The University of Alabama Press
The Monacan Indian Nation of Virginia
The Drums of Life
by Rosemary C. Whitlock
Monacan Indians tell their own story
The contemporary Monacan Nation had approximately 1,400 registered members in 2006, mostly living in and around Lynchburg, Virginia, in Amherst County, but some are scattered like any other large family. Records trace the Monacans of Virginia back to the late 1500s, with an estimated population of over 15,000 in the 1700s.
Like members of some other native tribes, the Monacans have a long history of struggles for equality in jobs, health care, and education and have suffered cultural, political, and social abuse at the hands of authority figures appointed to serve them. The critical difference for the Monacans was the actions of segregationist Dr. Walter A. Plecker, Director of the Bureau of Vital Statistics from 1912 until he retired at age 85 in 1946. A strong proponent and enforcer of Virginia's Racial Integrity Law of 1924 (struck down in 1967), which prohibited marriage between races, Plecker's interpretation of that law convinced him that there were only two races--white and colored--and anyone not bearing physically white genetic characteristics was "colored" and that included Indians. He would not let Indians get married in Virginia unless they applied as white or colored, he forced the local teachers to falsify the students' race on the official school rolls, and he threatened court clerks and census takers with prosecution if they used the term "Indian" on any official form. He personally changed government records when his directives were not followed and even coerced postpartum Indian mothers to list their newborns as white or colored or they could not take their infants home from the hospital. Eventually the federal government intervened, directing the Virginia state officials to begin the tedious process of correcting official records. Yet the legacy of PleckerÒs attempted cultural genocide remains. Through interviews with 26 Monacans, one Episcopal minister appointed to serve them, one former clerk of the court for Amherst County, and her own story, Whitlock provides first person accounts of what happened to the Monacan families and how their very existence as Indians was threatened.
Rosemary Clark Whitlock is a Monacan Indian and independent scholar residing in Lancaster, South Carolina, and the author of dozens of articles and four previous books.
248 pages ISBN 0-8173-1615-9 $45.00 cloth
248 pages ISBN 0-8173-5488-3 $24.95 paper
Feminist Interventions in Early American Studies
Edited by Mary C. Carruth
The intersections of gender, race, and class in the culture and literature of early America to 1830.
Because feminist scholarship is thriving in the field of colonial American studies, this volume is timely. It showcases new feminist perspectives on the literature of the period, addressing the diverse experiences of European, African, Latin, and Native Americans.
The essays synthesize feminist perspectives from a number of approaches, including cultural studies, gender studies, new historicism, and race theory. They treat a variety of literary genres, from sermons, travel narratives, letters, and diaries to poetry, drama, and early novels. Some of the essays recover little known texts, such as the travel records of women Quakers and colonial accounts of the Creek “Indian princess” Mary Musgrove. Other essays consider the lesser-known texts of established writers, such as the unpublished essays of Crevecoeur and the letters of Judith Sargent Murray.
Finally, other essays bring new perspectives to texts that are the subjects of ongoing scholarly debates, such as the poetry of Anne Bradstreet and Phillis Wheatley and the fiction of Tabitha Tenney and Lucy Brewer.
“This is a terrific collection. The essays take up a range of topics that are at the center of current early American studies comparative and trans-American analysis, the formation of economic identities within developing capitalism, theatricality and the formation/manipulation of self, cross-dressing, and the anxieties of authorship. The topicality that characterizes this volume throughout will earn it significant attention in its home fields.” --Dana D. Nelson, author of National Manhood: Capitalist Citizenship and the Imagined Fraternity of White Men
Contributors
Valerie Babb, Jennifer J. Baker, Mary C. Carruth, Margo Echenberg, Betsy Erkkila, Sharon M. Harris, Tamara Harvey, Angela P. Hudson, Mary R. Kasraie, Lisa M. Logan, Anne G. Myles, Sarah Rivett, Marion Rust, Ivy Schweitzer, Michele L. Tarter, Angela Vietto, Karen A. Weyle
Mary C. Carruth is Director of the Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies and Adjunct Assistant Professor of English at the University of Mississippi.
376 pages, cloth: ISBN 0-8173-1523-3, $65.00
376 pages, paper, ISBN 0-8173-5342-9, $32.952006
La Florida del Inca and the Struggle for Social Equality in Colonial Spanish America
by Jonathan D. Steigman
A cross-disciplinary view of an important De Soto chronicle.
Among the early Spanish chroniclers who contributed to popular images of the New World was the Amerindian-Spanish (mestizo) historian and literary writer, El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega (1539-1616). He authored several works, of which La Florida del Inca (1605) stands out as the best because of its unique Amerindian and European perspectives on the De Soto expedition (1539-1543). As the child of an Indian mother and a Spanish father, Garcilaso lived in both worlds--and saw value in each. Hailed throughout Europe for his excellent contemporary Renaissance writing style, his work was characterized as literary art. Garcilaso revealed the emotions, struggles, and conflicts experienced by those who participated in the historic and grandiose adventure in La Florida. Although criticized for some lapses in accuracy in his attempts to paint both the Spaniards and the Amerindians as noble participants in a world-changing event, his work remains the most accessible of all the chronicles.
In this volume, Jonathan Steigman explores El Inca's rationale and motivations in writing his chronicle. He suggests that El Inca was trying to influence events by influencing discourse; that he sought to create a discourse of tolerance and agrarianism, rather than the dominant European discourse of intolerance, persecution, and lust for wealth. Although El Inca's purposes went well beyond detailing the facts of De Soto's entrada, his skill as a writer and his dual understanding of the backgrounds of the participants enabled him to paint a more complete picture than most--putting a sympathetic human face on explorers and natives alike.
Jonathan D. Steigman is a specialist in Colonial Latin American Literature at Auburn University.
136 pages ISBN 0-8173-1483-0 2005 $45.00 cloth136 pages ISBN 0-8173-5257-0 2005 $19.95 paper
May 13, 2008