May 1, 2000
Known mainly for her YA novels (To Spoil the Sun), Hudson turns to adult fiction in this sweeping novel of Native American life during the early colonial period. The focus is on the eponymous Apalachee people, the Native tribe that dominated northeastern Florida before the coming of Europeans. By the early 18th century, in which the story is set, the Apalachee have been greatly reduced by disease and other dislocations brought by the Spanish invaders. Besides sicknesses against which the Indians had no natural defenses, the Europeans also brought another influence, Christianity. The new religion has had devastating effects upon the tribe, undermining traditional culture and dividing family members against each other. Lucia, a member of the Hinachuba clan, has, like her mother and grandmother, resisted conversion to Christianity. Despite the fact that the old religious centers lie in ruins, they try to keep the old ways alive. A medicine man's's vision tells Lucia she is to be the White Sun Woman, the priestess of the tribe. Meanwhile, more pressing concerns intervene. Armed by the English, a neighboring Creek tribe stages raids on the Apalachee mission settlements. War between Spain and England looms, promising doom for the Apalachee caught in the middle. Lucia, now married to Carlos, a Christian convert groomed by Spanish priests to be the chief of the Apalachee, is captured and sold into slavery. Carlos's struggle to recover his wife, who is toiling at a turpentine plantation in the colony of Carolina, seems hopeless. Spanning the years from 1704 to 1715, this melancholy book chronicles multiple conflicts between Spanish and English, the details of plantation existence and the ultimate destruction of the Apalachee way of life. An historical note and extensive bibliography demonstrate the author's attempt at verisimilitude. Despite employing a somewhat romantic and elegiac tone, Hudson presents the Apalachee as real human characters and evokes their culture vividly.