Kindle Vella and How it Works
Amazon’s Kindle Vella is a new platform designed for reading serialized content (Novels, Novellas, Short Fiction, and Non-Fiction). Each “Episode” is from 600 to 5000 words. The first three episodes of all Kindle Vellas are free to read on any device (format favors mobile devices). After that, you must purchase tokens at about a penny each to unlock additional episodes, and two dollars buys you about 20,000 words.
Backstories is a series of essays written by Robert and John Benson that focus on interesting characters and their unexpected connections with people, events, and things. I’ve included the first essay here with a link to additional essays on the Vella platform. Please get in touch with me if you have questions. I’m happy to help. Robert.
Essay 01 – Who was Thomas Adams? Chew on that for a while.
Thomas Adams was a New York glass merchant and part-time inventor widely regarded as the modern chewing gum industry founder. But neither Adams nor his famous partner, whose chest swelled with a grandiose sense of self-importance, were the inventors of the chewy treat.
“Chewing gum,” if you could call it that, has been around for at least 5000 years. Birchbark tar sporting ancient human teeth marks has been uncovered. Early Greeks munched on the sap of local Mastic trees, and Mayans were addicted to chewing resins from the Sapodilla tree, called chicle.
To get the backstory, we need to introduce our despot, “His Most Serene Highness” Antonio de Padua María Severino López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón, known as the “butcher at the Alamo”, Santa Anna. Santa Anna was born to a respected Spanish family on the southeast coast of Mexico in 1794, where chewing chicle was a widespread custom. He led the siege at the Alamo, ordered that no defender should be taken alive, and was defeated and captured by Sam Houston at San Jacinto in 1836.
On signing a treaty ending the Texas War for Independence, Santa Anna was transported to the United States to be interrogated by President Andrew Jackson. Jackson returned him to Mexico aboard the USS Pioneer.
Just two years after the Battle of the Alamo, Santa Anna was living in Veracruz, Mexico. One night some inebriated Mexican officers robbed a Frenchman’s pastry shop. The owner sued the Mexican government for reparations and complained to the French government. The French sent in a naval fleet which started the Pastry War. Seeing a chance to regain the people’s favor, Santa Anna joined the fight. During the Battle of Veracruz, a cannon blew off his leg, the remnant of which was buried not far away. The people cheered and made him and his new wooden leg president again. As one of his first presidential acts, he exhumed his shriveled limb, took it to Mexico City in an ornate coach, and reinterred it, complete with poetry and cannon salvos.
He again fell from grace two years later, and an angry gang tore down his statue and dug up his leg. The mob tied a rope to it and dragged it through the streets of Mexico City. But that was not the only Santa Anna leg to become famous.
During the 1847 Battle of Cerro Gordo the 4th Illinois Infantry caught “El Jefe” unprepared, and in a rush, he left his prosthetic leg behind. The troops from Illinois took the famous leg as a trophy, and it’s now an exhibit at the Illinois State Military Museum. The Mexican government’s requests to repatriate the artificial leg have been denied.
Disgraced again, Santa Anna was exiled and moved from island to island in the West Indies. Growing old now, he fell prey to a scheme promising him that the United States would finance his return to power in Mexico if he would come to New York. He lost all his money but not his habit of chewing chicle, of which he had a large stash. He rented a shabby house on Staten Island, all he could afford, and settled in scheming to get rich and return to Mexico. Expensive natural rubber was being used for carriage tires, and El Jefe thought that cheaper chicle gum could serve better, but only if a process to vulcanize it could be found.
Enter Thomas Adams. Adams had a reputation as an inventor, and Santa Anna approached him with the idea. They partnered up, Santa Anna provided half his chicle stash, and Adams went to work. As Santa Anna advanced in years and lived in poverty in New York, Adams advanced nowhere with vulcanizing chicle.
Near the end of his life, destitute, broken, and in steep physical decline, Santa Anna was allowed back into his home country in 1874. Two years later, he died in Mexico City. He never knew that Thomas Adams and his sons took the stash of chicle, created a new industry, and got rich – the Chewing Gum Industry. They rolled it into balls, founded Adams Sons and Company, and sold “Adams New York Gum – Snapping and Stretching” for a penny a pop.
Click here to read more free essays. This link takes you to the Amazon Kindle Vella page. Vella is kind of cool!