Allegories of encounter : colonial literacy and Indian captivities / Andrew Newman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Newman, Andrew, 1968- author.

Contributor:

JSTOR (Online Service)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Captivity narratives--United States--History and criticism.

Captivity narratives.

Indian captivities--United States.

Indian captivities.

Literacy.

History.

United States.

Literacy--United States--History.

United States--History--Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

polychrome

Place of Publication:

Chapel Hill : Published by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia, and the University of North Carolina Press, [2019]

System Details:

text file

Summary:

Presenting an innovative, interdisciplinary approach to colonial America's best-known literary genre, Andrew Newman analyzes depictions of reading, writing, and recollecting texts in Indian captivity narratives. While histories of literacy and colonialism have emphasized the experiences of Native Americans, as students in missionary schools or as parties to treacherous treaties, captivity narratives reveal what literacy meant to colonists among Indians. Colonial captives treasured the written word in order to distinguish themselves from their Native captors and to affiliate with their distant cultural communities. Their narratives suggest that Indians recognized this value, sometimes with benevolence: repeatedly, they presented colonists with books. In this way and others, Scriptures, saintly lives, and even Shakespeare were introduced into diverse experiences of colonial captivity. What other scholars have understood more simply as textual parallels, Newman argues instead may reflect lived allegories, the identification of one's own unfolding story with the stories of others. In an authoritative, wide-ranging study that encompasses the foundational New England narratives, accounts of martyrdom and cultural conversion in New France and Mohawk country in the 1600s, and narratives set in Cherokee territory and the Great Lakes region during the late eighteenth century, Newman opens up old tales to fresh, thought-provoking interpretations.

Contents:

Cover; Half Title; Title; Copyright; Contents; Acknowledgments; List of Illustrations; List of Abbreviations; Introduction: Captivity as Literacy Event; Chapter One: Rowlandson's Captivity, Interpreted by God; Chapter Two: Psalm 137 as a Site of Encounter; Chapter Three: Captive Literacies in the Eastern Woodlands; Chapter Four: Fulfilling the Name; Chapter Five: Silent Books, Talking Leaves; Chapter Six: "A Singular Gift from a Savage"; Conclusion; Note on the Sources; Index; A; B; C; D; E; F; G; H; I; J; K; L; M; N; O; P; Q; R; S; T; U; V; W; X; Z.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Electronic reproduction. New York Available via World Wide Web.

Online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on January 09, 2019).

Other Format:

Print version: Newman, Andrew, 1968- Allegories of encounter.

ISBN:

9781469643472

1469643472

9781469643465

1469643464

Publisher Number:

99983652007

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.