Chesapeake

Chesapeake is a 1978 novel by American author James A. Michener. Sprawling across centuries and subjects, it traces the histories of several fictional families residing in the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland and Virginia, between 1583 and 1978. Each of its many chapters has its own full plot structure. Chapters that deal with early America concern the wars of American Indian tribes, followed by the encroachment of English colonists on their lands in the seventeenth century, the tobacco trade that was made possible by slavery, and the threats of pirates on the high seas. The middle of the novel tracks the American Revolution and Civil War, as well as the Emancipation and effort to cause cultural assimilation. The novel ends with coverage of the twentieth century, including World Wars and the Watergate scandal. The final plot simply involves a funeral in 1978, tying Michener’s multi-era survey of American history to the present day and the finitude of the individual life.

Michener does not write from his characters’ points of view; rather, he favors the third-person omniscient perspective. The novel is divided into fourteen episodes, of which each characterizes an era and is filled with many chapters. Their most common motif is that of the voyage, a term that expands in scope over time. The first cluster of voyages involves the east coast of North America and its early settlements by colonists and indigenous peoples. Pentaquod, a pacifist who belongs to the brutal Susquehannock tribe, leaves his people and assimilates into the Nanticokes. These sections introduce several white families whose descendants populate the rest of the novel. There is the Catholic family, the Steeds, who begin on Devon Island; the Turlocks, a poor family who descend from indentured servants and live off their land; and the Paxmores, a family of pacifist Quakers who flee persecution in New England, partly for their abolitionist values. Several stories involve the Cates, who descend from African slaves. Over time, the families morph, subverting their own origins and legacies. For example, hundreds of years after their initial settlement, Pusey Paxmore becomes a symbol of moral corruption when he goes to jail for helping to carry out the Watergate scandal. The Steed family, once the epitome of white, southern wealth built on the backs of slaves, inevitably declines, as do so many like it. The Nanticoke people die out due to white violence and exploitation.

Though Michener’s characters arrive and depart in relatively short intervals, he carefully characterizes one main figure, Rosalind Janney, the wife of Fitzhugh Steed. Upon marrying him, she strives to manage their estate, including its large plantation, while also hurtling into adulthood and carving out her place in American society. Ultimately, she is persecuted for being a “wayward” woman and responds by attacking the patriarchal system that criminalizes and shames her and other women’s free expression. Rosalind comes to represent the feminist impulses that reacted against male-dominated American society.



Chesapeake also contains many rich descriptions of American flora and fauna. Michener describes the birds and shellfish that characterize the eastern coast of the United States. Some chapters, such as those of the goose, Onk-or, ascribe human desires and emotions to animals. For example, Onk-or strives to save his flock from being poached by hunters with huge guns. Through these stories about the plights of animals, Michener characterizes early America as exploitative and obsessed with controlling the wilderness on which it has encroached. Ultimately, Chesapeake suggests that the stories and lives of all who live in America are entangled, and that, though our conditions for existence and our fates are multiple, we should strive to treat each other with respect and dignity.