more about this unusual doctor who takes him on. Instead we get a strange detour into the world of spirits and mysticism. Tony sees the ghosts of those who have died, and he is constantly seeing “the man who would not die,” a theme that the writer brings up throughout the story but that I don’t completely understand. I suppose it’s metaphor for one’s indomitable spirit?
I can see merits in this novel but as I read it, I was reminded of two other novels I’ve read for past CBR’s that did a much better job examining North American colonialism, slavery, and the journeys of young men of color in that world. I highly recommend The Moor’s Account by Laila Lalami and Washington Black by Esi Edugyan.
