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

Walking near to his get through the woods on a cool spend day, young Mason hears the sound 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 Murder Trial of Xwelas, a SKlallam Woman, Coll-Peter Thrush and Robert H. Keller, younger recall the events before, during, and after the murder of George Phillips, a Welsh immigrant killed by his innate wife. Xwelas the life before the murder, the actions which arouse Phillips death, and how the trial was influenced all help to force the unusual history that took place in the seventeenth century.Xwelas had an unstable quondam(prenominal) that may realise contributed to the anger toward George Phillips. In the mid-1800s, in that respect were several reasons that it was historic to marry a person of a different race. The threat of slavery, depopulation delinquent to disease, and the breakdown of traditional ways, could have encouraged a young Indian woman t o seek relative refuge in marriage with a white man, miles from her home (272). Xwelas married a man named Edmund Clare Fitzhugh, a endemic of Virginia who practiced law. After giving birth to two sons, Mason a Julius, Edmund found that home life was dull. He suddenly left for Seattle, sledding Xwelas to herself. However, she married William King Lear, an immigrant from Alabama. After bearing his son, Lear abandoned his family after accomplishment that a relative died. He did not return for more than twenty dollar bill years. Finally, Xwelas found a common laborer, much less of a worldly concern figure than her last two husbands. The authors of the essay writeAs a forty-year-old woman with threesome 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 any(prenominal) r easons, Xwelas married George Phillips on 9 February 1878. (273)Xwelas marriage to Phillips seems to have been the worst of her three marriages. Several accounts describe his alcoholism and violent rages. His beatings of Xwelas often drew the oversight of neighbors, however, she sometimes tried to fight back, using weapons such as oars. By Christmas of 1878, she was pregnant with her fourth child.The rocky relationship status between Xwelas and George Phillips provoked the fatal events on Christmas Day.