Writing Indians
Subtitle: literacy, Christianity, and native community in early America
By: Hilary E. Wyss.
Series: Native Americans of the Northeast
Publisher: University of Massachusetts
Published: 2000
Place of publication: Amherst
Language: eng
Number of pages: 207
Subjects: American literature -- Indian authors -- History and criticism; Indians of North America -- New England -- Biography -- History and criticism; Christian converts -- New England -- Biography -- History and criticism; Indians of North America -- New England -- Intellectual life; American literature -- New England -- History and criticism; Christianity and literature -- New England -- History; Indians of North America -- Missions -- New England; Literacy -- New England -- History; Religion in literature; Indians in literature; Autobiography; New England -- In literature
Description: "Focusing on New England missionary settlements from the mid-seventeenth to the early nineteenth century, Hilary E. Wyss examines the ways in which Native American converts to Christianity developed their own distinct identity within the context of a colonial culture.".

"With an approach that weaves together literature, religious studies, and ethnohistory, Wyss grounds her work in the analysis of a rarely read body of "autobiographical" writings by Christian Indians, including letters, journal entries, and religious confessions.

She then juxtaposes these documents to the writings of better-known Native Americans such as Samson Occom as well as to the published works of Anglo-Americans, such as Mary Rowlandson's famous captivity narrative and Eleazor Wheelock's accounts of his charity schools.".

"In their search for ostensibly "authentic" Native voices, scholars have tended to overlook the writings of Christian Indians. Yet, Wyss argues, these texts reveal the emergence of a dynamic Native American identity through Christianity. More specifically, they show how the active appropriation of New England Protestantism contributed to the formation of a particular Indian identity that resisted colonialism by using its language against itself."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 189-202) and index.