Episodes in the Rhetoric of Government-Indian Relations

Episodes in the Rhetoric of Government-Indian Relations

Author: Janice Schuetz

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2002-05-30

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 0313012423

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Scholarly considerations of the relationship between the United States government and Native Americans have largely ignored the rhetoric utilized by both in the course of their ongoing conflicts. This fascinating new study concentrates on the persuasive and public strategies of both government and Indian leaders, focusing on the written and oral records of several key episodes in American history. This approach, which author Janice Schuetz calls rhetorical ancestry reveals the ways in which government and Indian spokespersons have constituted and defined issues; created, prolonged, and managed conflict; and silenced and empowered each other's voices. Chronicling the emergence of government and Indian leaders who were forced to deal with conflicts in new ways, each chapter makes use of historical evidence to draw inferences about the rhetorical features of the discourse and its effects. Both verbal and nonverbal rhetoric—including treaties, letters, oral histories, speeches, ritual performances, media reports, biographical narratives, protests and demonstrations, political hearings, and legal proceedings—are represented here, illuminating a legacy that evolved in the personal and political language of its participants.


Learning to Write "Indian"

Learning to Write

Author: Amelia V. Katanski

Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 9780806138527

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Examines Indian boarding school narratives and their impact on the Native literary tradition from 1879 to the present Indian boarding schools were the lynchpins of a federally sponsored system of forced assimilation. These schools, located off-reservation, took Native children from their families and tribes for years at a time in an effort to “kill” their tribal cultures, languages, and religions. In Learning to Write “Indian,” Amelia V. Katanski investigates the impact of the Indian boarding school experience on the American Indian literary tradition through an examination of turn-of-the-century student essays and autobiographies as well as contemporary plays, novels, and poetry. Many recent books have focused on the Indian boarding school experience. Among these Learning to Write “Indian” is unique in that it looks at writings about the schools as literature, rather than as mere historical evidence.