Jill Lepore is very aware of the power of the scribe. The title of the book and her introductory
argument make it clear that control over the account of an event after the war
is a powerful force. Lepore makes an interesting
statement, when referring to a quote from Daniel Gookin, a Colonist who had
noticed the absence of Christian Indian narratives in the historical record, “It
probably did not occur to Gookin that he might instead have encouraged one of
the literate Indians he knew to writes such an account; in fact he did not so
much notice the absence of accounts written by
Indians as the lack of discussion, in English accounts, about Indians”[1] Even literate Indians were not charged with
influencing the written record. This
removal from literary relevance of Indian accounts served a specific end.
The linguistic function also served to dehumanize
the Indians. Indian dwellings, though
organized and permanent, were not homes or towns. “Yet in refusing to consider Algonquin settlements
in swamp’s homes, the colonists absolved themselves of any possible violation
of the law of war in destroying them.”[2] Literacy was key and is still key in determine
the conditions of warfare.
In Lepore’s use of triangulation to place the
English identity before/during/after “King Phillips War” the use of moral
vocabulary serves to delineate between the “us” and “not” in a manner very consistent
with practices today.
No comments:
Post a Comment