This paper will examine the way that Indian eloquence was represented
in print media, primarily schoolbooks, to white Americans in the early
Republic. Far from simply constructing the Indian as "other" for American
readers, the reprinted speeches of these eloquent Indians usually articulated
in shocking clarity how Anglo-americans had abused their relationship with
the increasingly less powerful Indian tribes, breaking promises and treaties,
stealing land, and extolling Christian morals which they themselves failed
to uphold. Such speeches were printed in schoolbooks, alongside the eloquence
of Washington, Patrick Henry, and other American leaders, they contextually
gained status as examples of a nascent American literature.
Building upon the works of Philip Deloria, David Murray, and Richard White, I will elucidate how those Indian speeches and other stories about Indian eloquence helped construct a nationalist American identity in several competing and contradictory ways. First, these representations fabricated a composite Indian identity, erasing distinctions between tribes -- a composite identity which permitted writers similarly address their white readers as a unified body of "Americans" who shared the blame for wrongs against the Indians. On another level, those readers used schoolbooks in particularly active ways -- specifically, to learn to read, and to learn the skills of reading aloud and public speaking. Therefore, the schoolchildren and budding orators who used these texts "played Indian," taking on an Indian voice with which to censure their fellow Americans -- and themselves? -- for generations of misconduct. Finally, by analyzing how those popular representations of eloquent Indians changed over the period 1780-1830, I will show how the invention of American identity frequently necessitated silencing that Indian censor and aestheticizing "Indian-talk" as style rather than substance.