Attractive Lies (Life of the Ordinary Americans #1)

Dear Journal,

I am writing this journal as the start of my journey to America to remember what I have done during this journey and to one day tell stories to my future family about when I was 13 years old and travelling to America. My family and I have decided that we would sail from our home in England to America because of what we had heard from the Virginia Company was that the climate was better, there were plenty of supplies, and that the settlers there are able to live in peace with the Native Americans there.  I was upset that I would have to be leaving my friends and the place where I grew up, but to be entering an entirely new place sounds exciting. Tomorrow we will have to leave and board the ship called the Deliverance and head to America. I wonder what the ship will be like and what America really does have to offer to us.

The Deliverance is very crowded with all the equipment, tools, provisions, barrels of water, and hundreds of passengers that it has to hold. The ship is so crowded, that every time you want to get somewhere, you’d have to push through mounds of people that have diseases and are exhausted from their long trip from their home. My bed is so small, that I barely have enough room to sit and write and anywhere you go on the ship, you’d see and smell such disgusting things. There were people suffering from different kinds of sea sickness, vomiting, fevers, dysentery, headaches, heat, constipation, boils, scurvy, cancer, and mouth-rot. And all of these were coming from the salted food and filthy water that we had to eat and drink. After the first week of being on this rather terrifying ship, I have been able to not catch any diseases the other passengers have. But other than diseases, we also have to put up with storms that frighten all of the passengers making them think that the ship is going to sink. But most of the people who have had to deal with this ship much longer than I have, become bitter and impatient and start to turn on the other passengers by stealing and cheating on one another and accuse other strangers or their friends and family. Passengers would complain about how they would rather be at home even if they were lying in their pig sty or how they would do anything to have a good piece of bread and fresh water. I agreed with them that being on this ship is like a nightmare, but I still wanted to get to America even if it meant dealing with these diseases, weather, and behaviors.

It has now been about five weeks I have been on this ship and I am still dealing with the diseases, weather, and behavior of passengers.  Lately, I haven’t been feeling well and I wasn’t surprised that I was. Being surrounded by hundreds of people who are suffering from diseases, you’re bound to get sick at some point. But luckily, I had caught a fever that wasn’t as serious as the other diseases on the ship. It took a long time to recover, but I am grateful that I don’t have to be one of those people that have to be thrown overboard and into the ocean. During the time I was sick, I had lost my journal and was too sick to search for it. But yesterday, a rather tall man with brown hair and brown eyes had approached me. I recognized him from the town I lived in England, although I never spoke to him, I remembered that a few years ago he had left England to go to America and then returned around last year. After learning that his name is Jackson Wright and that he was 25 years old, the conversation I had with him yesterday was a conversation that I wouldn’t forget.

“I believe this would be your journal? I think it fell out of your bed and has been kicked around ever since,” he told me.

“Thank you,” I told him, “I haven’t been able to look for it ever since I caught that fever. But I was wondering why you’re going back to America again.”

“At first, I didn’t bring along my family, so I returned to England a few years later to bring them with me this time.”

“Did you want to share the experience with them?” I asked him.

“I’m returning with them because I believe that I want to be with my family even if I am suffering,” he said to me.

“I can see why you would be suffering on this ship, but once we reach America, everything should be okay.”

“You would think that leaving this ship would be the end of it, but it’s no better in America,” he said with a serious face.

“Why wouldn’t it be better in America? The Virginia Company said that the ‘air and climate is sweet and wholesome’ and that there are Native Americans there who are ‘loving and gentle,’” I said defensively.

“The Virginia Company lied. They said that so they could attract people to come and work as employees for the company. In America, there’ll be harsh winters and storms and drastic changes in temperatures. People are always getting ill and there are always deaths because of the diseases being caught. And the Native Americans aren’t so ‘loving and gentle,’ the Virginia Company just said that to warn us that we will be encountering them, but we’ll be fighting them and arguing with them most of the time.”

“But why are so many people heading to America then?”

“The way the Virginia Company makes this place sounds have already fooled thousands of people. And with so few people actually being there and surviving, most people don’t know what it’s like in America, so they decide to come to see what it’s like for themselves. “

I knew I couldn’t argue against him, since he has already been there and knows what the place is like. Anything I brought up that I thought was good about America that the Virginia Company had told us, he was able to tell me how they lied and what it’s really like in America. After speaking to him, I am beginning to wonder whether or not it was a good choice to come out to the American colonies. It’s hard to believe what is true now since the Virginia Company had made up these distortions. And when the Deliverance reached the shores of America, I begin to feel nervous about what is soon to come.

--Samantha White

Author's Note

The first of the prompts I've been writing in Social Studies class. This one is about how the Virginia Company lied to people in order to make them come to America. I hope you enjoy!