Organizing silence: Silence as voice and voice as silence in the narrative exploration of the treaty of New Echota

Abstract

I begin this essay with a historical narrative that recounts the events leading to the signing of the Treaty of New Echota. Although I focus on the life of Kilakeena (a.k.a. Elias Boudinot), this is not simply the story of one man. Others' stories are embedded within the historical narrative of the Treaty of New Echota. The story of the Cherokee Nation, especially the events surrounding the Cherokee removal of 1838–39, is a story that is rich with examples of voice and silence. Following this narrative telling, I discuss ways that people are silenced. I give special attention to the practices of naming and fractionating. I discuss four additional issues: (1) how the use of multiple narrative genres (i.e., historical narratives, ancestral narratives, personal narratives, and contemporary narratives) can be juxtaposed to give voice to issues that might otherwise go unheard, (2) how the metaphors of voice and silence might encumber the research process especially due to their connotation of disembodiment, (3) how voice does not necessarily culminate in emancipation, and (4) how the metaphors of voice and silence can contain each other (i.e., voice as silence and silence as voice).