Transatlantic Romanticisms

Adair, James. The History of the American Indians. London: Edward and Charles Dilly, 1775. Adair's early ethnographic account claims to offer "A complete Indian System." It focuses particularly on "Those Nations adjoining to the Mississippi, East and West Florida, Georgia, South and North Carolina, and Virginia." Although Adair calls his text a "literary work," his preface asserts the objectivity of his account of the Indians, complaining that prior to his book "scarcely any thing had yet been published [about American Indians] but romance."

Alexander, J.E. Transatlantic Sketches, Comprising Visits to the Most Interesting Scenes in North and South America, and the West Indies, with Notes on Negro Slavery and Canadian Emigration. 2 vols. London: Richard Bentley, 1833. This text describes a year-long journey which began in London, England in 1831. Prior to his departure, Alexander "communicated [his] intention to the Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society, and to other literary and scientific individuals, and volunteered to execute commissions for them in America or the West Indies. [He] thus obtained a series of interrogatories to answer" (I.viii). Alexander also writes about being present in Upper Canada "at a distribution of presents to Indians" (I.x).

Apes, William. A Son of the Forest: The Experience of William Apes, a Native of the Forest. 2nd ed. New York: G.F. Bunce, 1831. This text is a revised and corrected edition of an autobiographical account of Apes' life, including his virtual enslavement, tour of military duties during 1812 (including military and postwar accounts of Canada), and his Christian conversion. The appendix refutes the stereotype of the "savage" by quoting favourable and extensive passages from numerous European writers, including Robertson, Boudinot, Adair, Colden, A. Mackenzie, Charelvoix, and others.

---. The Experience of Five Christian Indians of the Pequod Tribe. Boston: James B. Dow, 1833. Apes laments the evils of rum and the guilt of its white purveyors among the Pequod. He also renounces racism and colonialist land theft. Much of his narrative deals with his conversion to Methodism.

Blondon, George. When the World Was New: Stories of the Sahtu Dene. Yellowknife: Outcrop, 1990. In "An Oldtimer's Prophecy" (78 - 9), Blodin, a Dene Elder, relates an early medicine man's vision of a future involving loud machines and a major digging operation. He subsequently explains that this vision refers to the mining operation at Echo Bay, where uranium was taken for the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. "The Story of Yamboria" (30 - 9) provides myths that connect culture to the land and its animal occupants, drawing parallels between Dene myth and western science. In "When the First White People Came" (98 - 9), Blondin also relates a story of first contact between white men and the Dene who lived on the Great River bank at Dencho.

---. Yamoria the Lawmaker: Stories of the Dene. Edmonton: NeWest, 1997. In "The First Fur Traders" (29 - 34), Blondin recounts a history of trade between colonists and the Dene people, claiming (contrary to established views) that the impact of early European trade on Den cultural was minimal and positive. Blondin also provides an account of the Dene creation myth in "Live Before Contact" (18 - 28). He discusses the various different groups of Dene people, making reference to some of the groups' cultural uniqueness and considers Dene culture and religion in relation to landscape and traditional land-use practices.

Bourne, H.R. Fox. The Aborigines Protection Society: Chapters in Its History. London: P.S. King and Son, 1899. This book is a history of the Society, providing some material relevant to early Aboriginal policy in Upper Canada.

Carver, Jonathan. Travels through the Interior Parts of North america in the Years 1766, 1767, and 1768. 3rd ed. London: C. Dilly, H. Payne, and J. Phillips, 1781. This text contains references to Lake Erie and Niagara (166), as well as to the Origin of the Indians (181), the Manners, Qualifications, &c. of the Indians (235 ff.), Indian Government (255 ff.), Hunting (283 ff.), and Scalping (328). there are references to the Indian slave trade (346), Indian religion (346), the flora and fauna of North America (441 - 526), and the possibilities of colonial commercial expansion (527).

Colden, Cadwallader. The History of the Five Indian Nations of Canada. London: 1755. 2 vols. New York: A.S. Barnes, 1904. Colden was "Surveyor General and afterward Lieutenant-Governor of the Province of New York." Volume One includes correspondence with "Linnaeus and many scientists and learned societies abroad" (i). Colden mentions his adoption into the Mohawk tribe sometime after 1718 (i).

Copway, George. Recollections of a Forest Life: Or, the Life and Travels of Kah-Ge-Ga-Gah-Bowh, Chief of the Ojibway Nation. London: C. Gilpin, 1850. This is the British edition of Copway's 1846 autobiography. The title page notes that Copway has been "Many years missionary in the North West; and protector of the concentration of the Indian Tribes, for the promotion of their improvement." Addressed to a British reading public, this book offers a wide-ranging discussion of Copway's early Ojibwa life, his conversion to Christianity, and his political convictions. This particular edition of Copway's autobiography contains epigraphic quotations from Byron and Walter Scott as well as numerous other British poets.

Grace, Henry. The History of the Suffering of Henry Grace of Basingtoke in the Country of Southampton. Being a Narrative of the Hardships He Underwent During Several Years Captivity among the Savages in North America. 2nd ed. London: Henry Grace, 1765. As a young man Grace is kidnapped by "Mumack" Indians while serving on sentry duty in Halifax in 1750, and so begins his captivity narrative. Held captive three years and five months, Grace represents himself as a slave to the Indians, constantly abused and made to perform hard labour. (During his captivity he encounters "Mumack," "St John's," "Abeaquise," "Iroquois," "the Five Nation Indians," "Chactaws," "Chickesaws," "Cherokees," and other Aboriginal nations.)

Head, Sir Francis Bond. The Emigrant. 3rd ed. London: John Murray, 1846. In this book Head recounts the events of his brief tenure as Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada from 1836 to 1838. A chapter entitled "The Birch Canoe" recounts his experience among Upper Canada's Ojibwa people.

---. "The Red Man." Descriptive Essays Contributed to the Quarterly Review. Vol. 1. London: John Murray, 1857. 307 - 67. In this one of twelve essays he contributed to the Quarterly Review, Head speaks of the "annihilation of the real proprietors of the New World" (307). He spends much of the essay decrying the ways in which white influenced has "contaminated" Aboriginal people and he uses the trope of contamination to define the contact zones or liminal spaces in which White and Red races mix. The essay involves a disturbing mix of paternalistic benevolence and outright racism.

---. Rough Notes Taken During Some Rapid Journeys across the Pampas and among the Andes. 3rd ed. London: John Murray, 1828(?). This text is a record of Head's journey to, and across, 6000 miles of the Rio de la Plata, "to inspect certain mines" (viii). It contains chapters devoted to a discussion of "The Pampas Indians" (118 - 33), in which Head challenges contemporary stereotypes that depicted these people as degenerate savages.

Head, George. Forest Scenes and Incidents in the Wilds of North America. London: John Murray, 1829. This book was written by Francis Bond Head's older brother George (1782 - 1855), and was reviewed by Robert Southey. A diary recounting Head's journey from Halifax to Western Ontario, it describes the natural scenery, recounts occasional meetings with Native people, and philosophizes about emigration and environmental and cultural "improvement."

Jameson, Anna. Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada. 3 vols. London: Saunders and Otley, 1838. Jameson's book provides accounts of "relations with the Indian tribes, such as few European women of refined and civilized habits have ever risked, and none have recorded" (1.vi). Including Schiller and Wordsworth in her brief list of authors "sufficient for all purposes" (2.55), Jameson often views the Canadian landscape through the aesthetic lens of the picturesque. She also discusses Sir F.B. Head's Aboriginal policy in Upper Canada (2.327 ff.).

Jones, Peter. History of the Ojebway Indians: With Especial Reference to Their Conversion to Christianty. London: A.W. Bennett, 1861. Also known as Kahkewaquonaby, Jones was an Ojibwa missionary and chief in colonial Upper Canada. His book begins with a brief autobiography (1 - 25) and subsequently discusses the origin of the Ojibwa people (31 ff.), and their capacity to receive instruction and "Improvement" (191 ff.).

Ketchum, William. "Memoir of the Distinguished Mohawk Chief, Sachem, and warrior, Capt. Joseph Brant: Compiled from the Most Reliable and Authentic Records, Including a Brief History of the Principal Events of His Life with an Appendix and Portrait." CIHM Microfiche Series. 12928 (1872). This memoir argues that Brant is not the "bloody and bad" man that Campbell depicts him as in Gertrude of Wyoming, and that Campbell's poem is largely fictional, though based on historical events in which Brant never participated.

Richardson, William. "The Indians, A Tale." Poems, Chiefly Rural. Glasgow: Robert and Andrew Foulis; Glasgow University, 1774. Richardson (1743 - 1814) was one of Thomas Campbell's professors at Glasgow University and his poem "The Indians" likely influenced Campbell's Gertrude of Wyoming. Richardson's poem, a highly fanciful prose tale of Indian life on the shores of Lake Ontario, is set at the time when the armies of Britain and France were contending for supremacy over the Canadian territories.

---. The Indians, a Tragedy. performed at the Theater-Royal, Richmond. London: C. Dilly, 1790. (First published in Dublin by P. Wogan, 1781). This is a theatrical adaptation of Richardson's short prose piece "The Indians, A Tale," which was published in Poems, Chiefly Rural. The Indians, a Tragedy was first performed in Dublin. The Indians are identified as Hurons (Act IV) who worship a "God of war, whom they term Areskouy" (Advertisement, p. i). Richardson's dramatic plot seems partially indebted to Shakespeare's Othello.

Slight, Benjamin. Indian Researchers, or Facts Concerning the North American Indians: Including Notices of Their Present State of Improvement, in Their Social, Civil, and Religious Condition: With Hints for Their Future Advancement. Montreal: J.E.L. Miller, 1844. Slight was a Methodist missionary in Upper Canada during the 1830s. He discusses Aboriginal "improvements" as a result of colonization and Christian conversion, though he also acknowledges colonialist inequities and oppressions. His book contains numerous ethnographic observations and speculations as well as a highly critical discussion of Sir F.B. Head's policy of Indian removal.

Tanner, John. A Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner (U.S. Interpreter at the Saut De Ste. Marie) During Thirty Years Years Residence among the Indians in the Interior of North America. Ed. Edwin James. New York: G. and G. and H. Carvill, 1830. Tanner recounts the story of his captivity among the Ottawa and Ojibwa Indians (1789 - 1822), at the beginning of which he is adopted by his captors, given a new name, and raised to be a hunter and trapper.

Williams, Roger. A Key into the Language of America; or, an Help to the Language of the Natives in That Part of America, Called New-England. London: Gregory Dexter, 1643. This text is cited by Southey in an endnote to Madoc to support the notion that the British were "like unto" the American Indians 1600 years ago. William's seventeenth-century theories of Aboriginal language remained popular during the Romantic period.

Secondary Sources

Bellin, Joshua David. The Demon of the Continent: Indians and the Shaping of American Literature. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001. The Demon of the Continent is a study of American literary responses to Amerindian culture. This book emphasizes the intercultural contexts informing American literary production. Although Bellin focuses primarily on Euro-American texts, he also considers works by such Aboriginal authors as Copway and Apess.

Clements, William M. "Savage, Pastoral, Civilized: An Ecological Typology of American Frontier Heroes." Journal of Popular Culture 8.2 (1974): 254 - 66. In his discussion of "American Frontier Heroes," Clements employs a tripartite scheme dividing early American concepts of nature into categories of the "savage," "pastoral," and "civilized," where pastoral becomes a mediating term between the conceptual poles of savagery and civilization.

Cro, Stelio. The Noble Savage: Allegory of Freedom. Waterloo: Wilfred Laurier UP, 1990. Stelio Cro compares historical periods and literatures to elucidate the mythical characterization of the "noble savage." Considering a variety of writing, from the work of explorers such as Columbus to the writing of philosophers such as Rousseau, Cro examines the myth of the "noble savage" in an American context, with specific reference to the Spanish Conquest and American romantic thought.

Dippie, Brian W. The Vanishing American: White Attitudes and U.S. Indian Policy. Lawrence, KA: UP of Kansas, 1982. For Dippie, the ideological construction of the "Vanishing American" became, after the War of 1812, a justification for the passive acceptance of neo-colonial atrocities in the U.S. Since Aboriginal decline was seen as providentially fated or an aspect of natural necessity, the "Vanishing American" enabled Euroamericans to salve their collective conscience and more easily deal with feelings of guilt caused by the death and displacement of Indian populations.

Fulford, Tim. "Romantic Indians and Colonial Politics: The Case of Thomas Campbell." Symbiosis 2.2 (1998): 203 - 21. In this essay Fulford examines Campbell's popular long poem Gertrude of Wyoming, including its reductive depiction of noble and ignoble savages, its Whig political motivations, and its contemporary reception in Britain and America.

---. "Primitive Poets and Dying Indians." 1800: The New Lyrical Ballads. Ed. Nicola Trott and Seamus Perry. New York: Palgrave, 2001. 44 - 73. This essay examines British Romantic depictions of North American Indians, considering the late 18th-century vogue for Indian death songs in England and the ways in which Indians functioned as figures for the Romantic "natural man."

Goslee, Nancy Moore. "Hemans' Red Indians. Reading Stereotypes." Romanticism, Race, and Imperial Culture, 1780 - 1834. Ed. Alan richardson and Sonia Hofkosh. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1996. 237 - 61. Goslee examines Romantic constructions of Native American identity, arguing in particular that Felicia Hemans' "Indians" are symbols of melancholy. She also examines quesitons of gender and captivity in relation to Heman's Native American representations. Of particular interest are Goslee's references to the works of Robert Southey and Thomas Campbell.

Konkle, Maureen. Writing Indian Nations: Native Intellectuals and the Politics of Historiography, 1827 - 1863. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 2004. Chapter three, entitled "Traditionary History in Ojibwa Writing," contains discussions of Peter Jones and George Copway. The discussion of Copway (187 -97) is sympathetic, defending Copway from critical accusations of collusion with colonial ideologies and practices (or seeing such collusion as merely apparent and part of an engaged strategy of anti-colonial resistance).

Kuhn, Richard and Frank Duerden. "A Review of T.E.K.: An Interdisciplinary Canadian Persepective." Culture 16.1 (1996): 71 - 84. Focusing on Canadian contexts, this article provides a complex discussion of traditional environmental knowledge (T.E.K.). The article also examines the relationship between T.E.K. and western science, considering some of the ways in which western science has appropriated and transformed T.E.K.

MacLeod, D. Peter. "The Anishinabeg Point of View: The History of the Great Lakes Region to 1800 in Nineteenth-Century Mississauga, Odawa, and Ojibwa Historiography." Canadian Historical Review 73.2 (1992): 194 - 210. McLeod turns to nineteenth-century Ojibwa oral histories as preserved in the writings of Assikinack, Copway, Blackbird, Jones, and Warren to provide an alternative view of colonial and Aboriginal historiers of North America prior to 1800. Among other things McLeod considers the history of Ojibwa expansionist warfare in the Great Lakes region (200 - 202).Peyer, Bernd C. The Tutor'd Mind: Indian Missionary Writers in Antebellum America. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1997. Peyer's book is a carefully contextualized and detailed analysis of the lives and writings of four "Indian Missionary Writers" of the antebellum period: Samson Occam, William Apes, Elias Boudinot, and George Copway. Peyer teases out strains of anti-colonial resistance in the works of these authors.

Sweet, Timothy. "Pastoral Landscapes with Indians: George Copway and the Political Unconscious of the American Pastoral." Prospects 18 (1993): 1 - 27. Sweet examines Copway's critical response to the pastoral mode, "which reserved no place for the Indian" (3). This essay offers insights regarding colonial pastoral ideology, including discussions of agricultural theory and practice, and landscape aesthetics. Sweet sees Copway as a practitioner of counter-discursive resistance to colonial authority and ideology.

---. "George Copway (Kah-Ge-Ga-Gah-Bowh)." American Travel Writers, 1776 - 1864. Ed. James Schramer and Donald Rosse. Vol. 183. Dictionary of Literary Biography. Detroit: Gale, 1997. 86 - 92. This article is an overview of Copway's life and writings, including a brief discussion of his deployment of the pastoral mode and picturesque rhetoric in Running Sketches, Copway's 1851 account of his European travels.