The tutor'd mind : Indian missionary-writers in antebellum America

Summary: Part historical narrative, part textual analysis, this book traces the development of American Indian literature from the seventeenth century to the eve of the Civil War. Bernd C. Peyer focuses on the lives and writings of four prominent Indian missionaries - Samson Occom of the Mohegans, William Apess of the Pequots, Elias Boudinot of the Cherokees, and George Copway of the Ojibwas - each of whom struggled to negotiate a secure place between the imperatives of colonial rule and the rights of native peoples.

Record details

ISBN: 1558490981 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN: 9781558490987 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN: 155849099X (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN: 9781558490994 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Physical Description: print
x, 420 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.
Publisher: Amherst : University of Massachusetts Press, c1997.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:

Includes bibliographical references (p. 297-392) and index.

Formatted Contents Note:

The Indian writer and the colonial situation -- Forest diplomats, praying Indians, and savage scholars : seventeenth-century beginnings -- Samson Occom and the vision of a New England Christian Indian polity -- William Apess, Pequot-Mashpee insurrectionist of the Removal Era -- Elias Boudinot and the Cherokee betrayal -- George Copway, Canadian Ojibwa Methodist and romantic cosmopolite -- The transition of American Indian literature from salvationism to modernity.