Authorized Agents: Publication and Diplomacy in the Era of Indian Removal (SUNY series, Native Traces)

Examines the relation between Indian diplomacy and nineteenth-century Native American literature. In the nineteenth century, Native American writing and oratory extended a long tradition of diplomacy between indigenous people and settler states. As the crisis of forced removal profoundly reshaped Indian country between 1820 and 1860, tribal leaders and intellectuals worked with coauthors, interpreters, and amanuenses to address the impact of American imperialism on Indian nations. These collaborative publication projects operated through institutions of Indian diplomacy, but also intervened in them to contest colonial ideas about empire, the frontier, and nationalism. In this book, Frank Kelderman traces this literary history in the heart of the continent, from the Great Lakes to the Upper Missouri River Valley. Because their writings often were edited and published by colonial institutions, many early Native American writers have long been misread, discredited, or simply ignored. Authorized Agents demonstrates why their works should not be dismissed as simply extending the discourses of government agencies or religious organizations. Through analyses of a range of texts, including oratory, newspapers, autobiographies, petitions, and government papers, Kelderman offers an interdisciplinary method for examining how Native authors claimed a place in public discourse, and how the conventions of Indian diplomacy shaped their texts. “Frank Kelderman finds indigenous agency in ‘unexpected places,’ to use Phil Deloria’s term, even as he reveals the ways in which the newly formed United States’ political and publication systems increasingly narrowed the routes through which indigenous people could act and speak, as authorized and authorial agents, on behalf of communal bodies. Authorized Agents suggests that the fetishization of the singular, romanticized ‘Indian chief’ in American literature and culture becomes so imbricated in diplomatic structures, in the era of removal, that some Native leaders’ rhetoric came to reflect the masculinist, fatalist discourse of savagery and vanishing, even as those leaders were advocating for tribal sovereignty and critiquing colonialism. An unsettling, provocative analysis of diplomacy, literature, and the insidious patterns of colonial structures.” — Lisa Brooks, author of Our Beloved Kin: A New History of King Philip’s War "In nineteenth-century North America, the literature of Indian nations extended a long tradition of diplomacy between indigenous people and settler states. While the crisis of removal profoundly reshaped Indian country between 1820 and 1860, indigenous intellectuals and tribal leaders often worked with various collaborators--translators, editors, and amanuenses--to address the tensions between American empire and Indian nations. Drawing on established conventions of Indian diplomacy, these collaborative writings were bound up with the life of colonial institutions but they intervened in them as well. Using multimedia forms of publication, Native authors contested colonial ideas about empire, the frontier, and nationalism, all the while insisting on an indigenous futures in regions where settler expansion caused profound historical change. Authorized Agents examines the writings and speeches of authors such as Black Hawk, Jane Johnston Schoolcraft, and George Copway, as well as more overlooked writers and orators including Sharitarish, Ongpatonga, Keokuk, Hardfish, and Peter Pitchlynn. The fact that their writings were often edited or published by colonial institutions has often left many Native writers to be misread, discredited, or simply ignored. How can we begin to understand these texts as the work of indigenous authors who generated critiques of colonial ideas and policies? Through analysis of a range of texts--from oratory, newspapers, and autobiographies to petitions, council meetings, and manuscript poems--Authorized Agents offers an interdisciplinary method for understanding how Native authors claimed a place in public discourse, and how the cross-cultural conventions of Indian diplomacy shaped their texts"-- Provided by publisher Introduction: Indian removal and the projects of Native American writing -- Negotiating empire in the Benjamin O'Fallon delegation -- Frontier diplomacy and removal in Sauk writing and oratory -- Peter Pitchlynn and the literature of Choctaw nation-building -- Community and authority in Ojibwe letters -- Afterword: The Indians in the lobby