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THE EMERGENCE OF THE INDIGENOUS SUBJECT AND EARLY-MODERN ARTS OF COLONIAL GOVERNANCE, 1492-1688 A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Timothy Bowers Vasko December 2018 !2 © 2018 Timothy Bowers Vasko !3 THE EMERGENCE OF THE INDIGENOUS SUBJECT AND EARLY-MODERN ARTS OF COLONIAL GOVERNANCE, 1492-1688 ABSTRACT Timothy Bowers Vasko Cornell University 2018 This dissertation conceptualizes “native information” as both an object of governance and a process of engagements between the original inhabitants of the western hemisphere and European colonists that prefigures and produces an indigenous subject. I demonstrate this through a study of the period of colonization in the western hemisphere between the years 1492 and 1688, and the impact of colonization in the western hemisphere on the knowledge produced in the course of the late Renaissance and early Scientific Revolution. I focus especially on the interactions between the Taino and Inca and the Spanish, and also between the Roanoke and Catawba and the British during this period to illustrate my argument. Native information emerged in this context through debates over four overlapping elements that were said to characterize indigenous subjects in the Americas: Difference, Nature, Vernacular Histories, and Proprietary Identities. Native information was collected from the original inhabitants of the western hemisphere, and was curated by colonial agents so as to speak to these concerns in the late Renaissance and early Scientific Revolution. In turn, the political and legal categories that European scholars of this period developed on the basis of native information came to define and circumscribe the terms of life and death for the original inhabitants of the western hemisphere under the increasing pressure of growing colonial occupation. However, not all information with which European colonists and intellectuals were presented was treated as equally relevant. Consequently, those points where either native information was refused by Europeans or where Europeans’ attempts to enforce the indigenous status that the former claimed to flow directly !4 from native information were sites in which the original inhabitants of the western hemisphere critically highlighted the contradictions, limits, and violences of colonial governance and its attendant systems of thought in ways that confound the indigenous subjects colonists both imagined and sought to produce. !5 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Timothy Bowers Vasko was born in Denver, Colorado in 1988 and raised in Victoria, British Columbia. Timothy enrolled as an undergraduate at the University of Victoria in January 2007. He received a Bachelor of Arts with a major in Political Science in May 2011. In July 2012, he completed the Master of Arts degree program in Cultural, Social, and Political Thought and Political Science at the University of Victoria. Timothy began his Ph.D at Johns Hopkins University in September 2012, and transferred to Cornell University in January 2014. !6 For Tiffany, my Sisters, and the Students at Auburn !7 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS There are no possible circumstances that I can imagine where this dissertation could have come together without the support, encouragement, patience, and guidance I have received from the mentors, friends, and family I have had the privilege of counting as part of my community and social network over the years. A dissertation often hovers over one like a dark and ominous cloud, and it can have the effect of overshadowing the importance of those elements of life that transcend the work of scholarship, turning one into a strangely myopic and narcissistic creature. However, in the final weeks of crafting this dissertation, the untimely passing of Carol Edelman Warrior, a friend, mentor, and committee member, has demonstrated to me the importance of appreciating the delicate tapestry of life that our relations weave for us, and how suddenly things can unravel when we lose one of those relations. So it is with sorrow and gratitude that I want to acknowledge her important, but forever unfinished, role in the guiding my attempt to craft the present work. No less significant have been those other mentors whose guidance has helped me to shape the questions and approaches in this study, and whose encouragement has given me the necessary hope to keep pursuing difficult and often confounding lines of inquiry. My committee members, Siba N. Grovogui, Aziz Rana, Alex Livingston, and Olufemi Taiwo have each provided extensive feedback and insight on the project at its various stages. I am certain I will not have satisfied the entirety of their rigorous demands here. And for this reason, all mistakes and oversights solely my own. Still, this dissertation would not exist without them; or it would, but it would be a rather shabby piece of work indeed. So too has the profound, and profoundly gracious, education and support I have received from the following scholars, in class and in !8 conversation, undoubtedly made my thinking and so hopefully this work better: Gerard Aching, Begum Adalet, Ana Agathangelou, Ti Alkire, Bentley Allan, David Bateman, Jane Bennett, Richard Bensel, Ned Blackhawk, David Blaney, Bradley Bryan, Susan Buck-Morss, Asli Calkivik, Samuel Chambers, William Connolly, Glen Coulthard, Jennifer Culbert, Michael Dillon, Katsuhiko Endo, Jill Frank, Jason Frank, Mark Franke, Locksley Edmonson, Adom Getachew, Branwen Gruffyd-Jones, Joseph Gulka, Michael Hanchard, Christopher Heaney, Naeem Inayatullah, Mary Katzenstein, Peter J. Katzenstein, Isaac Kamola, Isaac Kramnick, Arthur Kroker, Laurie Leonard, Daniel F. Littlefield, N’Dri Thérèse Assié-Lumumba, Shiera Malik, Jamila Michener, Paola Moratti, Himadeep Muppidi, Juan Obario, Sam Opondo, Mustafa Kamal Pasha, Randy Persaud, Jolene K. Rickard, Troy Richardson, Dianne Rubenstein, Daromir Rudnyckyj, Olivia Rutazibwa, Suman Seth, Michael J. Shapiro, Robbie Shilliam, Nicole Shukin, Audra Simpson, Rochelle Tobias, Chad Uran, RBJ Walker, Scott D. Watson, and Andrew Wender. While our intellectual paths did not cross, Jessica Chen-Weiss, Sarah Kreps, and Kenneth Roberts were three additional faculty members at Cornell who helped immensely in the logistical issues necessary for moving along successfully through the Government program. Additionally, everyone working in academic settings knows that nothing at all would be accomplished without the hard work of administrative staff. I am deeply grateful for the help and kindness of the administrators of the various departments and libraries that I have called my scholarly home(s) over the years: Eric Kofi Acree, Laurie Dorsey, René Milligan, Treva Levine, Mary Otterbein, Sharon Powers, Saah Nue Quigee, Tina Slater, and Dinne Sloman. Finally, I would like to extend my many thanks to Kyri Murdough, Rob Scott, and all of the students at Auburn Correctional !9 Facility who I had the privilege to work with as a part of the Cornell Prison Education Program. This was another essential element in my education during my time in Ithaca, New York, and indeed one which taught me more than I could have possibly learned in any class or text. Equally essential to my intellectual development have been the many colleagues I have had that I am also grateful to call my friends: Kellan Anfinson, Seth Asch, Marta Bashovski, Theresa Beardall, Nolan Bennett, Grace Bulltail, Joanna Cardeiro, Tyler Chartrand, Andrew Curley, Derek Denman, Kevin Duong, Mehmet Ekinci, Guillaume Filion, Christopher Forster- Smith, Nathan Gies, Tim Hanafin, Jordan Jochim, Nazli Konya, Hitomi Koyama, Akta Kushal, Juliette Larkin-Gilmore, Richard LaRose, Adrianna Link, Casey McNeill, Theresa Montoya, Ben Meiches, J Mohorocich, Natani Notah, Quynh Pham, Jamie Powell, Vijay Phulwani, Ed Quish, Corey Ranford-Robinson, Tripp Rebrovick, Mia Rickard, Becquer Seguin, Chad Shomura, Osama Siddiqui, Allen Stack, Jacob Swanson, Tulio Zille, and Daniel Zimmer. Friends outside the walls of the academy have been no less important: Nanibaa Beck, Amy Hecht-Zizes, Daniel Hrycyck, Victoria Lebron Forster-Smith, Kait Martin, Kirsten Maxwell, Jordan Morton, and Jordan Watts. Finally, my family has been an unending source of support, inspiration, and education in their own right. My parents Tim and Joanne and my sisters Jillian, Maia, Sophia, and Keira have always given more love and encouragement than one could ever hope to reciprocate properly. So have my extended family members who have supported me throughout this process: Joe, Helen, Kerri, Tim, Sherri, Mike, Caroline, Carl, Ginger, Sarah, Jesse, Dylan, and Axel. However, no person has been more important to my thinking and more essential to any successes I may have enjoyed than Tiffany Hale, my partner and best friend. I owe her more than words can express. !10 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT 3 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 5 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 7 TABLE OF CONTENTS 10 INTRODUCTION: NATIVE INFORMATION 12 “The New Adam of Western Culture” 12 Contributions of the Present Study to Existing Literature 18 Outline of the Chapters of the Present Study 21 CHAPTER ONE: DIFFERENCE AND LEGITIMACY 25 Introduction 25 The Indian as Object of Knowledge 34 The Emergence of the Indian Subject 44 Governing the Indian Subject Differently 53 “Send me to Hell!” 64 Conclusion 69 CHAPTER TWO: NATURE AND THE NATIVE 75 Introduction 75 Naturales 86 Naturall Inhabitants 106 Conclusion 123 CHAPTER THREE: GRAMMARS OF HISTORY 128 Introduction 128 The