Assembled for Use: Indigenous Compilation and the Archives of Early Native American Literatures (The Henry Roe Cloud Series on American Indians and Modernity)

A wide-ranging, multidisciplinary look at Native American literature through non-narrative texts like lists, albums, recipes, and scrapbooks Kelly Wisecup offers a sweeping account of early Native American literatures by examining Indigenous compilations: intentionally assembled texts that Native people made by juxtaposing and recontextualizing textual excerpts into new relations and meanings. Experiments in reading and recirculation, Indigenous compilations include Mohegan minister Samson Occom’s medicinal recipes, the Ojibwe woman Charlotte Johnston’s poetry scrapbooks, and Abenaki leader Joseph Laurent’s vocabulary lists. Indigenous compilations proliferated in a period of colonial archive making, and Native writers used compilations to remake the very forms that defined their bodies, belongings, and words as ethnographic evidence. This study enables new understandings of canonical Native writers like William Apess, prominent settler collectors like Thomas Jefferson and Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, and Native people who contributed to compilations but remain absent from literary histories. Long before current conversations about decolonizing archives and museums, Native writers made and circulated compilations to critique colonial archives and foster relations within Indigenous communities. A wide-ranging, multidisciplinary look at Native American literature through non-narrative texts like lists, albums, recipes, and scrapbooks An intricate history of Native textual production, use, and circulation that reshapes how we think about relationships between Native materials and settler-colonial collections.Rose Miron, DArcy McNickle Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies at the Newberry Library Kelly Wisecup offers a sweeping account of early Native American literatures by examining Indigenous intentionally assembled texts that Native people made by juxtaposing and recontextualizing textual excerpts into new relations and meanings. Experiments in reading and recirculation, Indigenous compilations include Mohegan minister Samson Occoms medicinal recipes, the Ojibwe woman Charlotte Johnstons poetry scrapbooks, and Abenaki leader Joseph Laurents vocabulary lists. Indigenous compilations proliferated in a period of colonial archive making, and Native writers used compilations to remake the very forms that defined their bodies, belongings, and words as ethnographic evidence. This study enables new understandings of canonical Native writers like William Apess, prominent settler collectors like Thomas Jefferson and Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, and Native people who contributed to compilations but remain absent from literary histories. Long before current conversations about decolonizing archives and museums, Native writers made and circulated compilations to critique colonial archives and foster relations within Indigenous communities. A wide-ranging, multidisciplinary look at Native Americanliterature through non-narrative texts like lists, albums, recipes,and scrapbooks Kelly Wisecup offers a sweeping account ofearly Native American literatures by examining Indigenouscompilations: intentionally assembled texts that Native people madeby juxtaposing and recontextualizing textual excerpts into newrelations and meanings. Experiments in reading and recirculation,Indigenous compilations include Mohegan minister Samson Occom'smedicinal recipes, the Ojibwe woman Charlotte Johnston's poetryscrapbooks, and Abenaki leader Joseph Laurent's vocabulary lists.Indigenous compilations proliferated in a period of colonialarchive making, and Native writers used compilations to remake thevery forms that defined their bodies, belongings, and words asethnographic evidence. This study enables new understandings ofcanonical Native writers like William Apess, prominent settlercollectors like Thomas Jefferson and Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, andNative people who contributed to compilations but remain absentfrom literary histories. Long before current conversations aboutdecolonizing archives and museums, Native writers made andcirculated compilations to critique colonial archives and fosterrelations within Indigenous communities Kelly Wisecup offers a sweeping account of Native American literatures by examining what she calls Indigenous compilations: intentionally assembled texts that Native people made by juxtaposing and recontextualizing textual excerpts into new relations and meanings. Experiments in reading and recirculation, Indigenous compilations include Mohegan minister Samson Occom's medicinal recipes, the Ojibwe woman Charlotte Johnston's poetry scrapbooks, and Abenaki leader Joseph Laurent's vocabulary lists. Indigenous compilations proliferated in a period of colonial archive making, and Native writers used compilations to remake the very forms that defined their bodies, belongings, and words as ethnographic evidence. This study enables new understandings of canonical Native writers like William Apess, prominent collectors like Thomas Jefferson and Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, and Native people who contributed to compilations but remain absent from literary histories. Indigenous compilations dramatically expand studies of Native American literatures by illuminating histories of making, reading, and using texts in Indigenous communities and colonial archives