Native Americans in American Literature

The portrayal of Native Americans in American literature has slowly evolved as American literature itself has.  The Native American in the eyes of the European American has evolved from someone to fear, into someone that could be used by the Euro-American, into a force to be reckoned with.  As Native Americans began to assert their rights and express their opinions, they began to be shown differently in American literature.

In early American literature, Native Americans were the easy target for many European Americans.  It was important for Puritans to hear stories of people saved solely by the grace of God.  It was simple enough for them to denounce what they didn't understand:  Native Americans.  American Indians were, more often than not, shown as the savages who were threatening the religious utopia of the Puritans.  One way that this was shown well was through captivity narratives such as Mary Rowlandson's A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson (1682).  In or around 1675, Mary Rowlandson was kidnapped by a group of Wampanoag Indians and kept for eleven weeks.  About seven years later, Rowlandson published a journal of her experiences with Native Americans while she was being held hostage.

In Rowlandson's captivity narrative, Native Americans are portrayed as the most savage beasts that have ever walked the Earth.  The author uses almost every deprecating name in the proverbial book to describe them.  They are described as hell hounds, pagans, barbaric, savages, and as bloody heathens, just to name a few.  Nearly every female Native American is referenced as "squaw," one of the most derogatory names a person can use to describe a female Native American.  The reason it is so insulting is because the word squaw doesn't mean woman; rather it is a descriptor for female genitalia.  One way to tell that this piece of literature is from early American non-fiction is to count the number of times the author uses the word squaw.  She doesn't mean for the word to be offensive; it is in common usage at the time her narrative was published.  That just goes to show how much Native Americans were respected during this time period.

Rowlandson makes it seem like no one was kind to her during her entire captivity.  If she mentions an act of "a kind savage," then she has counter it by talking about three or four brutes.  Rowlandson pacifies herself by thinking that she will be praised by God and her pagan captors will burn in hell.  When she receives her Bible (from an Indian), the first thing she reads is the 28th chapter of Deuteronomy.  After reading this, she is certain that she will be blessed by God for her obedience to him and that all the Native Americans will be cursed for their disobedience.  Also, when talking about smoking a pipe, Rowlandson likens herself to a saint and Metacomet to a sinner because she is a Christian and he is not.  She is good and he is evil.  White people will be saved and all colored people, Native Americans and the rest of the lot, will suffer eternal damnation simply for having different beliefs and a little more pigment in their skin.

Mary Rowlandson gave her readers a pretty "savage" view of Native Americans, but I believe that the portrayal of Native Americans changed over the years.  By the time that Samson Occom came around, Native Americans were no longer savage beasts; they were a resource to be taken advantage of, to be utilized to their greatest extent.  This is what Occom shows us in A Short Narrative of My Life (1768).

At the tender age of nineteen, Samson Occom was taken under the professional wing of one Reverend Eleazar Wheelock and trained to become an Indian missionary and teacher.  He wanted to help the situation of his people.  Wheelock wanted some cheap labor and some protection from those Indians who were still against the settlers.  And so, Occom became Wheelock's greatest pupil, having studied closely and enthusiastically with him for at least four years.  Wheelock was able to use and trick the innocent Occom.  Perhaps if the story of their relationship had instead been told by Wheelock, we would see a different side of it.  But, being that it is told by a Native American, we see not only that Occom (and other American Indians) were used by Euro-Americans, but that they had it ingrained in their heads by that time that they really were less than white people.

When Occom went to England to raise money for Wheelock's school, he had Wheelock's word that he would care for Occom's wife and children until he returned.  Of course, as Native Americans are easy to use, Occom returned to find his family sick and impoverished.  It was then that he finally broke ties with the dastardly Wheelock.  Sometime later he became a missionary for the Reverend Mr. Buell and was paid around fifteen pounds a year for twelve years.  He then found out that his income over those twelve years is what he should have made in one year.  He finally realizes that he is being used simply because he is Native American.

In this narrative, Native Americans are portrayed as somewhat pitiful, but eager to learn and work to better their situations.  They are no longer "heathens," but they consider themselves this way and that is why it is easy for European Americans to capitalize on their misfortunes.  The reason it is so easy is that the Euro-Americans are no longer afraid of many Native Americans.  They have been through war with them and have seen many of them die from diseases; this leads the Euro-Americans to believe that Native Americans are weak.  They see a Native American interested in Christianity and willing to work hard for a little money and the gears in their heads start turning.  Some people will do anything to make a buck.

As time goes on a little further, many Native Americans realize how badly they have been treated since Europeans came around and took their country away from them.  They start to see that they should not be seen as second rate citizens just because of their ethnicity.  These opinions are shared by many and expressed quite well by William Apess when he wrote An Indian's Looking-Glass for the White Man in 1833.

Apess was an extremely Christian Native American who knew how to write down his opinions in a credible manner and used plenty of evidence that supported the claim he was making:  Native Americans are just as important and just as worthy as white Americans.  The author was proud to be a Native American and was willing to defend his people to his fullest power.  He portrays Native Americans as a proud group of people who have the same God-given rights as any white man who has ever walked the Earth.

Apess was proficient in using the Bible in a new way; he used it to combat any form of racial prejudice that European Americans held against Native Americans or any other race for that matter.  One focal point that Apess had in An Indian's Looking-Glass is the fact Jesus absolutely was not white; he was Jewish and He, Moses, and the Biblical Hebrews were all colored people.  He also brings up the point that, at the time of Christ, "whites were the most degraded people on the earth" (1049).  Apess uses the Bible well to support his contentions about racism in America at that time.  He doesn't just quote the Bible, however, like many other authors before him had done.  Apess seems to grasp all the information he uses and is able to make interpretations from things he has read in the Bible.

The way Native Americans have been depicted in American literature over the last three centuries can show readers a lot about the mindsets of both Native Americans and white Americans.  Readers can see the determination of Native Americans to be treated equally and they can also see the prejudices of white Americans changing with time.  The way American Indians are seen in American literature has been altered greatly as time has passed.

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