Indigenous Resistance: Settler-Colonialism, Nation Building, and Colonial Patriarchy Megan E
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University of Arkansas, Fayetteville ScholarWorks@UARK Theses and Dissertations 5-2017 Indigenous Resistance: Settler-Colonialism, Nation Building, and Colonial Patriarchy Megan E. Vallowe University of Arkansas, Fayetteville Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd Part of the American Studies Commons, Indigenous Studies Commons, and the Latin American Studies Commons Recommended Citation Vallowe, Megan E., "Indigenous Resistance: Settler-Colonialism, Nation Building, and Colonial Patriarchy" (2017). Theses and Dissertations. 1970. http://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd/1970 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UARK. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UARK. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. Indigenous Resistance: Settler-Colonialism, Nation Building, and Colonial Patriarchy A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English by Megan Vallowe University of Evansville Bachelor of Arts in Literature, 2010 Southern Illinois University Carbondale Master of Arts in English, 2013 May 2017 University of Arkansas This dissertation is approved for recommendation to the Graduate Council. _________________________________ Dr. Sean Teuton Dissertation Director _________________________________ _________________________________ Dr. Yajaira Padilla Dr. Jeannie Whayne Committee Member Committee Member Abstract “Indigenous Resistance: Settler-Colonialism, Nation Building, and Colonial Patriarchy,” interrogates the Western Hemisphere’s spatial construction by settler-states, Indigenous nations, and activists groups. In this project, I assert that Indigenous/Settler contact zones are significantly more convoluted than current scholarship’s use of contact zones in that the distinctions between Indigenous actors and settler-colonial ones are often blurred. These hybrid contact zones sometimes contain negative outcomes for all participants and often include undercurrents of insidious power dynamics within and across settler-states and Indigenous peoples alike. Using critical cartographic theory and deconstruction methods, this project first illustrates how empires ascribed a racialized patriarchy onto the Western Hemisphere through sixteenth century decorative maps and atlases. From there, I trace continued patriarchal manipulations of the hemisphere’s racial hierarchy into the nineteenth century as newly independent settler-states used intermarriage and assimilation to regulate their Indigenous populations. Finally, this project turns to Indigenous activist groups, especially as related to Indigenous women. In doing so, this project positions colonial patriarchy as integral to the global capital system and the types of Indigenous knowledge production that draw attention to related institutional failings. By working within a hemispheric dialogue across Indigenous America, this project draws out types of multivalent Indigenous resistance to settler-states, identifies the lasting effects of colonial patriarchies, and demonstrates how much settler-state power rests on the erasure of Indigenous women. © 2017 by Megan Vallowe All Rights Reserved Dedication To my sister, Shannon, for listening, reading, and listening some more. To my mother, Sheila, for telling me to do what I love, even when it doesn’t come easy. And to my father, Mark, for always turning on the lights. Acknowledgements This project has been supported and inspired by a number of people, organizations, and institutions and for that I am forever grateful. Sean Teuton and Yajaira Padilla have been crucial to every step of this project, from its initial inception, to drafting, to revision. This project is also deeply indebted to Jeannie Whayne and Ben Fagan for their support and guidance at several stages of this work. I would like to express my everlasting gratitude to the University of Arkansas’ English Department, and all of its faculty and graduate students who created the intellectual space necessary for me to thrive and complete this dissertation. Without the diligent support and loyal friendship of Edward Ardeneaux IV, Christy Davis, Shiloh Peters, and Rashmila Maiti this project could not be what it is today. For all of their many hours of reading, listening, and commenting, I thank you. Most of all, I thank Josh Jackson for helping me think through some of this project’s major concepts, troubleshoot various problems, and offer unconditional support in and outside of my academic life. Over the course of this project, I had the privilege of researching in several libraries that formed much of the archival thrust of several of my chapters. For their time, patience, and help I would like to thank the Library of Congress, specifically the Geography and Maps, Rare Books, and Manuscripts Reading Rooms. Other libraries were crucial in the completion of this project, especially in the reproduction of maps contained in Chapter 1. I would like to thank the British Library and the British Library Board for permission to reproduce parts of Pierre Desceliers’ 1550 world map, as well as the John Rylands Library Special Collections at the University of Manchester for helping me navigate Creative Commons license in reference to the reproduction of Pierre Desceliers’ 1546 map. Other libraries with maps in the public domain who helped facilitate the identification of those maps and my ability to reproduce them here include the Library of Congress, The Huntington Library, and the Bibliothèque nationale de France. I would also like to thank the National Endowment for the Humanities, specifically their summer institutes program, as well as George Scheper and Laraine Fletcher for organizing the “Native Grounds” seminar. Thank you to all the participants and guest speakers of that seminar for inspiring me and offering help in brainstorming and expressing my goals at a formative stage of my research for this project. I would finally like to thank the University of Arkansas, specifically the English Department, Graduate School, and Fulbright College of Arts and Science, each of which helped fund various parts of this project. Table of Contents Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………….. 1 Chapter 1: Cartographic Mythmaking…………………………………………………………... 26 Chapter 2: The Civilized Indian…………………………………………………………………. 60 Chapter 3: The Newsprint Indian………………………………………………………………... 86 Chapter 4: The Indigenous Insurgent…………………………………………………………... 119 Chapter 5: Gendered Resistance……………………………………………………………….. 147 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………... 171 Notes…………………………………………………………………………………………… 181 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………………… 199 List of Figures Fig. 1 John Smith, Virginia, 1606……………………………………………………………..… 35 Fig. 2 “North America, east coast,” Vallard Atlas, 1547………………………………………... 40 Fig. 3 Detail of Pierre Desceliers, Mappemonde, 1546…………………………………………. 43 Fig. 4 Detail of Pierre Desceliers, Planisphere, .……………………………………………….. 44 © British Library Board (British Library Add. MS 24065) Fig. 5 Detail Giovanni Battista Ramusio, “La Nvova Francia,” 1556………………………….. 48 Fig. 6 Guillaume Le Testu, “Bresil,” from Cosmographie Universelle, .………………………. 52 Fig. 7 Guillaume Le Testu, “La Plata,” from Cosmographie Universelle, 1555……………….. 54 Fig. 8 Alexander von Humboldt………………………………………………………………… 56 Atlas Géographique et Physique du Nouveau Continent, 1814 1 Introduction In the summer of 1781, United States commissioners met with Cherokee leaders in what is today northeastern Tennessee. They discussed white settlers encroaching into Cherokee lands and the resulting violent outbreaks. The talks would result in the 1781 Peace Treaty of Long Island on the Holston, which primarily established a temporary peace between each nation and included a prisoner exchange. Unfortunately, the surviving negotiation transcripts are heavily damaged, with large sections deteriorated or torn away and likely with multiple pages missing. However, what remains of the diplomatic talks include several moments that epitomize the relationship between settler-colonialism, nation building, and colonial patriarchy.1 Each of which are the interrelated concepts that I explore in this project. On Saturday, July 28th, 1781, the third day of negotiations, a Cherokee leader identified as Tassel reflected on past broken treaties between the United States and the Cherokee.2 Unlike the speeches given earlier in treaty negotiations, Tassel did not shy away from speaking plainly and openly about earlier treaty breakage. He reflected that four years prior: When I was at Home in Peace and [ ], many of my / People at Times, would come up the River hunting, not / expecting the white People had gone so far out as they had / and there the white People [ ] plunder my People by / taking their Horses,[ ], and Kettles. All this did / not satisfy my elder Brothers.3 In this statement Tassel gives specific examples of how the past treaty between the United States and Cherokee Nation was broken on the part of white settlers. In focusing on these particular offenses, he makes clear that the treaty breaking is most of all a violation of national space. The encroachment of settlers is described as unexpected, disruptive, and intrusive not only to individual Cherokees but also to systems of travel (i.e. “come up the river”), systems of subsistence (the taking of horses and kettles), and the land on which Cherokees live (i.e.