The Indian Chief as Tragic Hero: Native Resistance and the Literatures of America, from Moctezuma to TecumsehUniv of North Carolina Press, 2006 M05 18 - 368 pages The leaders of anticolonial wars of resistance--Metacom, Pontiac, Tecumseh, and Cuauhtemoc--spread fear across the frontiers of North America. Yet once defeated, these men became iconic martyrs for postcolonial national identity in Canada, the United States, and Mexico. By the early 1800s a craze arose for Indian tragedy on the U.S. stage, such as John Augustus Stone's Metamora, and for Indian biographies as national historiography, such as the writings of Benjamin Drake, Francis Parkman, and William Apess. With chapters on seven major resistance struggles, including the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 and the Natchez Massacre of 1729, The Indian Chief as Tragic Hero offers an analysis of not only the tragedies and epics written about these leaders, but also their own speeches and strategies, as recorded in archival sources and narratives by adversaries including Hernan Cortes, Antoine-Simon Le Page du Pratz, Joseph Doddridge, Robert Rogers, and William Henry Harrison. Sayre concludes that these tragedies and epics about Native resistance laid the foundation for revolutionary culture and historiography in the three modern nations of North America, and that, at odds with the trope of the complaisant "vanishing Indian," these leaders presented colonizers with a cathartic reproof of past injustices. |
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Contents
2 Moctezuma | |
3 Metacom | |
4 Pontiac | |
5 Logan | |
6 The Natchez | |
7 The Pueblo Revolt | |
8 Tecumseh | |
Notes | |
Works Cited | |
Index | |
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Common terms and phrases
attack Aztec battle biography British brother captive century chapter Chateaubriand claimed colonial colonists Conanchet conquest conspiracy Cortés Creek cultural death Detroit di√erent Doddridge Drake Dumont Dunmore’s War Durán e√ort Enemy to Heroh England English epic European father French frontier genre Grand Soleil Harrison Heroh heroic historians imperial Indian chief Indian dramas Indian leaders Indian tragedy Indian tragic hero Iroquois Je√erson John killed King Philip’s Les Natchez literary Logan Louisiana massacre Metacom Metamora Mexico missionary Moctezuma Mound Builders myth narrative Natchez nation Native American Neolin nineteenth-century novel o√ered omens Paxton Boys Philip play plot political Ponteach Pontiac Pontiac’s rebellion Popé Pratz Prophet published Pueblo Revolt Quetzalcoatl rebel republican resistance Richardson Rogers Rogers’s romantic sacrifice savage scene Serpent Piqué Shawnee Spaniards Spanish speech Stinkard story su√ered Tecumseh Tenochtitlán Tenskwatawa Topiltzin Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl tragic hero tribe trope uprising victims Wampanoag warriors writing wrote Yamoyden