Watili, the Native American Slave Heroine
The book explores the concepts of personal strength, honesty, and the American mind. When young Watili is kidnapped by Apache slavers, she enters a world beyond her imaginings, and meets the only man who can take her home: cartographer-map maker Don Bernardo Pacheco y Miera. Setting out on an adventure, each with their own goals and motivators, Watili, Don B, and their companion, the dashing Cibolero, cross the rolling plains and towering plateaus of the West. All find themselves facing the truth about the Oneness of Spirituality that binds them in life, and are forced to learn from each other to adapt in a quickly changing world. Secrets are revealed, truths unveiled, and strife arises as this trio of travelers makes their way not only across the geography of the land, but also the geography of their own private beliefs and viewpoints
Watili endures the 700 mile forced walk into a world she does not comprehend, leaving behind a truly enjoyable life and healthy environment to be enslaved as a domestic servant to live in a quiet fear of her future.
Yet she shows no hate for either the Spanish or the Apache Mescalero that enslaved her for she possessed a grounded common sense and belief that someday she will return to her world of the Parussi band.
As the story develops, the real lesson is how Watili maintains her native understanding, the Oneness between mankind and nature and how Creator-higher Being God wants this relationship to exist for the land to not be exploited.
Watili sharing of her healing capabilities by use of plants and prayers to the Creator demonstrate the interdependent Oneness between faith and nature. The Native soul is entwined with nature and this mutual dependency of the Creator-Higher Being God created for this Oneness to exist
A great write to be included in high school and college level classrooms.
Anthony Garcia
