Here is a narrative about one little boy, based on a true story. I’m sharing it as an example of the life of a white person who was not privileged.

Giles lived in England in 1617.  He was nine years old. His mother Mary and sister Elizabeth had died of “The Sickness.”  His father had sailed away to Jamestown, Virginia, almost seven years earlier.  People said that Father must be dead because his ship had met a hurricane near Bermuda.

Giles still had one sister, named Constance.  He called her Connie.  The two of them were made wards of the church.  They went to an orphanage until their Uncle William claimed them and took them into his home.  In that busy household, no one even noticed them.

Giles’s dog had died, too.  It was a terrier that caught rats.  Unfortunately, the rats, which had caused his mother’s and his sister’s sickness, caused the dog to get sick and die.

Giles tried to live with his losses as much as he could as a young boy.  He was very angry, and he took his anger out on the rats, throwing stones at them when he could.

Giles wondered if he would have a chance to live, to grow up and be a man.  He wondered if God even knew he was there or cared for him at all, but he continued to say his prayers, which tied him to his mother somehow.

One miraculous day, a maid heard Giles’s complaints as he spoke in anger to God.  She told Giles that she was sure he would live a long and interesting life.  Later that day, she came and told Giles and Constance to brace for some news: their father Stephen had returned to England.  He was coming for them.

Such news was too good to be believed.  Giles did not believe it, until he saw his father coming up the lane with a trunk on his back.

The reunion was bittersweet.  Stephen and his children fell upon each other and did not want to let go.  He apologized to them for being away when their mother and sister had died.  He expressed grief with words the children could not access themselves, and he expressed hope for reunion with them in Heaven.  He asked for forgiveness from Giles and Constance.

Giles wanted to forgive his father, but his anger would not let him at first.  “Why did you go so far away?” he said.  “How could you leave us like that?”

Stephen explained that he was trying to support the family by indenturing himself.  He felt he had to do so with the way things were in England.  No one could get ahead or own land, and it was impossible to make a living under the feudal system.

The explanation was enough for the moment, and Giles fell against his father, crying.  He wanted to stay there forever.  He confided that he knew that the rats had somehow killed his mother and sister.  He asked, can we buy another dog to kill the rats?

Stephen patted Giles on the back.  He said that the connection with the rats was correct; his mother and sister had died in the spring, when the fleas on the rats were again active.

Giles realized that it was the fleas, not the rats, that had brought the deadly sickness.  He was grateful for that one piece of information and glad Father was back.

Stephen took his children away to London from his brother William’s house.  He and the children were a family again but found only a room behind a pub in which to live at first.  Later, they moved into a small house at the edge of London.

To Giles, London was exciting but terrible.  It smelled awful.  There were crooks and thieves everywhere.

Giles learned about these things by listening as he walked the streets to deliver items for merchants, a job he got.  He got into fights over what other boys said about his father, that he had mutinied at Bermuda.  (Funny, Connie always seemed to show up to get him out of trouble with the constables.)

Father told Giles that spies were in London to find people who did not support the king’s version of Christianity.  Those people were taken away, imprisoned, and beheaded or burned at the stake.  He told Giles not to speak of religion to anyone.

One night, Giles heard Father and a baker named Elizabeth, whom all the family had taken a shine to, talking at the table by candlelight.  They discussed sailing to America together and taking Connie and Giles with them.  The baker said, “I am willing.  Here I know what I will be doing every day of my life for the rest of my life.  I am willing to risk even my life for something more.  I will willingly go with you, Stephen.”

Shortly thereafter, Stephen and Elizabeth were married.  Months later, they had a daughter, whom they named Damaris.

Giles was not so sure about this plan to leave England.  He wanted to stay in London and go to school.  He wanted to build a life for himself there.  He even contemplated running away so he could stay in England.

Then something happened, while he was delivering produce for a merchant.  A woman opened her window on the upper floor of a building and poured out the contents of a chamber pot into the street.  Urine fell all over Giles and all over the produce.  He went back to the merchant and reported what had happened.  The merchant cuffed his ear and told him to go and take it on to the Manor House.

Giles set down the produce right there on the ground.  He decided he would rather leave London and

sail across the ocean with Father, Elizabeth, Damaris, and Constance for a better life.

Giles reasoned that Father could teach him to read and write.  Giles thought he could also learn how to read charts aboard ship and make some maps himself.

It was not long before the Hopkins Family, carrying baby Damaris in arms, and Elizabeth pregnant again, went to a pier to get on a small ship to take them to the Mayflower.  They carried only minimal supplies, tools, and clothing with them.  The journey would be hard, and the process of building a life in a new land would be even harder; there would be much more death and uncertainty to endure, but they would do it.

Giles would become a highway surveyor in the colonies.  He had his life, a very interesting life, and he married and had many children.

And that’s the point, isn’t it?  Life is hard for all kinds of people.  We owe the brave ones who opened the way for us a debt of gratitude.  They did not have white privilege.  They did have the pioneer spirit, faith, and courage.

C.S. Boddie writes for Meadowlark Press.

Image: Birmingham Museums Trust, public domain.