Cherokee sister : the collected writings of Catharine Brown, 1818-1823 / Catharine Brown ; edited and with an introduction by Theresa Strouth Gaul.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Brown, Catharine, 1800?-1823.

Contributor:

Gaul, Theresa Strouth.

Series:

Legacies of nineteenth-century American women writers

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Brown, Catharine, 1800?-1823--Diaries.

Brown, Catharine.

Brown, Catharine, 1800?-1823--Correspondence.

Brown, Catharine, 1800?-1823.

Brainerd Mission.

Cherokee women--Tennessee--Biography.

Cherokee women.

Cherokee Indians--Missions--Tennessee--History--19th century.

Cherokee Indians.

Brainerd Mission--History--19th century.

History.

Cherokee Indians--Missions.

Tennessee.

Genre:

Biographies.

Correspondence.

Diaries.

Personal correspondence.

Physical Description:

xvii, 289 pages ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press, [2014]

Summary:

"Catharine Brown (1800?-1823) became Brainerd Mission School's first Cherokee convert to Christianity, a missionary teacher, and the first Native American woman whose own writings saw extensive publication in her lifetime. After her death from tuberculosis at age twenty-three, the missionary organization that had educated and later employed Brown commissioned a posthumous biography, Memoir of Catharine Brown, which enjoyed widespread contemporary popularity and praise. In the following decade, her writings, along with those of other educated Cherokees, became highly politicized and were used in debates about the removal of the Cherokees and other tribes to Indian Territory. Although she was once viewed by literary critics as a docile and dominated victim of missionaries who represented the tragic fate of Indians who abandoned their identities, Brown is now being reconsidered as a figure of enduring Cherokee revitalization, survival, adaptability, and leadership. In Cherokee Sister Theresa Strouth Gaul collects all of Brown's writings, consisting of letters and a diary, some appearing in print for the first time, as well as Brown's biography and a drama and poems about her. This edition of Brown's collected works and related materials firmly establishes her place in early nineteenth-century culture and her influence on American perceptions of Native Americans. "-- Provided by publisher.

"A collection of writings by and about Catharine Brown, the first Cherokee to convert to Christianity who wrote extensively about her conversion and faith"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

"My beloved people": Early Life and Cherokee Contexts 7

"The dear missionaries": Education, Conversion, and Missionary Contexts 13

"A means of great good to our people": Interpreter and Teacher 21

Brown's Writings 24

"With pleasure I spend a few moments in writing to you": Brown's Letters 28

"I jest sit down to address you with my - pen": The Rhetorics of Brown's Letters 34

"O Painful is it to record": Brown's Diary 40

Other Textual Representations 43

Memoir of Catharine Brown 44

Part 1 Collected Writings, 1818-1823

Letters 61

Diary 115

Part 2 Nineteenth-Century Representations of Catharine Brown

Catharine Brown, the Converted Cherokee: A Missionary Drama, Founded on Fact (1819) 127

A Lady of Connecticut

Excerpt from Traits of the Aborigines of America (1822) / Lydia Sigourney Sigourney, Lydia 157

"Inscription: For the Grave of Catharine Brown" (1825) / Anonymous 159

"The Grave of Catharine Brown" (1825) / H.S. 161

Memoir of Catharine Brown, a Christian Indian of the Cherokee Nation (1825) / Rufus Anderson Anderson, Rufus 163.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:

9780803240759

0803240759

OCLC:

839395946

Publisher Number:

99956528645