Modernity through Letter Writing

Cherokee and Seneca Political Representations in Response to Removal, 1830–1857

Claudia B. Haake

• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781496215673
• eBook ISBN: 9781496222930
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: Social Sciences

In Modernity through Letter Writing Claudia B. Haake shows how the Cherokees and Senecas envisioned their political modernity in missives they sent to members of the federal government to negotiate their status. They not only used their letters, petitions, and memoranda to reject incorporation into the United States and to express their continuing adherence to their own laws and customs but also to mark areas where they were willing to compromise. As they found themselves increasingly unable to secure opportunities for face-to-face meetings with representatives of the federal government, Cherokees and Senecas relied more heavily on letter writing to conduct diplomatic relations with the U.S. government. The amount of time and energy they expended on the missives demonstrates that authors from both tribes considered letters, memoranda, and petitions to be a crucial political strategy. Instead of merely observing Western written conventions, the Cherokees and Senecas incorporated oral writing and consciously insisted on elements of their own culture they wanted to preserve, seeking to convey to the government a vision of their continued political separateness as well as of their own modernity.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. Civilization and the Removal Policy
• 2. Authorship and Writing Practices
• 3. Ideas of Law in a New Age of Letter-Writing Diplomacy
• 4. Indian Tradition and Diplomatic Custom
• 5. The Bonds between People, Land, and Culture
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• About Claudia B. Haake
• Illustrations