Kidnapping colonists during the struggle for land in the early centuries of American history was a strong force influencing the images of Native Americans circulating among the Puritan pioneers. During these centuries, the battles between the natives and the Puritans cost thousands of lives on both sides, and countless stories in the forms of captivity narratives revealed truths and myths about the Native people. Although there were countless pieces of literature and propaganda published in this time period, the actual Indian captivity narratives have been narrowed down to works “that presumably record with some degree of verisimilitude the experiences of non-Indians who were captures by American Indians” (Derounian-Stodoloa, Levernier, 9). Through such a narrative by Mary Rowlandson, who was taken captive by the Wampanoag tribe in 1676, the contemporary writer and poet Louise Erdrich shows another side of history that could not have been expressed by the surviving captives hundreds of years ago. That recreation is her poem, “Captivity,” which uses the inner conflict of the captive woman to express both historical feelings of Native Americans and their place among whites, along with Erdrich’s conflicts within her own life.# Coming from a mixed family, with her mother being part Native American, Erdrich experiences a pull from both her European history and Native American heritage. Through her poem, “Captivity,” Erdrich exposes the inner conflict that is felt by both historical women and herself, such as the conflicting feelings and cultural pulls of the two societies through sharing experiences of removal from their known worlds and returns to the white man’s society.
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Erdrich, Louise. “Captivity,” in Kelly, Joseph ed. The Seagull Reader: Poems. Norton and Company: New York, 2001.
Fast, Robin Riley. “Resistant History: Revising the captivity Narrative in ‘Captivity’ and Blackrobe: Isaac Jones.” American Indian Culture and Research Journal. 23:1 (1999) 69-96.
Logan, Lisa. “Mary Rowlandson’s Captivity and the ‘Place’ of the Woman Subject.” Early American Literature. 28 (1993) 255-277.
Namias, June. White Captives: Gender and Ethnicity on the American Frontier.University of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill, 1993.
Vaughan, Alden T. “Early English Paradigms for New World Natives.” American Antiquarian Society. 102:1 (1992) 33-67.
Woodard, Maureen L. “Female Captivity and the Deployment of Race in Three Early American Texts.” Papers on Language and Literature. 32:2 (1996)
This historical document, The Frontier as a Place of Conquest and Conflict, focuses on the 19th Century in which a large portion of society faced discrimination based on race, ethnicity, and religion. Its author, Patricia N. Limerick, describes the differences seen between the group of Anglo Americans and the minority groups of Native Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanics Americans and African Americans. It is noted that through this document, Limerick exposes us to the laws and restrictions imposed in addition to the men and women who endured and fought against the oppression in many different ways. Overall, the author, Limerick, exposes the readers to the effects that the growth and over flow of people from the Eastern on to the Western states
James Welch relies heavily on documented Blackfeet history and family stories, but he merges those actual events and people with his imagination and thus creates a tension between fiction and history, weaving a tapestry that reflects a vital tribal community under pressure from outside forces. Welch re-imagines the past in order to document history in a way that includes past and future generations, offers readers insight into the tribal world-views of the Blackfeet, examines women's roles in the tribe, and leads to a recovery of identity. Welch also creates a Blackfeet world of the late 1800s--a tribal culture in the process of economic and social change as a result of the introduction of the horse and gun and the encroachment of the white invaders or "seizers" as Welch identifies them.
Lives for Native Americans on reservations have never quite been easy. There are many struggles that most outsiders are completely oblivious about. In her book The Roundhouse, Louise Erdrich brings those problems to light. She gives her readers a feel of what it is like to be Native American by illustrating the struggles through the life of Joe, a 13-year-old Native American boy living on a North Dakota reservation. This book explores an avenue of advocacy against social injustices. The most observable plight Joe suffers is figuring out how to deal with the injustice acted against his mother, which has caused strife within his entire family and within himself.
Native American Captivity Narratives are accounts about people of European decent getting captured by their enemy “the savage” (Hawkes, par. 1). According to the “Encyclopedia of The Great Plains” These accounts were widely popular in the 17th century and had an adventurous story-line, resulting from a conflict between Native Americans and Europeans settling in the New World. A clear message through these captivity narratives is that European American culture was superior to Native American culture. In 1682 the first Native American Captivity Narrative was written by Mary Rowlandson titled “A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration.” Some years earlier, John Smith related his experience of being captured in his personal account of the settlement of Jamestown. Their contributions ultimately made a great historical impact on Native American Literature. The captivity narratives authored by Mary Rowlandson and John Smith portrayed the Native Americans as devilish creatures that were simply evil, but the stories also reveal that the natives were frightened of white people and at times treated them with benevolence.
Warren, Nagucyalti. "Black Girls and Native Sons: Female Images in Selected Works by Richard Wright." Richard Wright - Myths and Realities. Ed. C. James Trotman. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1988.
Native American literature from the Southeastern United States is deeply rooted in the oral traditions of the various tribes that have historically called that region home. While the tribes most integrally associated with the Southeastern U.S. in the American popular mind--the FIVE CIVILIZED TRIBES (Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole)--were forcibly relocated to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) from their ancestral territories in the American South, descendents of those tribes have created compelling literary works that have kept alive their tribal identities and histories by incorporating traditional themes and narrative elements. While reflecting profound awareness of the value of the Native American past, these literary works have also revealed knowing perspectives on the meaning of the modern world in the lives of contemporary Native Americans.
...y uses anecdotes and stories of women in the 17th and 18th centuries to provide evidence to the reader and demonstrate the roles women filled and how they filled those roles. Furthermore, she illustrates the individuality in each woman’s story. Although in several of the stories the women may be filling the same roles, the uniqueness of the situation varies from woman to woman. Ulrich’s use of period stories helps add to the credibility of the arguments she makes. She makes the reader feel the weight of responsibility on the shoulders of colonial New England women. A sense of appreciation is gained by the reader for the sheer number of roles fulfilled by the women of New England. In addition, Ulrich’s real life accounts also give valuable insight to life as it was during this time period in American history and the silent heroes behind it – the wives of New England.
Native American children were physically and sexually abused at a school they were forced to attend after being stripped from their homes in America’s attempt to eliminate Native peoples culture. Many children were caught running away, and many children never understood what home really meant. Poet Louise Erdich is part Native American and wrote the poem “Indian Boarding School: The Runaways” to uncover the issues of self-identity and home by letting a student who suffered in these schools speak. The poem follows Native American kids that were forced to attend Indian boarding schools in the 19th and 20th centuries. By using imagery, allusion, and symbolism in “Indian Boarding School: The Runaways”, Louise Erdrich displays how repulsive Indian
Northup, Solomon, Sue L. Eakin, and Joseph Logsdon. Twelve years a slave. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1968. Print.
In Thomas King’s novel, The Inconvenient Indian, the story of North America’s history is discussed from his original viewpoint and perspective. In his first chapter, “Forgetting Columbus,” he voices his opinion about how he feel towards the way white people have told America’s history and portraying it as an adventurous tale of triumph, strength and freedom. King hunts down the evidence needed to reveal more facts on the controversial relationship between the whites and natives and how it has affected the culture of Americans. Mainly untangling the confusion between the idea of Native Americans being savages and whites constantly reigning in glory. He exposes the truth about how Native Americans were treated and how their actual stories were
Rowlandson, Mary. A True History of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson.In Women’s Indian Captivity Narratives. Ed. Kathryn Zabelle Derounian-Stodola. New York: Penguin Books, 1998.
Deborah Gray White’s Ar’n’t I a Woman? details the grueling experiences of the African American female slaves on Southern plantations. White resented the fact that African American women were nearly invisible throughout historical text, because many historians failed to see them as important contributors to America’s social, economic, or political development (3). Despite limited historical sources, she was determined to establish the African American woman as an intricate part of American history, and thus, White first published her novel in 1985. However, the novel has since been revised to include newly revealed sources that have been worked into the novel. Ar’n’t I a Woman? presents African American females’ struggle with race and gender through the years of slavery and Reconstruction. The novel also depicts the courage behind the female slave resistance to the sexual, racial, and psychological subjugation they faced at the hands of slave masters and their wives. The study argues that “slave women were not submissive, subordinate, or prudish and that they were not expected to be (22).” Essentially, White declares the unique and complex nature of the prejudices endured by African American females, and contends that the oppression of their community were unlike those of the black male or white female communities.
Welter, Barbara. “The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860.” Nineteenth Century Literature March 1966: 102-106. Jstor. On-line. 10 Nov. 2002.
Throughout American Literature, women have been depicted in many different ways. The portrayal of women in American Literature is often influenced by an author's personal experience or a frequent societal stereotype of women and their position. Often times, male authors interpret society’s views of women in a completely different nature than a female author would. While F. Scott Fitzgerald may represent his main female character as a victim in the 1920’s, Zora Neale Hurston portrays hers as a strong, free-spirited, and independent woman only a decade later in the 1930’s.
Leith, D. and Seargeant, P. (2012), 'A Colonial Language' in Seargeant, P. and Swann, J. (ed.) History, Diversity, Change (U214, English in the World), Milton Keynes, The Open University, pp. 101-149.