Wide Open Spaces: Place, Empire, and U.S.-Indigenous Relations, 1816-1907

WIDE OPEN SPACES: PLACE, EMPIRE, AND U.S.-INDIGENOUS RELATIONS, 1816-1907 BY KATHRYN A. WALKIEWICZ DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English with a minor in American Indian and Indigenous Studies in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2014 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor Trish Loughran, Chair Associate Professor Jodi A. Byrd Professor Frederick E. Hoxie Professor Robert Dale Parker Professor Robert Warrior ii Abstract Wide Open Spaces: Place, Empire, and U.S.-Indigenous Relations, 1816-1907 investigates the changing borders of the U.S. settler nation-state throughout the nineteenth century. The project is concerned with the geopolitical scales of annexation and statehood as practices of expansion and empire-building. My argument is two-pronged. First, through the increasingly naturalized logic of federalism, the violence of settler colonial conquest was authorized under the guise of states’ rights or territorial lawlessness in ways that seemingly exonerated the larger U.S. nation of culpability, while also allowing flexibility in the ways that settler colonialism entered and occupied spaces. Justified as a “domestically dependent” relationship between the U.S. and indigenous peoples, U.S. Indian policy in the nineteenth century relied on the ability to toggle between states’ rights and nation-to-nation treaty negotiations. This wobbling between U.S. as assemblage and as cohesive nation proved productive for empire building in some ways, but in others highlighted fissures and inconsistencies. Second, as one of the dominant modes of communication in the nineteenth century, print mapped much of the work of empire onto the landscape and its cultural imaginary. Like imperial state movements, print, at its core, is a multi-scaled medium. Yet it was also a tool that could be utilized for political projects. The circulation, production, and reception of print did not maintain an exclusively settler-colonial use value, but could be deployed for a variety of different communal and performative ends, some of which were distinctly anti-colonial. Wide Open Spaces privileges particular geographic locales. I look at three key sites understood as racially “other” yet economically desirable by the U.S.—present-day Florida, Cuba, and Oklahoma. These locations, and the statehood debates that surrounded them, challenged the U.S. to determine who and what to include within its borders. I show how print culture narrated iii moments of particular geopolitical and cultural flux, and how various forms of print operated (often on both sides of the colonial divide) to establish a narrative cartography of place. iv Acknowledgements The initial kernel of this project started during my undergraduate years at Kenyon College. What started as a research assistantship for Janet McAdams became a co-editor position with both her and Geary Hobson. Working with the two of them on The People Who Stayed: Southeastern Indian Writing after Removal was an invaluable opportunity, but more importantly our conversations assured me that it was okay to think about the networks that link the southeast and about the complicated place we all called home at one point or another, the space commonly known as Oklahoma. When I began my Master’s in the English Department at the University of New Mexico, I had little interest in nineteenth-century or early American anything. To fulfill a requirement I took Jesse Alemán’s Freaky Nineteenth-Century Narratives course because I thought the poster looked cool. What Jesse taught me as well as his approach to the nineteenth-century was a literal (and literary) recalibration, opening my eyes to an entire body of literature and area(s) of study to which I was previously oblivious. Jesse modeled great teaching, but he was an also an amazing mentor—firm yet encouraging. I am forever thankful to him for his guidance, his insight, and his insistence that I did have what it took to get my PhD and pursue an academic career. My first year of PhD coursework at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign I took Race and Gender as Political Geographies with Kirstie Dorr. By one of those strange strokes of luck, the class was comprised of a phenomenal group. The group’s conversations about the intersections of privilege, social justice (however we might understand it), and critical geography demonstrated the stakes of thinking about space, place, and scale. I am grateful to Kirstie and the rest of the course participants for challenging me intellectually, reminding me to always be thinking about privilege and power—and checking my attitude toward both—and remembering v how important it is to stay human while in the academy: to know remember where we are from and to whom we are responsible. Colleagues like Theresa Rocha Beardall, Debleena Biswas, Rico Kleinstein Chenyek, Raquel Escobar, Eman Ghanayem , Mike Hughes, Kyle Mayes, and T.J. Tallie made the Global Indigeneities reading group an exciting space to think across, beyond, and at the hard lines of national borders. To disentangle the stakes of “global indigeneity,” however we might define the term, has always been a central question of the group. The work of the Queer Studies reading group was also a space of intellectual engagement and rejuvenation for me when in the murky waters of dissertation writing. Thank you to Siobhan Somerville, Durell Callier, Peter Campbell, S. Moon Cassinelli, Jean Lee, Arnau Roig, Mel Stanfill, T.J.Tallie and the many other reading group participants for letting me join the conversation and reminding me that sometimes the books that seem the least connected to our projects often have the most to offer. Numerous fellowship opportunities gave me time to write, like the English department Smalley fellowship, and others fostered the kinds of interdisciplinary discussions that make the humanities at Illinois dynamic. The 2011-2012 Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities’ cohort of graduate students and faculty saw some of the earliest writing for this project. Participation in the 2012-2013 INTERSECT: Cultures of Law fellowship helped me better understand the relationship(s) between culture and law and gave me a stronger sense of legal reading and research practices. The 2012 Newberry Library’s Consortium in American Indian Studies Summer Institute was the first time I shared my project with an audience of historians. The friends and colleagues I made there shaped the project, and the guidance of Jeani O’Brien and Coll Thrush since the 2012 institute has been a gift. vi The breadth of my archive means I have traveled across the country to sift through an array of collections and bend the ears of a number of archivists. These trips were only possible because of travel grant funding from the University of Illinois Graduate College. I am convinced that between them Jennifer Day and Bill Welge at the Oklahoma Historical Society know every single item in the collection. Their insight into the archival holdings and Oklahoma history was invaluable. Much thanks to the library staff at the University of Oklahoma’s Western Collections, Oklahoma State University and the University of Florida Department of Special and Area Studies Collections. Sometimes, it helps to be from a small town where people tend to know one another. Thanks to Stillwater alum Jennifer Lynch for extending me an extra hand at the Guthrie Territorial Museum and giving me a better sense of the history of the town of Guthrie and Oklahoma Territory. The opportunity to visit with Dan Littlefield at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s Sequoyah Research Center about the Sequoyah movement and Indian Territory print culture was invaluable. His kindness and generosity made me want to do right by him and by the materials he shared with me. I am grateful to Antoinette Burton, Justine Murison, and Siobhan Somerville for taking the time to read drafts of my project, listen to me work though half-baked ideas, and offer invaluable feedback. My committee members Jodi Byrd, Fred Hoxie, Robert Dale Parker, and Robert Warrior were invaluable resources, shaping the direction and focus of my project in ways that have unquestionably made it better than it would have been without their astute advice. Jodi Byrd’s critical indigenous theory course also had a huge influence on the way I initially shaped my project, as well as the methodological and theoretical infrastructure underpinning my work. While I quote Jodi extensively throughout Wide Open Spaces, there is no doubt that her scholarship and intellectual guidance have influenced the major strokes of the dissertation. She is vii a mentor, a colleague, and a friend. And finally, I am indebted to my dissertation director, Trish Loughran. Trish is the best reader I know. Sometimes her comments were difficult to hear, but they always made my work better. Her humor, patience, and kindness got me through the hurdles and writer’s block that invariably accompany any project. She is, to put it simply, the best. I have had the privilege of being surrounding by an amazing network of friends during my doctoral career. When I was convinced I should scrap the entire project and was full of doubt, they were there to comfort me. They proved amazing distractions, and sounding boards, and my life is better as an academic and a person for knowing them. Thanks to you all for your warmth, your support, and your love. You challenge me in all the right ways, and for that I am grateful. T.J. Tallie and Ben Bascom supplied me with delicious food and dancing when much needed. Stephanie Seawell, you are one of the funniest people I know. S. Moon Cassinelli, John Musser, and Kyle Mays, I am not sure if I would have made it through without you.

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