This Issue's Character feature
This issue features: Felicity, Josefina, and Kirsten(Kaya was not yet introduced when the Handbook was published.)
From the American Girls Club Handbook:
Shops like Mr. Merriman's were lively places to gather and hear news of the town, the colonies, and the world.
Merriman's Store was one of Felicity's favorite places in all of Williamsburg. If she could have had her way, Felicity would have spent all her time helping at the store, greeting customers, showing them fabrics, and counting boxes and barrels of goods in the storeroom. Mr. Merriman's goods came from all over the world--teapots from China, leather from London, spices from the West Indies, cotton from India, and tulip bulbs from Holland. Customers paid for their purchases wtih coins from all over the world, too. The most common coins were copper half pennies from England and silver dollares (doh-LAHR-es) from Spain. There were also coins from Portugal, Holland, and France. Shopkeepers weighed these coins to find out how much they were worth.
Shops like Mr. Merriman's were centers of news and information. While townspeople shopped, they chatted about who was sick, who had a new baby, or whose barn had caught fire. Local farmers knew that if they had extra crops they could bring them to Mr. Merriman. He would know of another farmer whose crops had come up short. Shops were good places to get news about the rest of the colonies and the world, too. Wagon drivers and boatsmen brough tobacco, animal skins, grain, and other goods along with news from the towns they'd passed through. Crew members from sailing shops told of their adventures in faraway places like Africa, South America, or the West Indies.
It was probaby in shops like Mr. Merriman's that early grumblings against King George of England were heard. The king permitted colonial shops to sell only English goods. For example, colonial shopkeepers could not sell fabric made in the colonies. They could only sell fabric from England, which was more expensive. On top of this expense, the king added a heavy tax on goods from England. Soon grumblings about high taxes turned into rumblings of revolution. Many colonists wanted to be free from the king's rule. They had built America with their own hard work, and they wanted to govern it themselves.
Traders and trade fairs brought goods from all over the globe into Josefina's world.
Papá's rancho was the center of Josefina's world. The rancho's land provided corn for food, wool for clothing, and even clay for the adobe walls aof her house. At times it was hard for Josefina to imagine any world beyond the one she saw form the rancho's gates.
But Josefina knew there was a world beyond the rancho. She saw it in Abuelito's carts, which carried Chinese silks and European jewelry up the Camino Real (kah-MEE-no rey-AHL), or royal road, from Mexico City. She saw it when she went with her father to trade deer meat and hides at the nearby Indian village, or pueblo (PWEH-blo). And she saw it when American wagon trains began to arrive on the Sante Fe Trail in 1821, adding their goods and the new sound of English to markets and trade fairs in Santa Fe and other New Mexico towns.
Trade fairs had been a part of New Mexican life since the late 1600s. In Josefina's time, the biggest, busiest, most spectacular of all the fairs was the grand trade fair at Taos. Each fall, Mexican and American traders, Indians of many tribes, and settlers from ranchos all over New Mexico put aside their differences and journeyed to Taos to trade their wares. Tepees, tents, and wooden stalls sprang up overnight. Trading and bartering began immediately and went on all night and day in all sorts of languages--Spanish, English, Comanche, Navajo, Ute, Apache, and various Pueblo languages. And so did the feasting, dancing, and horse racing.
Trade fairs like the Taos fair brough a world of goods to the New Mexico frontier. American and Mexican traders brough fabrics, tools, shoes, chocolate, paper, ink, and weapons from Europe, Asia, and the eastern United States. Local farmers and ranchers like Papá traded vegetables, cheese, mules, woolen goods, blankets, candles, and piñón nuts from their ranchos. Indians from the mountains and the plains brough buffalo hides, horses, dried meat, blankets, and pottery.
The Taos trade fair was so important to the traders, settlers, and Indians of New Mexico that a truce called the paz de Dios (pahs deh dee-OHS), or peace of God, was declared during the fair. According to the truce, all people traveling to and from thei fair would be safe from attack. Even the most thostile enemies upheld the truce for the sake of the fair.
Unfortunately, the truce never lasted long. Weeks--sometimes days--after the last trader had left Taos, war cries once more filled the air, and enemies began a new round of raids for the horses and other goods they had so recently traded to one another.
Living in America was exciting for the Larsons, but they missed their homeland, too.
When Kirsten lived in Sweden, she and her family didn't have enough to eat. People were starving all over Sweden because the soil was too poor to grow enough food. Some Swedes, like Uncle Olav, left to find better farmland in America. After Uncle Olav arrived in America, he wrote to Kirsten's father. He told him about the rich soil on his new farm, and how he and Aunt Inger needed the Larson family's help. The Larsons longed for a fresh start in a new land. In 1854, they decided to leave their home in Sweden. They set sail for America, filled with hope for a better life.
The Larsons' decision to come to America was not an easy one. They had to leave behind their friends and family, knowing that they probably would never see them again. After the Larsons got settled in their new American home, the letters they received from Sweden were precious. In 1854, when a family received a letter, they had to pay for the postage. The cost of the letter depended on how far it had traveled and how much it weighed. If a family didn't have enough money to pay for postage, they couldn't claim the letter. Some people used codes on the outside of the envelopes they sent. That way, the person would received the letter could just read the code and not have to pay to claim the letter.
The Larsons were excited to be in a new home in a new land, but they longed for Sweden, too. They kept Swedish traditions alive on the frontier by celebrating holidays like Midsummer and making foods like Swedish rice porridge and Saint Lucia buns. It also helped to look around the cabin at the things they had brought from Sweden. Kirsten loved to lift the lid of her family's painted trunk and touch the beautiful woven cloths, carved bowls, knitted sweaters, and painted spoons that friends and family in Sweden had made for them. It was like touching home.