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Summary
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Witch of Blackbird Pond, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Puritan Hypocrisy
Love, Values, and Attraction
Difference, Prejudice, and Discrimination
Home and Belonging
Sexism
Summary
Analysis
It’s an April morning in 1687, and Kit Tyler is excited to see land at last. She has been traveling for five weeks from Barbados to Connecticut Colony on a ship called the Dolphin. Nathaniel Eaton (also called Nat), the first mate and son of the ship’s captain, asks her what she thinks of her first glimpse of the colony. She finds it ugly and disappointing, but she keeps that to herself. She’s relieved when he tells her that the town she sees is a just the port of Saybrook, and not Wethersfield, her destination.
Kit is disappointed at her first glimpse of Connecticut Colony, likely because it looks very different from her home country, Barbados. When Nat tells her that what she is seeing is Saybrook, not Wethersfield (her destination), Kit is hopeful that she may feel more at home in Wethersfield. But given that she has doesn’t seem to have a previously established relationship with either place, it’s unlikely that she’ll feel an immediate connection to it.
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Nat and Kit discuss the journey. This trip has been Kit’s first time on a large ship, but she grew up sailing on small boats around Barbados, so she didn’t have a hard time adjusting to sailing like the other seasick passengers. There’s only been one storm, which Kit found exciting, albeit scary. The worst part of the storm was needing to spend four days below deck, where it still smelled like the horses that the ship had previously transported.
Kit’s sense of adventure—and her adventurous childhood—are established in this passage. She grew up in Barbados with enough leisure time, freedom, and encouragement to sail around the island. As a result, she even found the storm on her present journey exciting rather than scary. The worst thing about it was that it confined her below deck, which demonstrates that she dislikes being restricted.
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There are several passengers who need to go ashore, so the ship stops, and Nat leaves Kit to prepare a smaller boat to go to shore. Kit is disappointed to see that Mrs. Eaton, the captain’s wife, is one of the people who will be getting off at Saybrook. As the only two women aboard the Dolphin, Kit and Mrs. Eaton have become friends during the trip. Mrs. Eaton cheerfully tells Kit that she’s excited to return to her home in Saybrook, where she will garden and tend to household chores “like a proper housewife.” Looking at the dreary shore, Kit doesn’t understand how anyone could be enamored by it.
Kit impulsively asks Mrs. Eaton if she can ride to shore with her—she wants to set foot on America for the first time. Mrs. Eaton smilingly asks her husband to let Kit join, adding that Kit is being childish for a girl who is almost 16.
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Captain Eaton allows Kit to go ashore. Her spirits high, Kit enjoys the short trip. As soon as she steps on the shore, she looks around for someone to welcome her, but no one is paying her any attention. The Eatons are busy exchanging news with a crowd of people, and the other passengers are already hurrying away. The only people near Kit are three women with “sharply curious eyes.” Their stares embarrass Kit—no one in Barbados stared so boldly at “Sir Francis Tyler’s granddaughter.”
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Nat and Mrs. Eaton cheerfully approach Kit again. Mrs. Eaton says goodbye to Kit, adding that a woman named Goodwife Cruff will be joining the ship as a passenger to Wethersfield as well. With that, Mrs. Eaton leaves, Nat following behind her with her trunk.
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With no familiar faces greeting her, Kit regrets going to shore and is relieved when it’s time for the passengers to head back to the Dolphin. There are four new passengers joining the ship: Goodwife Cruff, her husband, their child, and a tall man with a wide-brimmed hat.
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When the passengers are halfway to the Dolphin, the Cruffs’ child starts to wail—she’s accidentally dropped her wooden doll overboard. Goodwife Cruff slaps and scolds her while the doll floats away from the boat.
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Kit asks Captain Eaton to turn the boat around, but he ignores her. Unused to being snubbed and feeling sorry for the whimpering child, Kit angrily takes off her shoes and cloak and jumps overboard into the cold water.
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Kit confidently swims toward the doll and grabs it. As she turns back to the little boat, she realizes that Nat had jumped in after her and is trying to swim toward her; he’s a poor swimmer, and Kit laughs as she passes him on the way to the boat. Captain Eaton helps Kit back on board while Nat pulls himself into the boat.
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Kit is still laughing when she realizes that everyone else on the boat is either furious or appalled. Goodwife Cruff chides her for getting such beautiful clothes wet, to which Kit scornfully replies that she has plenty of other clothes. Even Nat is upset with her—he got his one pair of clothes wet by jumping after her in case she didn’t know how to swim. Kit haughtily tells Nat that she has been swimming since she started walking.
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The other passengers regard her with suspicion, leaving Kit feeling dejected. The only people who don’t seem upset with her are the man with the wide-brimmed hat and the Cruff’s child; the former smiles at her, and the latter looks at Kit adoringly.
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After Kit changes into a new dress, the man in the wide-brimmed hat approaches her on the ship’s deck. He introduces himself as John Holbrook and tells her that he is also going to Wethersfield. He apologizes for the other passengers’ cold reactions—he knows that Kit was doing a kind thing for a helpless child. He tells her that they were simply surprised to see her swim, since most New Englanders don’t know how.
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When Kit tells John Holbrook that she grew up in Barbados with her plantation-owning grandfather, he is shocked; he thinks the island is a heathen place. Kit firmly asserts that Barbados is a beautiful place that is “as civilized as England.” When John asks whether she’s a Puritan, she scoffs, asking if he means “[o]ne of those traitors who murdered King Charles.” His face betrays his anger, but he changes the subject.
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John and Kit exchange their plans: John is moving to Wethersfield to study with Reverend Bulkeley, after which he hopes to have his own church. Kit will be living with her aunt and her uncle, Matthew Wood, who live in Wethersfield as well. John humorously notes that Kit will shock and surprise the people of Wethersfield.
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Nat interrupts their conversation; he’s still annoyed about Kit’s earlier jump in the river. He tells Kit that the captain wants her to have dinner with Goodwife Cruff and her family. He adds that Goodwife Cruff thinks that Kit is a witch—according to superstitions, only witches float, whereas “respectable” women sink. Kit is furious, and John looks concerned. Nat admits that Captain Eaton was able to calm down Goodwife Cruff by informing her that in Barbados, everyone learns how to swim.
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Nat then seriously tells Kit that she shouldn’t swim in New England again. Although she laughingly agrees, she feels anxious. America feels unfamiliar to her, as though the people who live there understand something she doesn’t.
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