Image of Indian in 19th Century Historical Novel
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The purpose of this research is to examine the image of the Indian in the 19th-century American historical novel. The plan of the research will be to set forth a survey of discussions of American historical novels that portray Indian characters and life, with a view toward identifying American writers' trends and attitudes in the 19th century toward native Americans, and then to discuss how those attitudes framed and shaped more general perceptions of Indians in the mainstream culture as a whole. As we shall see, the weight of evidence from Indian portrayals on the whole is that they serve narrative more than insight. In particular, the presumption of Indian displacement by white culture pervades much 19th-century historical fiction. Differences in perception about whether the displacement is just or unjust largely surface more as a matter of degree than kind. American historical novels of the 19th century had a cultural mission inasmuch as they were among the first literary expressions of a uniquely national sensibility. They sought to show how that sensibility had been shaped, and they shaped that sensibility, which as of 1801 was only 25 years past the Declaration of Independence. The importance of the fact that uniquely American (i.e., not colonial British) literary culture was in its infancy can be appreciated if one realizes, for example, that both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, who jointly crafted the Declaration in 1776, died the same day: July 4, 1826. It
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anifest (white) destiny and a presumption of white superiority, appear to have been consciously or unconsciously shared, and much more rarely questioned, in portrayals of Indians that followed Cooper. In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne makes passing reference to Dimmesdale's missionary work among the Indians. The paradox of missionary work is a presumption that Hawthorne does not examine, while the narrative purpose of mentioning that work is to have Hester and Pearl encounter Dimmesdale in an isolated part of the woods outside Boston. The Charles Noble episode of Melville's The Confidence Man includes an ironic disquisition on the hatred of Indians, but this is incidental to the poetic justice of Ringaman's swindling of Noble, just another example of Ringaman's ability to swindle many others.
With Parkman, whose Conspiracy of Pontiac is more history Oregon Trail is more autobiography than historical novel, a well expressed and influential as well as self-conscious and self justifying racism, which Bolt (247) refers to as racist "manias" against Indians, enters 19th-century narrative: "These men were thorough savages. Neither their manners nor their ideas were in the slightest degree modified by contact with civilization" (Park
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Some common words found in the essay are:
, Sioux Hubbell, Mathes Agent, Oregon Trail, Cooper's Indian, Alice Sequeira, America Thigpen, Cooper Melville, West Opinion, John Adams, helen hunt, american indian, helen hunt jackson, hunt jackson, american literature, indian culture, american studies, oregon trail, 19th century, bret harte, portrayals indians, dissertation abstracts international, journal american studies, american indian ouarterly, schorer et al,
Approximate Word count = 3859
Approximate Pages = 15 (250 words per page)
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