Becoming America - An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution, 2018a

BECOMING AMERICA
REVOLUTIONARY AND EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD LITERATURE
3. How does Apess undermine whites’ assumptions of their superiority to
Native Americans? To what eect?
4. Why, and in what way, does Apess use rhetorical tropes and phrases
deriving from white European discourse (like the King James Bible)?
5. What “Christian” virtues does Apess claim for Native Americans, and
why?
4.10 JANE JOHNSTON SCHOOLCRAFT
(1800–1842)
Jane Johnston Schoolcraft’s parents
were John Johnston, an Irish immigrant
fur trader, and the daughter of Waub
Ojeeg, chief of the Ojibwe. Schoolcraft’s
original Ojibwe name was Bamewawagezhikaquay,
which means a woman who
moves, making sound in the heavens.
Both of Schoolcraft’s parents educated
her: her father through his library;
her mother, through her knowledge of
Ojibwe lore and customs. This mediation
enabled Schoolcraft to later help her husband,
Henry Rowe Schoolcraft (1793–
1864), to publish over twenty books and a
number of articles on Native Americans.
In 1826, the couple founded the journal
The Literary Voyager, or Muzzeniegun.
Schoolcraft published several articles
Image 4.9 | Jane Johnston Schoolcraft
for this journal, taking on the persona of Artist | Unknown
Source | Wikimedia Commons
Leelinau, an Ojibwe woman able to write
License | Public Domain
knowledgeably about Ojibwe life and
traditions. In this way, Schoolcraft continued to serve as a mediator between whites
and Native Americans. She does so, for example, in Mishosha, an Ojibwe folktale
that introduces readers to such Ojibwe values as bravery and loyalty. In eect, much
of her writing recorded Ojibwe’s fast-dying culture. Schoolcraft also contributed
poetry, using the pseudonym of Rosa, writing in both English and Ojibwan.
Like the words of many Native Americans, Schoolcraft’s work was also ltered
to whites by a white, in this case, Schoolcraft’s husband. He edited and often took
credit for her work. Schoolcraft and her husband had four children, two of whom
survived to adulthood. She separated from her husband in 1830.
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