Reoccurs In Elisa Carbone's Blood On The River

In Elisa Carbone’s Blood on the River the theme of survival reoccurs in several scenarios. Samuel Collier, a young teen boy, has lived most of his early years depending on himself. However, in the New World he is forced to learn how to survive by working as a team with others instead of fighting for himself.
Samuel grew up striving to survive with his Mom in a tumble-down house. After his mother died Samuel lived in the poorhouse; however, when he was caught trying to steal his mother’s locket from a pawnshop he was arrested. Instead of getting hung, the magistrate dragged Samuel down to an orphanage run by Reverend Hunt. Samuel’s main lesson he learns on the street is that to survive you must never trust anyone, therefore, in the orphanage he never made friends. For example, he fought to settle arguments and defend himself from name calling: “I knew only one way to settle the argument: with my fist” (7). One day he and two other boys in the orphanage, Richard and James, are picked as pages for several men aboard ships bound for the New World. The goal

Smith tells Samuel that the language of the Indians will be needed desperately: “This language will be your protection outside the fort, and within as well” (90). He learns that the gentleman are complainers when they don’t get the food they want and don’t want to work.
Smith leaves Samuel in the care of an Indian village. While he lives with them the Indians teach him how to fish, make snares for many kinds of animals, build a fire, and what wild food is good to eat. (185) After the winter, he is fetched by some men from Jamestown and they do not recognize him at first because he looks like one of the natives. They return to Jamestown and Samuel readjusts to the scant food; he helps translate the Indian language and bargain for food allowing the settlers to