Brandishing the Gun: Representations in Early American Literature, 1500-1800
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
BRANDISHING THE GUN: REPRESENTATIONS IN EARLY AMERICAN LITERATURE, 1500-1800 by Jay Branagan Webb APPROVED BY SUPERVISORY COMMITTEE: ______________________________________________ Dr. Pamela Gossin, Chair ______________________________________________ Dr. John Gooch ______________________________________________ Dr. Eric Schlereth ______________________________________________ Dr. Natalie Ring Copyright 2019 Jay Branagan Webb All Rights Reserved For Claire BRANDISHING THE GUN: REPRESENTATIONS IN EARLY AMERICAN LITERATURE, 1500-1800 by JAY BRANAGAN WEBB, BA, MA DISSERTATION Presented to the Faculty of The University of Texas at Dallas in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN LITERATURE THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT DALLAS December 2019 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation has been a work in progress for quite some time. It began as a flicker of thought as I was reading James Fenimore Cooper’s Deerslayer and noted that Natty Bumppo argued for gun safety and expressed concern for lives mournfully taken by the American failure to respect the gun. Reading this in wake of the Sandy Hook School shooting created a serious question: How had early American literature addressed issues of gun culture, gun control and gun safety? As I studied various accounts, I found more significant questions that overshadowed the aforementioned and helped to remove presuppositions. I became more interested in ways in which these texts turned to firearms to answer contextual sociopolitical issues. I am grateful to my dissertation committee for granting me the opportunity to explore the roles that guns played in Early American literature within a scope that extends over three hundred years. I would like to give special thanks to my Dissertation Chair, Dr. Pamela Gossin, for her support and thought-provoking news clippings. I appreciate her willingness to step up from co-chair to “the” chair. She allowed me to work as a fulltime professor and on the dissertation. Her patience as I strove to juggle family life, professional development, and my research and writing has been overwhelmingly meaningful in my life. Her forbearance and understanding for over four years has been invaluable. I owe a great debt to my dad, Stanley J. Webb, and Melinda Webb, my mom, for help with edits and revisions. Their persistence with difficult projects and help was infectious. I appreciate being able to talk through major points with them and discuss ideas that did or did not come to fruition in this work. For my father’s guidance and example, I am grateful. I owe my mother an extensive backlog of babysitter fees for taking care of my daughters while I wrote. v I have to include an indescribable heart-felt sense of indebtedness and appreciation to my wife, Claire. She never complained when I depended on and requested so much from her. I am grateful for many scholars within the field that have shown interest, sent me news clippings and book suggestions, or have given me advice. I want to thank Dr. Wayne Franklin for his advice and suggestions, his meeting with me at the 2015 MLA Convention, and his e-mail correspondence regarding my chapter over Cooper’s Nathaniel Bumppo. I want to thank Dr. Jay Terry Lees for news clippings and Becky Lees for her reassurance. I wish to thank Dr. Steven Hahn for his exuberant encouragement. Ultimately, I owe deep appreciation to my family and to my wife in particular for her inspiration. October 2019 vi BRANDISHING THE GUN: REPRESENTATIONS IN EARLY AMERICAN LITERATURE, 1500-1800 Jay Branagan Webb, PhD The University of Texas at Dallas, 2019 Supervising Professor: Pamela Gossin, Chair This dissertation explores early American literary representations of firearms, both pistols and rifles. Its primary purpose is to provide an overview of a few samples of early American perceptions of guns and explore ways in which such perceptions were formed upon the American frontier and helped create American culture and identity. Furthermore, it examines ways these texts mythologize, interpret, and symbolize gun use. It shows how authors turn to the gun to answer basic questions about acquiring food, safety, and future colonization. Firearms also promoted the idea of cultural dominance and Manifest Destiny. The shooter’s actions were often sanctioned by God or couched in heroic endeavors. Such depictions contribute to American identity and the construction of the nation’s Gun Culture. As authors turn to the gun as a means to answer their current sociopolitical issues, the complexities that Early America confronts are disregarded or “tabled” for later debate or for future authors. This study asserts America has a collective consciousness or understanding of gun use. It explores the political issues that early explorers and Americans encountered concerning firearms and addresses in what manner these anxieties or concerns are demonstrated. More specifically, these narratives reflect the attitudes vii early Americans had concerning gun use before, during and after the writing of the Second Amendment. Ultimately it provides an account of how early American literature reflects, questions, and employs values found within American identity and the American frontier. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS………………………………………………………..…………….... v ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………………… …...……..vii LIST OF FIGURES………………………………………………………………….…...……….x INTRODUCTION “SIGHTING-IN”: POSITIONING GUNS IN SCHOLARSHIP …................1 CHAPTER 1 “EXPEDITION GONE AWRY”: CABEZA DE VACA AND GUNS AMONG THE NATIVES………………….……………………………………………………………….30 CHAPTER 2 “THROUGH A CHANCE SUPPOSED”: CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH STAGING THE AMERICAN GUN………………………………………………..………………….…….53 CHAPTER 3 “GUN-TOTING WOMEN”: THE (RE)IMAGININGS OF MARY ROWLANDSON…...…………………………………………..………………………………..85 CHAPTER 4 “PRESENT ARMS”: LEWIS AND CLARK AND THE OPENING OF THE FRONTIER..............................................................................................................................…123 CHAPTER 5 “LE LONGUE CARABINE”: NATIONALISM IN COOPER, NATHANIEL AND THE KENTUCKY RIFLE………………………………………………………..…...…175 EPILOGUE UNPACKING THE GUN IN EARLY AMERICAN LITERATURE….…....…..223 BIBLIOGRAPHY ……………………………………………….……………………………..243 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH………………………………………………………………...…252 CURRICULUM VITAE.……………………………………….……………………. ………..253 ix LIST OF FIGURES 1.1 Soldier Firing a Harquebus (1475).………………..………………………………………...43 3.1 Title Page for Mary Rowlandson’s Captivity Narrative (1682), Published in Cambridge....104 3.2 Title Page for Mary Rowlandson’s Captivity Narrative (1682), Published in London….....106 3.3 Female Soldier Woodblock Printing Repurposed for Mary Rowlandson (1770), Published in Boston……………………………………………………………………...…109 3.4 Hannah Snell Performing Musketry Drills (1750)……………………………………...…..110 3.5 Mary Rowlandson’s Captivity Narrative Title Page (1773), Published in Boston ….……..114 4.1 Blunderbuss Guns on Swivel (1804)……………………………………………………….145 4.2 Giradoni Air Rifle (1803)…………………………………………………………………..147 4.3 Captain Lewis and Clark holding a Council with the Indians (1810)……………………...162 4.4 Meriwether Lewis Esq. in Native Regalia (1807)………………………………………….165 5.1 Sheet Music of The Hunters of Kentucky arranged by William Blondell (1824)………….180 5.2 Sketches of the Kentucky Rifle (1977)…………………………………………………….182 x INTRODUCTION “SIGHTING-IN:” POSITIONING GUNS IN SCHOLARSHIP It is difficult to argue that gun culture does not exist in the United States. Statistics, popular culture, and even common vernacular establish imperative connections between guns and the United States. Internationally, the United States ranks well above any other country in charting the number of guns per capita. The Small Arms Survey conducted in 2017 recorded that the number of civilian-owned guns in America surpassed the population, documenting 393 million guns to 326 million people.1 As Christopher Ingraham reported, “Americans made up 4 percent of the world's population but owned about 46 percent of the entire global stock of 857 million civilian firearms.”2 Aside from current statistics that indicate a predominate gun culture in America, recurring models of the frontier “gun-toting” hero occur throughout U.S. history and literature, forming national mythology. Stories about the lives of Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone, and the fictional character of Natty Bumppo, were integrated into the American narrative and helped establish and maintain enduring values and characteristics of the American heroism.3 The 1 Small Arms Survey 2017 qtd. in Christopher Ingraham, “There are more guns than people in the United States, according to a new study of global firearm ownership.” Washington Post, 19 June 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/06/19/there-are-more-guns-than-people-in-the- united-states-according-to-a-new-study-of-global-firearm-ownership/?utm_term=.93413bfe2d68. Accessed 29 April 2019. 2 Christopher Ingraham, “There are more guns than people in the United States, according to a new study of global firearm ownership.” Washington Post, 19 June 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/06/19/there-are-more-guns-than-people-in-the- united-states-according-to-a-new-study-of-global-firearm-ownership/?utm_term=.93413bfe2d68. Accessed 29 April 2019. 3 For instance, by John Filson, popularizing the life of Daniel Boone in the late 1700s, which many authors would continue. John Filson, The Discovery of Kentucke and the Adventures of Daniel Boon. (Garland Pub. 1978). 1 American branding of