Firsting and Lasting - Writing Indians out of Existence in New England (Paperback)

Across nineteenth-century New England, antiquarians and community leaders wrote hundreds of local histories about the founding and growth of their cities and towns. Ranging from pamphlets to multivolume treatments, these narratives shared a preoccupation with establishing the region as the cradle of an Anglo-Saxon nation and the center of a modern American culture. They also insisted, often in mournful tones, that New EnglandOCOs original inhabitants, the Indians, had become extinct, even though many Indians still lived in the very towns being chronicled.aIn "Firsting and Lasting," Jean M. OOCOBrien argues that local histories became a primary means by which European Americans asserted their own modernity while denying it to Indian peoples. Erasing and then memorializing Indian peoples also served a more pragmatic colonial goal: refuting Indian claims to land and rights. Drawing on more than six hundred local histories from Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island written between 1820 and 1880, as well as censuses, monuments, and accounts of historical pageants and commemorations, OOCOBrien explores how these narratives inculcated the myth of Indian extinction, a myth that has stubbornly remained in the American consciousness.aIn order to convince themselves that the Indians had vanished despite their continued presence, OOCOBrien finds that local historians and their readers embraced notions of racial purity rooted in the centuryOCOs scientific racism and saw living Indians as OC mixedOCO and therefore no longer truly Indian. Adaptation to modern life on the part of Indian peoples was used as further evidence of their demise. Indians did notOCoand have notOCoaccepted this effacement, and OOCOBrien details how Indians have resisted their erasure through narratives of their own. These debates and the rich and surprising history uncovered in OOCOBrienOCOs work continue to have a profound influence on discourses about race and indigenous rights.

General

Imprint:	University of Minnesota Press
Country of origin:	United States
Series:	Indigenous Americas
Release date:	May 2010
First published:	June 2010
Authors:	Jean M. O'Brien
Dimensions:	216 x 140 x 23mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback
Pages:	320
ISBN-13:	978-0-8166-6578-5
Categories:	Books > Humanities > History > American history > General Books > Humanities > History > History of specific subjects > Social & cultural history Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Ethnic studies > Indigenous peoples Books > History > American history > General Books > History > History of specific subjects > Social & cultural history
LSN:	0-8166-6578-8
Barcode:	9780816665785

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