The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle

I was wrong about Avi. Many years ago, I read Nothing But the Truth and did not like it at all. The story was jam-packed with teen “issues.” I read it in my early twenties, freshly out of my teenage years. I was relieved to not be a teenager anymore. Being a teenager is hard in almost every way. It may be that Nothing But the Truth reminded me too much of those years past.

I read Avi’s Crispin: Cross of Lead a few weeks ago and stayed up until 2 am to finish it. That book was suspenseful! I finished The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle--at 1 am this morning. I am now a solid Avi fan. The imagery and intensity of his historical fiction is top-notch. True Confessions has mutiny, murder, a mad ship captain, and high seas adventure, ironically with an upper-class teenage girl at the center of it all. I cannot think of a book that is more mismatched with its most-often-seen cover than this one. The only time Charlotte's clothes look as clean and puffy as that are in the first ten pages of the book. I’m glad I read it so that I can tell the students at my school what it's really about!

Old Dock, Liverpool, 1799. Charlotte boards the Seahawk
here on June 16, 1832. (From: The Maritime Gallery)

Charlotte Doyle is the daughter of a prosperous American businessman who had temporarily lived with his family in England for several years. Prior to the beginning of the story, Mr. Doyle moved his family back to their home in Providence, Rhode Island--all except Charlotte. Charlotte was to finish her school year in England, then travel home to Providence aboard a merchant ship, the Seahawk, with which her father had business connections. Two other families were to accompany her, but at the last minute were strongly warned by the ship’s crew to stay away. The crew was planning a mutiny against their ship’s captain and did not want non-sailors aboard to complicate their plans. Charlotte, however, was forced by her English guardian, who would not listen to the warnings, to board the ship anyway.

A brig is a sailing ship with two masts. It was a popular
ship design in the 18th and 19th centuries. In the story, the
Seahawk is a brig. Pictured here is the Niagara.
(From: Wikipedia)

These circumstances set the stage for a wildly terrifying voyage. The well-mannered and cultured Charlotte, a 13-year old girl, was in for a two-month Atlantic crossing with a crew of ten uncouth, violent sailors, a dirty roach and rat infested ship, and a captain who turned out to be raving mad. By the time the Seahawk arrived in Providence, Charlotte had helped Captain Jaggery to quell a rebellion by the crew, taken an oath of loyalty as a crew member, climbed to the main mast as the ship was blasted by the wind and waves of a hurricane, been tried and convicted of murder, and led a mutinous rebellion against Jaggery that resulted in his death. Hardly a story that fits well with the genteel Charlotte pictured on the book’s cover! In this blog post, I’ll provide you with some background information to help you to better understand the story and its setting. Of course, I’m hoping you’ll decide read the book and enjoy it as much as I did!

This cover provides a much
better idea ofthe story than
the one above.

The Seahawk, Avi explains, is "what is known as a brig, a two-masted ship (with a snow mast behind the main), perhaps some seven hundred tons in weight, 107 feet stern to bow, 130 feet deck to mainmast cap." (13) In the story, Charlotte incurs the wrath of Captain Jaggery after she defends a black sailor named Zachariah, the supposed leader of a mutinous crew. The first mate, Mr. Hollybrass, is commanded by Jaggery to whip Zachariah fifty times across his bare back. But, as Zachariah had become Charlotte's friend, Charlotte defends him by tackling Hollybrass and taking away the whip. As she backs away from Hollybrass with the whip in hand, she accidentally strikes Jaggery across the face with it, leaving a long, bloody cut.

From that moment, Jaggery hates Charlotte and schemes revenge against her. Charlotte seeks the protection of the crew by joining and taking an oath of loyalty to them. They permit her to join them (doing all the normal work of a male sailor) on one condition. She must climb the main mast of the Seahawk by herself in order to prove her seriousness. This is one of the most intense scenes in the whole book. She climbs the rope ladder barefooted and without any protection against a fall. As she nears the top, she notes that "what seemed like little movement on deck became, up high, wild swings and turns through treacherous air... This final climb was torture. With every upward pull the swaying of the ship seemed to increase. Even when not moving myself, I was flying through the air in wild gyrations. The horizon kept shifting, tilting, dropping. I was increasingly dizzy, nauseous, terrified, certain that with every next moment I would slip and fall to death." (125) What would it feel like to be Charlotte at that moment? Check out this video of someone climbing the main mast of the Charles W. Morgan, a 19th century whaling ship now kept at Mystic Seaport in Connecticut. The mast of this ship is 110 feet tall, 20 feet shorter than that of the Seahawk.  



Charlotte boards the ship at Liverpool, England on June 16, 1832. They sail across the northern Atlantic Ocean to Providence, arriving on August 17th. (See this 1831 map, Atlantic Ocean.) The voyage has mostly good weather until a hurricane comes upon them off the coast of New England. By this time, Charlotte has become a member of the Seahawk's crew. I have already asked you to imagine climbing 130 feet up the mast of a brig. Now imagine climbing it during a hurricane on the ocean. Jaggery commands Charlotte to climb the mast and cut a sail loose. If a sail remains up during hurricane winds, the ship's wooden mast may crack and topple. Clearly, the job had to be done by someone. Of course, Jaggery, in his hatred for Charlotte, did not shy away from giving her a dangerous job like this. What's a hurricane on the ocean look like? Here's a video of one--but remember that the ship in the video is much, much bigger than a brig and can more easily remain stable the massive waves.

 

In the story, Captain Jaggery cruelly treats his crew. If a sailor makes a mistake in his work, the captain punishes him severely. One reason for the crew's mutinous anger toward him is that, on a prior voyage, he had beaten a sailor so badly that the man's arm had to be amputated. His cruelty extended to the risks he took concerning their safety. Before the hurricane arrives, one sailor explains Jaggery's hurricane strategy to Charlotte. "'I don't think the captain wants to avoid it.' 'Why not?'... 'The captain's trying to move fast. If he sets us right at the hurricane's edge, it'll blow us home like a pound of shot in a two-pound cannon.' 'What if he doesn't get it right?' ' Two pounds of shot in a one-pound cannon.'" Meaning, of course, that if Jaggery didn't get it right, the Seahawk would be floating (or sunk) on the Atlantic in two pieces, not one. The satellite picture of a hurricane below helps to more easily understand Jaggery's folly. 

The white parts of the storm have the highest winds. Jaggery wants to
keep the Seahawk on the edge of the white, so that he can catch
winds that will move the ship faster, but not so fast as to endanger the ship.
If Jagger arrives earlier in Providence than expected, then he stands
to profit financially. Of course, this idea of toying with a hurricane is a
risky proposition to begin with! (This picture comes from an
excellent article about hurricanes on the National Geographic website.) 

After reading this book, I was skeptical about how realistic the story is. Could a teenage girl really assume the work duties of a normal sailor and challenge the authority of a captain? But, as it turns out, there have been a handful of women throughout history who, by disguising themselves as men, taken to the sea on whaling ships, navy vessels, and as pirates. The National Park Service website has an insightful article about women sailors, Women in Maritime History. It notes that women and girls became sailors for many reasons: "dire emergencies while at sea, patriotic wartime duty, economic necessity, a chance at a better life, search for adventure, devotion, and love."

Did you ever wonder how you would live and how different of a person you would be if you lived at a different time in history? I wondered this while reading The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle. I do not know if I would have the courage to stand up to the evil Captain Jaggery. I do not think I could have been a sailor in the days of sailing ships. I would have been a much better farmer, I think. But I sure do enjoy reading sea adventures like this one that Avi has given us. If you like adventure and suspense in historical fiction, you should read it. I don't think you'll regret it!