Who will be the characters of my story? I wrestled with this thought. How can I ensure that they are accurate depictions of the time period as well as have depth? Basically, how do I create a character that I, and hopefully my readers, connect with? While the list of potential characters is long, I need to build a believable back story for each.
Since my experience as a writer has mainly been in the nonfiction genre, character development will be my biggest challenge.
In tandem with historical research for the novel is my own genealogical research. It seems obvious that I should use real characters for my story. I’ve been a bit ambivalent about this since I do not know the history of my early ancestors – what if they were unsavory characters? But then again, we are all human and it is our character flaws that sometimes define us from each other. I couldn’t think of a more efficient way. I’d accomplish two goals at once – work on my genealogy and develop characters for my story.
Feeling pretty good about my decision, I revisited the genealogical research that I had started years ago and hadn’t gotten back to recently. The paternal roots on my mother’s side can be traced to Germany in the 1800s. The maternal roots on my mother’s side are better documented and extend to the 1600s in the United Kingdom. While knowledge about my German ancestors may not be useful background for my novel, my English heritage may help in the character development of pirates and privateers who plied the waters off Guam.
My father’s Chamorro heritage is not as easy to verify. There is a 139-year gap in the historical record from 1758-1897. Links between the earliest families recorded on Guam and today’s families cannot be verified. Most of the work done thus far has been through oral family history. As our manamko pass on, this information is harder and harder to come by.
My strategy is to learn as much as I can about the origins of my family and search for documents that may shed more light on my heritage. I contracted genealogists in Utah to verify my findings and continue research on my maternal line. I decided to tackle my paternal line. Hopefully this strategy will afford me an opportunity to understand the world of the patriarch of my Hispanic-Chamorro family. Below is an account of this quest.
(This article was initially published in Guahan Magazine, April 2008 edition, and is reprinted by permission of the author and publisher)
Traveling has always been a part of my life. Growing up in a military family, I made my first crossing of the Atlantic at the tender age of 6 months. My family would move numerous times after that. My parents had five children — all born in different places. My sister Sally had to be naturalized as a U.S. citizen because she was born in Cambridge, England. I think I had seen more of the world than most people by the time I was 12.
Perhaps my interest in my heritage sprang from my early nomadic life. Then again, one of my favorite memories as a young child is my dad lifting me in the air so I could look out the window and asking “See Guam? See Guam?” My father’s pride in his homeland I would later learn was a character of the Chamorro people from earliest times. It is a character that I inherited as well.
What connections does my contemporary family have with my ancestors? Are there character traits that we share? What I do know is that somewhere in my background, a male and possibly a female ancestor traveled to Guam from abroad and planted the seed that would flourish into the Leon Guerrero family tree.
After my initial research I decided I needed to scour the not-so-obvious documents. Since others had already done work in more traditional means, by documenting relationships from the present to the past, I decided to start at the other
When I started this writing project I thought it would be a “piece
of cake” to write a historical novel once I got past my self-induced
fear. The mechanics of researching and writing have never been
difficult for me. I love every bit of it. Reading old documents and
trying to piece clues together to come up with a plausible theory and
paint a picture, so to speak, of a time long gone excites me.
Then why is this particular project so challenging? I’m not sure,
but it is proving to be so. I have been busy. I’ve prepared historical
timelines for Guam, the Philippines, Mexico and Spain. I’ve prepared
documents full of references, lists of people and families, and data
tables.
I’ve learned interesting facts that I was previously unaware of. Did
you now that leprosy was present on Guam by the 11th century and
possibly as early as the 7th century Did you know that a supply of
cocoa was part of the provisions given to Padre San Vitores and his
companions for the journey to Guam? Did you know that a card game named
L’Hombre was all the rage with 17th Century Spanish soldiers? That in
1650, 1770 and 1850, the world experienced the lowest temperatures of a
mini ice age?
After spending a significant amount of time reading various
historical accounts on a variety of topics and amassing a small library
of publications on topics relating to Guam’s history, I forced myself
to narrow my focus. There was no way I could tackle the entire history
of Guam in my first book so I narrowed the time frame to the 100 years
of the 18th century.
Next I focused on a specific area of research. In order to develop a
believable setting for my story it seemed “natural” to learn about the
environment at that time. Another frenzy of investigation took me to
Web sites where I learned about the mini ice age and volcanic activity
of the period. I perused reports by Spanish naturalist Antonio de
Pineda y Ramirez and American Navy Lt. William Safford, who also was a
botanist. Spanish governor Felipe de la Corte y Ruano Calderon’s
descriptive and historical report provided even more information.
Then one day while reading Frenchman Louis de Freycinet’s account of
his sojourn in the Mariana Islands, I became intrigued with his
population tables. Most people with any knowledge of Guam’s history
know that the Chamorro people were on the verge of extinction in the
18th century. I wanted to know the exact numbers and what factors were
known about the decimation of my ancestors.
The second in a 12-part series, this is an account of my journey for
information and understanding of Guam’s past concerning
the decline in numbers of our people.
(This article was initially published in Guahan Magazine , March 2008 edition, and is reprinted by permission of the author and publisher)
It is difficult to envision the reality of Chamorros who survived the colonization by Spain. A young Chamorro boy who survived the Spanish colonization and somehow reached the age of the manamko would have seen a decline of more than 90 percent of his people over his lifetime.
My investigation into exactly how this occurred was fascinating and confusing. Fascinating to think that our population numbers were once so high, and confusing because of the contradictory numbers I found in conducting the research.
I was aware that the high population numbers that are often cited for the Chamorro population at San Vitores’ arrival were not generally believed to be accurate by historians, but I wanted to consult the primary sources myself.
I went back to the oldest account that I had at hand, Franciscan Lay Brother Juan Pobre de Zamora’s account of his 7-month stay in Rota in 1602. In his account, Fray Juan Pobre relates that Sancho, a Spaniard who survived the shipwreck of the Santa Margarita in 1601 and lived among the Chamoros on Guam, told him that there were “nearly 400 villages” and “more than 60,000 people” on the island of Guam. Rota, he reported, had 12,000 people living in 50 villages. Sancho had also told him that the “indios” said that there were more than 20 islands that shared a common language in the Marianas chain but he didn’t know the size of the “islands lying in the direction of the volcano” since he had not visited them.
Writing has always been easy for me. I just need to sit down in
front of a computer and the thoughts flow. I usually can pound out a
story in no time if I have all the information I need. So I thought why
not write a book?
Well, that thought has been with me for well
over 20 years! I began researching and collecting publications years
ago. To put it in perspective, in 1997 Super Typhoon Paka destroyed the
significant library of books and documents that I had collected from
years of traveling in the Pacific – books that I acquired in various
islands that are now out of print and not available elsewhere. And I
still had not written a chapter in my book.
And time marches
on. For those that know me, I am a doer. I try to give 110 percent to
whatever it is I am tasked to do. But for some reason, putting pen to
paper to begin writing a “book” has me petrified. I don’t know if it is
the fear of failure, or the fear of revealing too much of myself
to the public through the creative process, or some other subconscious
reason or combination thereof. What I do know is, I am now prepared to
slay this dragon!
My mission now is to complete this elusive book and I invite to you take this journey with me.
This is the first installment of a 12-part series documenting my
efforts to research and write my first book, a historical novel of
Guam.
(This article was initially published in Guahan Magazine , February 2008 edition, and is reprinted by permission of the author and publisher)
Most of us, I assume, have a picture of what Guam’s past might have
looked like. For many it might be a romantic view:
Everyone having what
they need and living in harmony with each other and nature. Others
might have a darker perspective filled with visions of war and
violence, and illness.
I believe, just like today, that the world that our ancestors
lived in was neither and both. I believe it was made up of moments of
pure ecstasy as well as the mundane, anguish and joy, hatred and love, curiosity and exploration, reverence, fear and numerous other emotions. It was made
up of individuals of great strength, mental agility and wisdom as well
as those of diminished mental ability, and those with a sickly
constitution. Some were driven by greed, others by love. Some strove
for power, some for enlightenment. In other words, our past was much
like today – a beautiful diversity of characters, motivated by a
variety of values. The world they lived in certainly
