The Literary Debate Over "the Indian" in the Nineteenth Century

Abstract

In recent years, substantial critical attention has focused on vogue of the in American literature during first half of nineteenth century.l Scholars have found this literature interesting, not primarily for its literary merits (outside of Cooper and a few others), nor as a source of information on Native American life and character, but rather for what it reveals about white American culture of time and underlying values and ideas which gave rise to and supported white attitudes toward Indian. Thus, one finds studies with titles like The Savages of America: A Study of Indian and American Mind; Regeneration through Violence: The Mythology of American Frontier; Ignoble Savage: American Literary Racism, 1790-1890; and Facing West: The Metaphysics of Indian-Hating and Empire-Building. All of these works draw upon literature about Indian in important ways to help support an analysis of white American culture and national character. 2 An accurate and convincing analysis depends at least partly upon a complete survey and a balanced interpretation of literature; one that is sensitive to literary and cultural contexts in which it was produced. But most current studies of period, as one might deduce from titles listed here, lay undue stress on literature hostile to Indian. They suggest that small