Abraham's Well: A Novel

Sharon Ewell Foster
Bethany House (2006)
ISBN 0764228870
Reviewed by Deb Shunamon for Reader Views (3/07)

“Abraham’s Well” is the life story of Armentia, a black Cherokee slave, who considers herself a member of the Deer Clan. The novel begins with her memories as a young slave girl for a Cherokee family and concludes with her in old age, finally owning her own land. As her personal journey is told, so too is the life of the black freedmen and slaves who lived with, worked for, and married into, Cherokee families. The religious side of life for the people; Armentia’s beloved, older brother Abraham; and the journey along the Trail of Tears are given particular emphasis throughout the book, the Trail of Tears referring to a forced cross-country trek that took place in the United States in the early 1800s. Approximately 17,000 black, mixed, and various native groups were forced to walk more than a thousand miles to the new “Indian Territory” set aside for them, after their land was expropriated by the U.S. government. 

There are some admirable differences between this and many other black slave stories, such as the attempt made to work through the thought process of a slave learning to adjust to her place in society, and the efforts of the author to speak about the abuses by people in general, not just the whites. However, only readers with knowledge and interest in spiritual matters may be able to appreciate the book’s emphasis on religion. The constant references, including more than 25 pages of an outdoor sermon, did not hold my attention at all, and might also be the reason why I do not fully understand why Abraham, a short-lived character who, through the continuous use of memories to rehash a tremendous amount of information, warrants being in the title.

More importantly, however, is that I know very little about the Cherokee black people, and reading about Armentia’s life without being given any historical context or background information in which to place the events, resulted in my being confused quite early in the story, and unsure of the validity of what I was reading. Some historical details were eventually presented in later chapters of the book, which helped somewhat, but the author states in the final chapter notes that she purposely wrote her story to be “more episodic than driven by dates or locations.” As a newcomer to the topic, this did not work well at all for me.

In general, the writing was good and in a few parts it was delightfully succinct, such as in the short chapters involving letters written to Armentia. Written as the result of the author’s own discovery of her Cherokee ancestry, it is also timely given the recent controversy over denying full Cherokee ancestry rights to the black descendants of the freedmen. “Abraham’s Well” is at times very confusing, but it is also a nice, cautious novel. Thanks to the reference list Ms. Foster provides, readers may find “Abraham’s Well” a good place to start their own inquiry into this unique group of blacks and natives, who at one time appeared to consider themselves as one people.

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