An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States

With coward design,
Have dared with black envy to garble the truth,
And stain with a falsehood they valorous youth. 34
Parker notes that “metrically, this is probably JJS’s most intricate poem.”
It is not difficult to see why. She includes in the poem her grandfather’s
dodem (clan), which was reindeer. She also explains the fearlessness with
which her grandfather fought on behalf of his people, and desired that
“though thy spirit has fled, / to the hills of the dead / Yet thy name shall be
held in my heart’s warmest core, / And cherish’d till valour and love be no
more.” 35
Johnston Schoolcraft’s literary work is important for at least a few
reasons. First, as mentioned above, she is likely the first Indigenous female
literary writer, akin to Phillis Wheatley. Second, her literary work sought to
preserve Anishinaabe stories, songs, and ways of knowing for both white
and Indigenous audiences. We should carefully include the work of
Schoolcraft’s literary brilliance in how we teach nineteenth-century
American literature. We also need to continue recovering the literature of
other nineteenth-century Indigenous women, in all of its forms, and place
them in conversation with African American women of the time. This
would offer us an opportunity to understand notions of identity, gender,
nationalism, and belonging, but also help us think through how Black and
Indigenous women envisioned freedom.
DRED SCOTT AND THE BLACK AND RED DIVIDE
The long nineteenth century is about oppression and how Black and Native
people responded to that oppression. But we must not forget that their
oppression was deeply embedded in US society, rooted in the
rapid development of capitalism and the law. For example, while there were
many laws that spoke of the limits of the rights of the enslaved, perhaps
nothing more clearly defined that oppression than the case of Dred Scott v.
Sandford.
John Emerson purchased Dred Scott after Scott’s first master died in
1832. Emerson took Scott to Illinois, which was a free state, and later to
Wisconsin. There, Scott married his wife, Harriet. In 1837, Emerson moved
to Louisiana and married Irene Sandford. Dred Scott joined them, and after