An Analysis of ?The Life and Murder Trial of Xwelas, a S?Klallam Woman :: essays research papers fc

Walking next to his father through the wood on a cool winter day, young Mason hears the well(p) of a bullet entering his fathers body. As he looks ahead, he sees his mother, Xwelas, lower a shotgun. In the essay The Life and take out Trial of Xwelas, a SKlallam Woman, Coll-Peter Thrush and Robert H. Keller, Jr. recall the events before, during, and after the transfer of George Phillips, a Welsh immigrant killed by his native wife. Xwelas the spiritedness before the murder, the actions which enkindle Phillips death, and how the trial was influenced all help to describe the unusual history that took get off in the seventeenth century.Xwelas had an unstable past that may drop contributed to the enkindle toward George Phillips. In the mid-1800s, there were several reasons that it was important to marry a soul of a different race. The threat of slavery, depopulation due to disease, and the breakdown of traditional ways, could have encouraged a young Indian woman to seek propor tional refuge in marriage with a white man, miles from her home (272). Xwelas wed a man named Edmund Clare Fitzhugh, a native of Virginia who practiced law. after handsome birth to cardinal sons, Mason a Julius, Edmund found that home life was dull. He suddenly left for Seattle, leaving Xwelas to herself. However, she married William King Lear, an immigrant from Alabama. After bearing his son, Lear abandoned his family after learning that a relative died. He did not return for more than twenty years. Finally, Xwelas found a crude laborer, much less of a public figure than her last two husbands. The authors of the essay writeAs a forty-year-old woman with three children fathered by two different men, Xwelas may have been considered used merchandise by potential white suitors and by tribal leaders looking for strategic marriage alliances. Or perhaps there may have been a romantic attraction between Xwelas and Phillips. For whatever reasons, Xwelas married George Phillips on 9 Febr uary 1878. (273)Xwelas marriage to Phillips seems to have been the worst of her three marriages. Several accounts describe his inebriety and violent rages. His beatings of Xwelas often drew the attention of neighbors, however, she sometimes tried to vex back, using weapons such as oars. By Christmas of 1878, she was pregnant with her fourth child.The flinty relationship status between Xwelas and George Phillips provoked the fatal events on Christmas Day.