Along the Archival Apocrypha of 'real Indian' Writing

Mark Alan Mattes, in “Along the Archival Apocrypha of ‘real Indian’ Writing,” explores nineteenth-century archival practices and evidentiary regimes that shaped later generations' understanding of the media practices... [ view full abstract ]

Mark Alan Mattes, in “Along the Archival Apocrypha of ‘real Indian’ Writing,” explores nineteenth-century archival practices and evidentiary regimes that shaped later generations' understanding of the media practices by which a Cayuga-Mingo Native American named Logan (Tachnechdorus) responded to the murder of his kin by white Virginians during Dunmore's War (1774). In addition to the textual archive of American literary history, the paper examines the oral histories of westward migrating Anglo-Americans and the founding and early networking of historical societies in search of "real Indian" writing. The work also considers the uptake of nineteenth-century processes of "archiving Logan" (Elmer, 2008) such as his twentieth-century monumentalization along the Ohio River Valley’s waterways and landscapes and in current day appropriations such as living history performances during Chautauqua meetings. In doing so, the work contributes to the ongoing interrogation of state and settler-colonial constructions of anti-indigenous authority over the meanings of Natives’ experiences.