72 pages • 2-hour read
Drums of Autumn
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Background
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of racism.
Series Context: Outlander
The Outlander novels are a series of books following the adventures of Claire Fraser, an English woman from the 20th century, and her husband Jamie, a Scottish Highlander from the 18th century.
First published in 1991, the series begins with Outlander, which tells the story of Claire Beauchamp Randall. Shortly after returning from her time as a field nurse in World War II, Claire takes a trip to Scotland with her husband Frank, a history professor. Frank is looking into the history of his ancestor named Jack Randall and his involvement with the 1745 Jacobite uprising, when Claire comes across a set of ancient standing stones nearby at Craigh na Dun. When Claire touches the stones, she is suddenly thrown back into the year 1743 and is taken in by the powerful MacKenzie clan. For safety, she marries a warrior named Jamie Fraser, with whom she later falls deeply in love. Claire eventually tells Jamie that she is a time-traveler, and together they attempt to mitigate the damage Claire knows is coming at the end of the Jacobite uprising in the bloody Battle of Culloden.
In the second novel in the series, Dragonfly in Amber, Jamie and Claire befriend Charles Stuart, the man who believes his father is the rightful king of Britain, and try to sway him from starting the Battle of Culloden. As Claire and Jamie learn that they cannot change the events of the past, they decide that it is best for Claire to return to the 20th century with the baby she is carrying. Twenty years after she returns to the present, Claire tells her daughter Brianna and their historian friend Roger about her adventures time-traveling. At the very end of the novel, Roger tells Claire that there is reason to believe Jamie survived Culloden, despite his conviction to die in battle, and they see a woman named Gillian Edgars disappear into the stones at Craigh na Dun.
In Voyager, Claire decides to return to the past, where she and Jamie must come to terms with the ways they have both changed over the past 20 years. Though they still love one another, Jamie faced many struggles after Culloden and ended up marrying another woman and adopting her children. Claire must learn to love Jamie for who he is now, not just who he was in the past. However, as they are rekindling their marriage, Jamie’s nephew Ian is kidnapped by pirates and taken to the Caribbean, and Claire and Jamie must follow. When Jamie’s identity is discovered, the British Army follows them across the Atlantic, where they come across Gillian Edgars, living as a wealthy plantation owner named Geillis Duncan. Geillis has heard a prophecy that requires her to return to the future to kill Brianna, so Claire must kill her to save her daughter. When Claire and Jamie rescue Ian and try to make their way back toward Scotland, they are caught in a storm and shipwrecked in the American colonies, which is where Drums of Autumn is set.
Following Drums of Autumn, Claire and Jamie must navigate the beginnings of the American Revolution while Brianna and Roger grapple with the burden of knowing what is to come for the Frasers. The series also includes the novels The Fiery Cross, A Breath of Snow and Ashes, An Echo in the Bone, Written in My Own Heart’s Blood, Go Tell the Bees that I am Gone, along with a forthcoming 10th novel and several shorter novels and novellas.
Historical Context: The British Colonies in North America
Unlike the previous novels in the series, Drums of Autumn takes place in the American colonies, predominantly in the backwoods of the Carolinas. The colonies were under British rule, but tensions were high between the American colonists and the British government that ruled them. The British had begun to increase taxes in the colonies without giving the colonists a say in their own governance; the American Revolution would begin in 1776 with the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
In the years before this, in which Drums of Autumn is set, discontent had been brewing amongst the colonists, and loyalty was important as no one knew whom they could trust. However, while the British government was mistreating the predominantly white colonists, the colonists were in turn committing atrocities against both Indigenous and enslaved people. Different colonies had different rules and regulations regarding enslavement, yet it was still a widely accepted practice at the time, particularly in the southern colonies where Drums of Autumn takes place.
The Indigenous peoples had been pushed off their land by the colonists, and while some colonists, like the fictional Frasers, had amicable relationships with local tribes, colonists more often treated the Indigenous people as if they were less than human. While they often viewed the local tribes as dangerous and unpredictable, the colonists faced much greater dangers in their cultivation of the land. Once they had forced the Indigenous peoples off their land, the colonies were largely barren and wild, with vast tracts of land uninhabited for miles.
Many immigrants from Britain and Europe took advantage of this abundance of land, as it was often something they lacked in their home countries. Several communities of immigrants who shared a homeland would form in the colonies. This was true for many Scots, who, after facing a decimation of their culture after the Jacobite Uprisings, sought respite from persecution by the English and formed settlements like the one on Cape Fear in North Carolina.
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