[{"id":10,"date":"2024-04-04T10:01:34","date_gmt":"2024-04-04T15:01:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/arpc\/?page_id=10"},"modified":"2024-05-02T14:41:28","modified_gmt":"2024-05-02T19:41:28","slug":"exhibits","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/arpc\/exhibits\/","title":{"rendered":"Rhetorics of Race:"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

How did white Colonial and Federal Americans write about Native Americans?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Researching Colonial Era Native American tribes that lived in the modern Washington, DC; Maryland; and Virginia region has proved challenging for countless historians. As a result of forced migration, disease, and minimal preserved documents few historical documents remain from Indigenous perspectives in this region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does remain, are many documents from settlers\u2019 perspectives. This exhibit looks at how settler-colonists used language related to Indians in their writing and how the language of race was used and changed over time. This digital exhibit is organized in a timeline format.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
John Smith’s Map of Virginia, 1624.1<\/a><\/sup><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
\n

Pervasive Themes<\/strong>:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I. racemaking and colonial superiority<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Founding of Jamestown commemorative stamps, 19072<\/a><\/sup><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

These stamps, though created in 1907 indicate the pervasive and widely accepted racemaking <\/em>that occurred in the colonial period. They celebrate the 200 year anniversary of the founding of Jamestown, and continue the racemaking <\/em> established at the colony’s founding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Smith is shown framed by unnamed and generic Indigenous figures in the one cent stamp.<\/em> Together these stamps show ideas of white, European superiority at work. While colonial leaders like JS are centered as historical heroes, Native Americans are represented as historically relevant only when they have assimilated. Pocahontas, a central figure of American mythology is depicted, but it is an image of her in English clothing. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Written in bold across the top of each stamp, the United States of America <\/strong>is celebrated as the outcome of this legacy of racemaking<\/em>, violence, and land appropriation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

II. racemaking, violence, and the creation of the ‘savage’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

is there an artifact that shows savage being used alongside violence you can put here and break this annotation into 2?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\n

We perceive and well know you intend to destroy us, that are here to intreat and desire your friendship, and to enjoy our houses and plant our fields, of whose fruit you shall participate: otherwise you will have the worse by our absence; for we can plant any where, though with more labour, and we know you cannot live if you want our harvest, and that reliefe we bring you. If you promise us peace, we will beleeve you; if you proceed in revenge we will abandon the Country.<\/p>\nOkaning, a Chickahominy man, to John Smith3<\/a><\/sup><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

While Europeans associated the early racial categories of “Indian” and “Salvage” with violence, Okaning, a Chickahominy man, believes the English settler-colonists “intend to destroy [his tribe].” Smith used the spelling “salvage” to write “savage” through his work. [move to the voyant section]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While settler-colonists like Smith attempted to associate Indigenous people with violence, Indigenous people associated English with destruction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n

Terms<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The process by which colonizers reclassified diverse Indigenous peoples as one single race, <\/em>unified by their supposed inferiority to white Europeans, is called racialization<\/em>. This process began almost as soon as European settler-colonists had contact w\/… This exhibit traces how racialization occurred…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
See footnote4<\/a><\/sup><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Methods<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

As human readers, we decipher information and text through close reading \u2014 analyzing each word, phrase, and location on the page. This project uses a web-based program, Voyant,<\/em> to supplement close reading with distant <\/em>reading. Voyant creates word counts, word associations, and other analyses that show how words are used together, and how often. This method lets researchers combine their close readings skills with technology that can highlight previously hidden themes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Collocate graph of Maryland State Archives Documents relating to Anacostan, Nanticoke, Pamunkey, and Piscataway tribes, ca. 1659 – 1773.5<\/a><\/sup><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Topic modeling is one form of distant reading. It is statistical analysis that takes the most frequent words in texts–for example, “indians”–and places them alongside other words that appear most frequently alongside them, like “peace.” It then categorizes these words that appear together in topics,<\/em> as shown in the collocate graph above.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can think of a topic as a conversation, <\/em>where nothing anyone writes exists alone.6<\/a><\/sup> Instead, all writing is influenced by ongoing conversations around the author. The sources analyzed can give us ideas about what conversations and how language was used in the social circles and communities of the predominantly wealthy, white, English authors.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sources<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

For this research I collected primary sources from disparate archives. The sources are linked in the yellow drop down menus below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\n
17th Century Travel Books<\/summary>\n
    \n
  • The Discovery of New Britainne<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • The History of Virginia in Four Parts<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • The Early Historie of Virginia, New England and the Summer Isles<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • A short account of the establishment of the new See of Baltimore in Maryland<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/details>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
    \n
    18th Century Maryland Legal Documents<\/summary>\n
      \n
    • Mayis, an Indigenous Records Guide of the Maryland State Archives<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/details>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
      \n
      19th Century Thomas Jefferson Papers<\/summary>\n

      Founders Online, Thomas Jefferson papers<\/a><\/p>\n<\/details>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

      Travel Books<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

      European settlers often published accounts of their travels and conquest for people in Europe to read. They did this to share information with people in Europe and convince workers and settlers to join them in North America. For European corporations colonizing the mid-Atlantic region, the settlement of the “New World” was a business venture. To have a successful business, they needed people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      These books share detailed descriptions about the mid-Atlantic region and how settler-colonists interacted with and racialized Native groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \"\"<\/a>
      Inner cover of The History of Virginia, in Four Parts<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

      Maryland Legal Documents<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

      The Maryland State Archives hold a large collection of colonial records that mention or relate to Native tribes. Using their, Mayis Indigenous Resource Guide<\/a>, I performed topic modeling on documents referring to the following tribes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

        \n
      • Anacostan<\/li>\n\n\n\n
      • Nacotchtank<\/li>\n\n\n\n
      • Nanticoke<\/li>\n\n\n\n
      • Pamunkey<\/li>\n\n\n\n
      • and Piscataway<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

        Because spelling was not standardized at this time, there are many spellings for tribe names.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

        \"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
        \"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

        What we can understand from all of these different spellings is the high rates at which colonists and Native Americans interacted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

        Jefferson Documents<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

        The last group of sources used are papers written by Thomas Jefferson that include the word “red” or “Indian.” I selected these documents, first to understand ongoing discourses as the English colonies transitioned into the United States. Secondly, I chose these terms because of their use in racializing contexts, with “red” often referring to Indigenous peoples and “Indian” as a monolithic settler-colonist constructed term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

        \n\n\n\n
        \"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

        Early Seventeenth Century<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

        17th century documents indicate that English settler-colonists and Native Americans began racemaking<\/em> upon contact. Early relationships between Settler-colonists and Indigenous groups were not straightforward or predetermined, and colonists heavily relied on the assistance of local tribes.7<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

        “Indian” as race was developed in these early interactions. In many of the travel narratives, settler-colonists referred to individuals according to their respective tribes in the early to mid seventeenth century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n