Hope Leslie is remarkable for its portrayal of interracial relationships, both friendships and marriages, often narrated from the perspectives of American Indian characters as well as white characters. White and Pequot children befriend one another, learn from each other, and later fall in love. Yet these relationships aren’t necessarily accommodated within broader society, which leads to divided loyalties, violence, and exile. Such conflicts are exemplified in the troubled friendship of Pequot Magawisca with white Everell Fletcher and the marriage of white Faith Leslie to Magawisca’s brother Oneco. By portraying such relationships as doomed, Sedgwick argues not that they are inherently problematic, but rather that they are irreconcilable with their surrounding culture. As such, she suggests that the latter must evolve.
Friendships between white and Indian characters, though acceptable in childhood, are portrayed as inevitably leading to divided loyalties and even violence. Cross-cultural friendship in childhood is seen as natural and harmless. Everell “doth greatly [enjoy] the company of the Pequod girl, Magawisca,” Mrs. Fletcher writes to her husband—“If, in his studies, he meets with any trait of heroism […] he straightway calleth for her and rendereth it into English [from Latin] […] She, in her turn, doth take much delight in describing to him the customs of her people, and relating their traditionary tales[.]” English and Pequot children, in other words, can easily find common interests, like heroic stories, and even learn from one another.
But, as Magawisca grows up, she is a tormented, tragic figure who’s torn between her devotion to the Fletchers and her loyalty to her family and people. When her father and his warriors attack the Fletcher household in retaliation for an earlier attack on their village, she begs on the Fletchers’ behalf: “the mother—the children […] I bleed when they are struck—oh command them to stop!” Magawisca identifies so strongly with the Fletcher family that she feels an attack on them is an attack on herself.
Indeed, Magawisca’s feelings are literalized when her divided loyalty results in her being irreparably maimed. After she intervenes in the warriors’ intended execution of Everell, resulting in her arm being severed, Everell “threw his arms around her […] as he would a sister that had redeemed his life as her own,” and even the Pequot warriors “paid involuntary homage to the heroic girl, as if she were a superior being,” showing that Everell regards her as an equal and that her action is universally regarded as praiseworthy. Yet her mutilating injury shows that her divided loyalty will be incredibly costly to her—even suggesting that she cannot be whole (literally or figuratively) as long as she remains so divided.
Interracial marriage is even more problematic in the world of the novel—it’s portrayed as something corruptive that effectively destroys people, especially white women, who enter it. When Hope learns that her sister, Faith (long ago captured by Pequot warriors), is married to the Pequot Oneco, she feels “as if a knife had been plunged in her bosom.” Magawisca protests that in such “veins runs the blood of the strongest […] who have never turned their backs on friends or enemies […] Think ye that your blood will be corrupted by mingling with this stream?” But Hope’s bitter weeping suggests that she does, in fact, see such a marriage as not only a “corruption,” but effectively as the loss of her sister.
In fact, when Hope has her long-awaited reunion with Faith, she does not truly regain her sister. Seeing Faith’s love for Oneco, Hope’s “heart died within her; a sickening feeling came over her, an unthought of revolting of nature.” Hope’s grief and repugnance, as well as the fact that Faith proves unable to communicate in her original language of English, suggest that Faith’s marriage into the Pequot tribe really does constitute a kind of death: she can no longer belong to the English world or even to the white family whom she once loved.
Both plots—interracial friendship and marriage—conclude on an ambivalent note. Magawisca, after being arrested and imprisoned on false charges, calls Hope “a decoy bird” in these events, suggesting that even though Hope didn’t intend to harm her, their friendship inevitably led to Magawisca being hurt. Even after Magawisca is reconciled with Hope and Everell, she suggests that “the Indian and the white man can no more mingle, and become one, than day and night” and that their friendship can only be fully renewed in the Great Spirit’s realm. Faith, too, fades back into Pequot society with her husband, unable to connect meaningfully with the culture of her birth. Through these outcomes, Sedgwick suggests that even if such relationships are desirable in themselves, they are not sustainable within the prejudiced world they inhabit.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Interracial Relationships ThemeTracker
Interracial Relationships Quotes in Hope Leslie
The boy doth greatly affect the company of the Pequod girl, Magawisca. If, in his studies, he meets with any trait of heroism, (and with such, truly, her mind doth seem naturally to assimilate) he straightway calleth for her and rendereth it into English, in which she hath made such marvellous progress, that I am sometimes startled with the beautiful forms in which she clothes her simple thoughts. She, in her turn, doth take much delight in describing to him the customs of her people, and relating their traditionary tales, which are like pictures, captivating to a youthful imagination. He hath taught her to read, and reads to her Spenser's rhymes, and many other books of the like kind[.]
"Ah!" replied the old woman with a heavy groan, "I had sons too—and grandsons; but where are they? They trod the earth as lightly as that boy; but they have fallen like our forest trees, before the stroke of the English axe. Of all my race, there is not one, now, in whose veins my blood runs. Sometimes, when the spirits of the storm are howling about my wigwam, I hear the voices of my children crying for vengeance, and then I could myself deal the death-blow."
"You have never spoken to me of that night Magawisca."
“No—Everell, for our hands have taken hold of the chain of friendship, and I feared to break it by speaking of the wrongs your people laid on mine."
"You need not fear it; I can honour noble deeds though done by our enemies, and see that cruelty is cruelty, though inflicted by our friends."
"Then listen to me; and when the hour of vengeance comes, if it should come, remember it was provoked."
Magawisca's reflecting mind suggested the most serious obstacle to the progress of the christian religion, in all ages and under all circumstances; the contrariety between its divine principles and the conduct of its professors; which, instead of always being a medium for the light that emanates from our holy law, is too often the darkest cloud that obstructs the passage of its rays to the hearts of heathen men. Everell had been carefully instructed in the principles of his religion, and he felt Magawisca's relation to be an awkward comment on them, and her inquiry natural[.]
This war, so fatal to the Pequods, had transpired the preceding year. It was an important event to the infant colonies, and its magnitude probably somewhat heightened to the imaginations of the English, by the terror this resolute tribe had inspired. All the circumstances attending it were still fresh in men's minds, and Everell had heard them detailed with the interest and particularity that belongs to recent adventures; but he had heard them in the language of the enemies and conquerors of the Pequods; and from Magawisca's lips they took a new form and hue; she seemed, to him, to embody nature's best gifts, and her feelings to be the inspiration of heaven.
The stories of the murders of Stone, Norton, and Oldham, are familiar to every reader of our early annals; and the anecdote of the two English girls, who were captured at Wethersfield, and protected and restored to their friends by the wife of Mononotto, has already been illustrated by a sister labourer; and is precious to all those who would accumulate proofs, that the image of God is never quite effaced from the souls of his creatures; and that in their darkest ignorance, and deepest degradation, there are still to be found traits of mercy and benevolence.
Magawisca uttered a cry of agony, and springing forward with her arms uplifted, as if deprecating his approach, she sunk down at her father's feet, and clasping her hands, "save them—save them," she cried, "the mother—the children—oh they are all good—take vengeance on your enemies—but spare— our friends—our benefactors—I bleed when they are struck—oh command them to stop!" she screamed, looking to the companions of her father, who unchecked by her cries, were pressing on to their deadly work.
Mononotto's heart melted within him; he stooped to raise the sweet suppliant, when one of the Mohawks fiercely seized him, tossed him wildly around his head, and dashed him on the doorstone. But the silent prayer—perhaps the celestial inspiration of the innocent creature, was not lost. "We have had blood enough," cried Mononotto, "you have well avenged me, brothers."
"Nay, brothers—the work is mine—he dies by my hand—for my first-born—life for life—he dies by a single stroke, for thus was my boy cut off. The blood of sachems is in his veins. He has the skin, but not the soul of that mixed race, whose gratitude is like that vanishing mist," and he pointed to the vapour that was melting from the mountain tops into the transparent ether; "and their promises are like this," and he snapped a dead branch from the pine beside which he stood, and broke it in fragments.
The chief raised the deadly weapon, when Magawisca, springing from the precipitous side of the rock, screamed—"Forbear!" and interposed her arm. It was too late. The blow was levelled—force and direction given—the stroke aimed at Everell's neck, severed his defender's arm, and left him unharmed. The lopped quivering member dropped over the precipice. Mononotto staggered and fell senseless, and all the savages, uttering horrible yells, rushed toward the fatal spot.
"There lies my mother," cried Hope, without seeming to have heard Magawisca's consolations, "she lost her life in bringing her children to this wild world, to secure them in the fold of Christ. Oh God! restore my sister to the christian family."
"And here," said Magawisca, in a voice of deep pathos, "here is my mother's grave; think ye not that the Great Spirit looks down on these sacred spots, where the good and the peaceful rest, with an equal eye; think ye not their children are His children, whether they are gathered in yonder temple where your people worship, or bow to Him beneath the green boughs of the forest?"
[Hope] gazed intently on the little bark—her whole soul was in that look. Her sister was there. At this first assurance, that she really beheld this loved, lost sister, Hope uttered a scream of joy; but when, at a second glance, she saw her in her savage attire, fondly leaning on Oneco's shoulder, her heart died within her; a sickening feeling came over her, an unthought of revolting of nature; and instead of obeying the first impulse, and springing forward to clasp her in her arms, she retreated to the cliff, leaned her head against it, averted her eyes, and pressed her hands on her heart, as if she would have bound down her rebel feelings.
The feeling was contagious, and every voice, save her judges, shouted "liberty!—liberty! grant the prisoner liberty!" The Governor rose, waved his hand to command silence, and would have spoken, but his voice failed him; his heart was touched with the general emotion, and he was fain to turn away to hide tears more becoming to the man, than the magistrate.
"It cannot be—it cannot be," replied Magawisca, the persuasions of those she loved, not, for a moment, overcoming her deep invincible sense of the wrongs her injured race had sustained. "My people have been spoiled—we cannot take as a gift that which is our own—the law of vengeance is written on our hearts—you say you have a written rule of forgiveness—it may be better—if ye would be guided by it—it is not for us—the Indian and the white man can no more mingle, and become one, than day and night."
