As featured in the Spokane Library Series From The Vault: An Archival Poetry Project
“A great many years ago…” our story begins with two named, yet nameless Beloveds. Our re-imagining will intertwine their respective stories, a new narrative fashioned from two tales of markedly different sizes – one tragically short, the other (now) a tad taller, slightly embellished to ensure a good fit.
One:
A Chief’s son
A young brave sweetheart and only child
An Indian boy without a name reproduced on any record
The Other:
An enslaved man’s son
A freedom-seeker, escape artist, and entrepreneur
A black boy – stamped from the beginning as, and who would later fully lay claim to the name – Barrow
One: It was told by OLD LOBO that a great Chief’s only son lost his life in a disaster upon disregarding his father’s wishes. His father forbade him from departing the great sun god’s worship to ferry his dear across Deer Lake. In failing to heed father’s fair warning, the boy-brave-son, his sweetheart, and their canoe were all swallowed whole by a great monster from the depths below. In the immediate Intertribal council response, “the Spokanes, the Colvilles, the Coeur d’Alenes, and even the far away Nez Perces and Yakimas…all agreed to leave the place at once…and for ages and ages, no Indians approached Deer Lake and all was silent.”
The Other – One Peter B. Barrow: We eventually join the boy-artist-son – Barrow – on his journey out West, inspired from one Washington (Booker T.) to another. First, Barrow escaped the slaver – its patrols, and that sweltering Mississippi plantation – to accompany William (née) Tecumseh Sherman on his bloody march to the sea. Barrow would rise to the rank of sergeant while serving, fighting yet another battle: the Civil War. Finally, Barrow escaped the Jim Crow South – its oppression, and that suffocating brutality of bigotry – to settle in Spokane and surrounding Stephens County. Barrow and a band of Black folks – 45 investors primarily from this region but in fact from across the US – set down roots, planting a foundation. Nestled within the volcanic ash of serene, silent shores, The Deer Lake Irrigated Orchards Company was birthed: all 140 acres owned outright in land and water right, cultivated solely by and for Black hands. In 1909! A Black collective banded together to build a bright future.
Until a massive orchard complex became dead set on disturbing progress. Arcadia Orchard over developed 17,000 acres, irrigating the land with monster lake water. They flooded the valley, cursing the small but mighty endeavor and spoiling its “perfect winter apples.” Can you imagine? Our dearly Beloved Barrow as he sits upon the misty shores of his homestead one morning with tears pooling in his eyes? Perhaps he cast out a prayer to the dearly departed, pleading intersession “for the race…for the abolition of poverty…and for betterment.” Betting on something from nothing. The orchard described as “nothing like it in all America.” I wonder if from the water arose:
A spirit
A voice
An apparition
One who foretold the future. Beloved-brother-Barrow, fear not. Though you will certainly be forced to abandon this land due to exploitative and destructive forces, I have a vision. The roots you’ve nurtured so lovingly will grow strong; the trees you’ve nourished well will bear such unbelievably beautiful fruit. From this toil, you will father:
A lineage
A village
A legacy
Our story comes to a close with the prophecy now realized. A lineage: a wife, children, grand and great grandchildren. A village: a community with a printshop for communicating, an especially long reel of newspapers spanning from The Citizen to its contemporary, The Black Lens, a lineup of barbershops set on making us dapper, and a standing spiritual home: Calvary Baptist Church. A legacy: a vast constellation of families with connections, including Eleanor Barrow Chase, wife of Spokane’s first Black Mayor, Jim Chase, soil samples that still reside within Howard University’s botany nursery, and perhaps even the stilling of One restless, hopefully now free spirit.