Now I Must Go Home and Plant a Tree...

I’m at the UCF library working on my paper proposal on “The Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison” and I just printed out so many PDFs, that I must go home and plant a tree!

After abstracting Susan Walsh’s essay “With Them Was My Home: Native American Autobiography and A Narrative of the life of Mrs. Mary Jemison,” I am looking at a new direction to take my research. Susan Walsh reveals in her essay the influences that may or may to have contributed to the "A Narrative of the Life of Mary Jemison." Jemison was sought out to tell her story and instead of the editors getting a story of Indian rage and mayhem, they got a narrative “extolling Indian virtue and denouncing the genocidal introduction of alcohol into the Iroquois nations” (49). Walsh documents four ways in which four scholars have examined Jemison’s text with Richard Slotkin coming from a place of racial degradation to Annette Kolodny showing how the narrative demonstrates to white female readers an example of “willing wilderness accommodations” (50) to Elisabeth Tooker and Anthony Wallace showing how the narrative reconstructs Seneca life despite Seaver’s interference and finally how Richard Vanderbeets’s theory of the narrative being a marketing ploy and an “opportunistic embellishment” of Jemison’s words. All of these scholars demonstrate how this narrative can be approached from various directions and how readers might first get involved in the text by focusing on Jemison’s whiteness. Walsh is looking for those places in Jemison’s narrative where Native American facets intersect or clash with the editors: “no interpretation can determine once and for all who…is speaking in Anglo-Indian bicultural productions, just as no approach to the Narrative can recuperate a sense of Indian culture as lived experience” (51). Walsh wants to examine where the subject and editor collide: where does the narrator stop and the editor begin?

What really struck me is how Seaver’s own ideas of how women operate in Native cultures skewed his view because of his being influenced by patriarchal ideology and he could not comprehend how a white woman was able to fully participate in a tribe’s oral traditions. Much of the research I have read tends to focus on Jemison’s whiteness in Native culture, but I’m seeing her as immersed in and becoming part of the culture. How else could she participate in cultural customs and ceremonies?

Seaver came to the table with a mistrust saying Jemison edited herself in their sessions. We are never truly sure whose point of view is coming through. For example, Walsh claims that Jemison’s first marriage was “deeply satisfying to both husband and wife” (54) and she points out how there is an initial reluctance to the union. What we don’t know is whether the prejudice against miscegenation comes from the writer or the orator. Walsh also shows that we don’t know if Seaver’s language influenced the way readers interpret the way Jemison presents this scene. Is Jemison hesitant because this marriage will forever tie her to the Senecas or is she voicing hesitation at becoming part of the “mother-daughter connection at the very core of Iroquois culture” (54)? Was it even her hesitation we get from the text? Reiterating how Jemison embraced her life among the Indians, Walsh claims that Jemison “most assuredly” told Seaver that the Indians, before being introduced to alcohol, were a happy people and with them Jemison was at home.

For my research, this essay laid the groundwork of breaking apart Jemison’s text and questioning what may have come from Jemison and where Seaver may have been an influence. The narrative can be viewed as the binary between the noble, faithful Indian and the sneaky, feckless white people and what Walsh is suggesting is that the narrative is more than colonial stereotypes. I’m thinking I want to examine Jemison’s Indian-ness and how it operates in the text, hence all the PDFs I just printed. Time to start reading and planting.

:)

Walsh, Susan. “With Them Was My Home.” American Literature: A Journal of Literary
History, Criticism, and Bibliography 64.1 (Mar. 1992): 49-70.

Pigeons make good eatin'

too many directions, too many pigeons

As I'm starting to delve deeper into what other people are writing about my chosen text, I find myself getting more intrigued, more confused and now the pigeons are flying all over the freakin' place. I wish I could win the lottery so I could just work on this project. If I could only focus on one thing and not be pulled in so many directions (my Ecofeminism independent study is suffering and I'm so in the weeds with that one. BTW...there's no pigeons "waiting in the weeds," to quote Don Henley).

Somehow I'll manage. I want to do more but I can't get the freakin' pigeons to calm down (sorry, I'm really frustrated).

I'm going to take Jack to the squirrel park now to hike ( and maybe kick some pigeons). Maybe that will help!
:)

Preliminary Bibliography

I'm not sure if I'm excited or overwhelmed or over-medicated (thanks UCF Health Center), but my search for my preliminary bibliography has been truly successful. I think I was most excited when searching keyword "American Captivity Narrative" in the America: History and Life database, I came across an entry by our very own Dr. Logan! I found out that I had to generate tighter keywords otherwise I'd still be searching through too many entries (ex. "American capitivity narrative" and not just "captivity narrative"). During my brief tenure at UCF TV I was responsible for creating the keywords for our program database. Every UCF TV program I previewed and wrote program descriptions for, I also had to create the keywords. I'm not sure if they've implemented them yet...maybe on YouTube, but it was an invaluable skill for me to acquire.

Anyway...I can see how these research projects can become so involved and intense. I feel what I have here is a good start. :)

Preliminary Bibliography

keywords from Namias edition 1992 : Chronology p. xiii:
Mary Jemison, American captivity narrative, Seven Years War, Shawnees, Senecas, Sheninjee, Hiokatoo, Sullivan Expedition, James E. Seaver

MLA Bibliography

KEYWORD: MARY JEMISON
Adams, Melissa. "Transporting Possibilities: Reading Cultural Difference in Captivity
Narratives." Transport(s) in the British Empire and the Commonwealth/Transport(s) dans l'Empire britannique et le Commonwealth. 421-441. Montpellier, France: Université Paul Valéry, 2006.

Burnham, Michelle. "'However Extravagant the Pretension': Bivocalism and US Nation-Building
in A Narrative of the Life of Mrs Mary Jemison." Nineteenth-Century Contexts 23.3 (2001): 325-347.

Dickinson, Philip A. "The Captivated Self: Hybridity, the Carnivalesque, and the Cultural Labor
of Subject Formation in Three American Captivities." Dissertation Abstracts International, Section A: The Humanities and Social Sciences 61.7 (Jan. 2001): 2773-2773.

Griffin, Edward M. "Women in Trouble: The Predicament of Captivity and the Narratives of
Mary Rowlandson, Mary Jemison, and Hannah Dustan." Für eine offene Literaturwissenschaft: Erkundungen und Eroprobungen am Beispiel US-amerikanischer Texte/Opening Up Literary Criticism: Essays on American Prose and Poetry. 41-51. Salzburg: Neugebauer, 1986.

Keitel, Evelyne. "Captivity Narratives and the Power of Horror: Eunice Williams and Mary
Jemison, Captives Unredeemed." 1650-1850: Ideas, Aesthetics, and Inquiries in the Early Modern Era 5 (2000): 275-297.

Oakes, Karen. "We Planted, Tended and Harvested Our Corn: Gender, Ethnicity, and
Transculturation in A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison." Women and Language 18.1 (Spring 1995): 45-51.

Scheckel, Susan Elizabeth. "Shifting Boundaries: The Poetics and Politics of the American
Frontier, 1820-1850." Dissertation Abstracts International 53.10 (Apr. 1993): 3531A-3531A.

Scheckel, Susan. "Mary Jemison and the Domestication of the American Frontier." Desert,
Garden, Margin, Range: Literature on the American Frontier. 93-109. New York: Twayne, 1992.

Walsh, Susan. "'With Them Was My Home': Native American Autobiography and A Narrative of
the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison." American Literature: A Journal of Literary History, Criticism, and Bibliography 64.1 (Mar. 1992): 49-70.

KEYWORD: AMERICAN CAPTIVITY NARRATIVE
Finnegan, Jordana. "Refiguring Legacies of Personal and Cultural Dysfunction in Janet Campbell Hale's Bloodlines: Odyssey of a Native Daughter." Studies in American Indian Literatures: The Journal of the Association for the Study of American Indian Literatures 19.3 (Fall 2007): 68-86.

Harrison, Rebecca L. "Captive Women, Cunning Texts: Confederate Daughters and the 'Trick-
Tongue' of Captivity." Dissertation Abstracts International, Section A: The Humanities and Social Sciences 68.4 (Oct. 2007): 1459-1459.

Simpson, Audra. "From White into Red: Captivity Narratives as Alchemies of Race and
Citizenship." American Quarterly 60.2 (June 2008): 251-257.

KEYWORD: SHAWNEE TRIBE
Howard, James H. Shawnee! The Ceremonialism of a Native Indian Tribe and Its Cultural
Background Athens: Ohio UP, 1981.

KEYWORD: SENECA INDIAN
Bilharz, Joy. "First among Equals? The Changing Status of Seneca Women." Women and Power
in Native North America. 101-112. Norman, OK: U of Oklahoma P, 1995.

Carlson, David J. Sovereign Selves: American Indian Autobiography and the Law Urbana, IL: U
of Illinois P, 2006.

Dennis, Matthew. "Red Jacket's Rhetoric: Postcolonial Persuasions on the Native Frontiers of the Early American Republic." American Indian Rhetorics of Survivance: Word Medicine, Word Magic. 15-33. Pittsburgh, PA: U of Pittsburgh P, 2006.

Green, Debra Kathryn. "The Hymnody of the Seneca Native Americans of Western New York."
Dissertation Abstracts International, Section A: The Humanities and Social Sciences 58.6 (Dec. 1997): 1977-1977.


America: History and Life

KEYWORD: MARY JEMISON
Brown, Harry. "'The Horrid Alternative': Miscegenation And Madness In The Frontier
Romance." Journal of American & Comparative Cultures 24.3 (2001): 137-151.

Hughes, James. "Those Who Passed Through: Unusual Visits To Unlikely Places. Mary Jemison." New York History 87.1 (2006): 144-148.

Rosenberg-Naparsteck, Ruth. "THE LEGACY OF MARY JEMISON." Rochester History 68.1
(2006): 1-32.

Wyss, Hilary E. "Captivity And Conversion: William Apess, Mary Jemison, And Narratives Of
Racial Identity." American Indian Quarterly 23.3 (1999): 63-82.

KEYWORD: AMERICAN CAPTIVITY NARRATIVE
Barbeito, Patricia Felisa. "'Captivity as Consciousness: The Literary and Cultural Imagination of
the American Self'." (1998).

Ben-Zvi, Yael. "Ethnography And The Production Of Foreignness In Indian Captivity
Narratives." American Indian Quarterly 32.1 (2008): ix-xxxii.

Castro, Wendy Lucas. "Stripped: Clothing and Identity in Colonial Captivity Narratives." Early
American Studies, An Interdisciplinary Journal 6.1 (2008): 104-136.

Castiglia, Christopher Dean. "'Captive Subject: The Captivity Narrative and American Women's
Writing'." (1992).

Ebersole, Gary L. "The Captors' Narrative: Catholic Women and Their Puritan Men on the Early
American Frontier." Catholic Historical Review 93.3 (2007): 704-706.

Fast, Robin Riley. "Resistant History: Revising The Captivity Narrative In 'Captivity' And
'Blackrobe: Isaac Jogues'." American Indian Culture & Research Journal 23.1 (1999): 69-86.
Furbeck, Lee Foard. "'Captured by Indians: Manifestations of the Indian Captivity Narrative in
the Early American Novel'." (1999).

George, Susanne. "Nineteenth Century Native American Autobiography As Captivity Narrative."
Heritage of the Great Plains 30.1 (1997): 33-48.

Green, Keith Michael. "'Master Narratives: Captivity and Nineteenth-Century American
Autobiographical Writing, 1816-1861'." (2008).

Hartman, James D. "Providence Tales And The Indian Captivity Narrative: Some Transatlantic
Influences On Colonial Puritan Discourse."

Logan, Lisa Marie. "'Captivity and the Subject of American Women's Popular Narrative, 1676-
1865'." (1994).

Mackenthun, Gesa. "Captives And Sleepwalkers: The Ideological Revolutions Of Post-
Revolutionary Colonial Discourse." European Review of Native American Studies 11.1 (1997): 19-26.

KEYWORD: SEVEN YEARS WAR

Crouch, Christian Ayne. "'Imperfect Reflections: New France's Use of Indigenous Violence and
the Crisis of French Empire during the Seven Years' War, 1754-1760'." (2008).

Farry, Andrew Stephen. "'`The Peculiar Circumstances of This Army': An Archaeological Study
of Anglo-American Cultural Variability along the Seven Years' War Frontier'." (2007).

Furstenberg, François. "The Significance Of The Trans-Appalachian Frontier In Atlantic
History." American Historical Review 113.3 (2008): 647-677

KEYWORD: SHAWNEE

Scott, Gregory K. "'A People of Consequence: The Shawnee, 1662-1789'." (2007).
Steele, Ian. "Shawnee Origins of Their Seven Years' War." Ethnohistory 53.4 (2006): 657-687.
Rosenberg-Naparsteck, Ruth. "The Legacy Of Mary Jemison." Rochester History 68.1 (2006): 1-
32.

KEYWORD: SENECA TRIBE

Niemczycki, Mary Ann Palmer. "'The Origin and Development of the Seneca and Cayuga Tribes
of New York State'." (1984).

Shoemaker, Nancy. "THE RISE OR FALL OF IROQUOIS WOMEN." Journal of Women's
History 2.3 (1991): 39-57.

KEYWORD: SHENINJEE

Hughes, James. "Those Who Passed Through: Unusual Visits To Unlikely Places. Mary
Jemison." New York History 87.1 (2006): 144-148.

KEYWORD: HIOKATOO

Hughes, James. "Those Who Passed Through: Unusual Visits To Unlikely Places. Mary Jemison." New York History 87.1 (2006): 144-148.

KEYWORD: SULLIVAN EXPEDITION

Butterfield, L. H. "History At Its Headwaters." New York History 51.2 (1970): 127-146.

McAdams, Donald R. "The Sullivan Expedition Success Or Failure." New York Historical
Society Quarterly 54.1 (1970): 53-81.

KEYWORD: JAMES E. SEAVER

Wyss, Hilary E. "Captivity And Conversion: William Apess, Mary Jemison, And Narratives Of

Biography as the "telescope of life..."

As I am investigating my text, I am amazed how the deeper I dig, the more questions I come up with and how each new piece to the puzzle is sending me in a new direction. In the Preface to "The Narrative of the Life of Mary Jemison," James E. Seaver claims biography is the “best field in which to study mankind” (iii) and he places the written words of a person’s life above any other form of monument.

In the introduction, Seaver sets the scene for the narrative and describes the “Peace of 1783” (vii). Using the foundation of the history of post-Revolutionary War upstate New York, he introduces how the story of Mary Jemison, “The White Woman” became part of that history. He positions Mary as a kind, giving woman with a “natural goodness of heart” (viii), despite her years of association with an Indian companion and “notwithstanding her children and associates were all Indians” (viii). Realizing that her story was important from a historical standpoint, some prominent gentlemen from the area, especially Daniel W. Banister, Esq., decided to collect her stories. In 1823, Banister hired Seaver to “collect the materials, and prepare the work for press” (ix).

Seaver continues in his introduction by describing Mary and even admits: “[h]er appearance was well calculated to excite a great degree of sympathy” (x). Mary Jemison is depicted in the introduction in a compassionate light in order to create a sense of identification with the white audience. Her “whiteness” is shown in the introduction as her kind, giving qualities and this creates a believability for the audience while constructing a character that is sympathetic. As Seaver recounts her personal history in the narrative form, he displays the duality of Mary’s existence. He demonstrates how her whiteness creates sympathy which brings the audience into the story, while simultaneously reminding the audience that because she remained amongst the Indians, she became Indian: “when she looks up and is engaged in conversation her countenance is very expressive; but from her long residence with the Indians, she has acquired the habit of peeping from under eye-brows as they do with the head inclined downwards” (xi). This back and forth between cultures is explicitly addressed throughout the author’s introduction. I believe this cross-cultural exchange is the focus of the book. How does an individual from one culture be taken from that culture and forced into another only to stay part of that new culture by choice?

:)

Who invented the Micro Fiche?

I've been really sick all week but have been trying to keep up with all the work for my two graduate seminars and teaching my 3 sections of 1102. The UCF library tells me I the micro fiches I ordered through ILL were in, so I went to pick them up between classes on Tuesday.

Yesterday, in between my 12:00 and 4:00 class, I went up to the third floor to see if I could quickly print out a copy. What was I thinking? I didn't mind paying the 10 cents per copy but that micro fiche machine almost killed me! LOL. The guy who was helping me barely knew how to work it, then you have to slide the thing around, everything is backwards, going from page to page was frustrating. It hit that part of my brain where sense of direction is stored and that must have been the part of the brain that I smashed when I fell out of a car at age three. Or maybe it was all the cold medicine I was on, but at one point I was weeping over the archaic machinery.

I finally got the silly thing to print out what I needed for the next assignment, but it wasn't pretty. I wish there was a service where you could hand the paid staff at the library what you need copied and/or scanned. I would pay 20 cents a page for a service like that!

Okay...I still can't breathe and I'm really dizzy so I'm going back to bed and taking Charles Brockden Brown with me! Sorry I missed class last night. BTW...I've really enjoyed getting to see everyone's blogs. I love how I can "follow" all of them. Wish more people were following mine (thanks, Jay Jay).

:)

I have in my hand my own copy of "The Narrative of the Life of Mary Jemison" on microfiche and FTU says I can keep it! I've never owned a microfiche before. I'm kind of excited in a weird way. I also got the FSU copy, but they want it back.

I know nothing about microfiche except the pages on it are really tiny. I think the last time I dealt with anything like this, it was microfilm and you had to use the giant machine with the crank you turned to go to the next page! So I sat in my office at UCF yesterday between classes and had an e-chat with a librarian. She was wonderful and told me where to go and how much it would cost to print things out. She wasn't sure about creating a PDF so she gave me the name of Ven Basco, the coordinator of InfoSource/Research Consultation. He was very helpful. I think if it wasn't for the people at the UCF library, I'd still be floundering with my research project. Thanks library people!

:)