Rev. Erudite Redneck, B.S., B.S., M.A., M.Div.

All y'all who left comments on the previous post are my very best friends. Seriously, I think all but one or two of the best friends I have in the world left a comment. Others have wished me well in other ways. To all, I thank you.

When I started out to work on an M.A. in the summer of 2001, all I wanted to do was get me some more letters to go after my name, and to earn a credential to write history -- and to be taken seriously as a writer of history.

Looks like I pulled it off, or will, eventually.

Y'all who have been with me in spirit all along, bless you. :-)

Here, for giggles, is the abstract of my thesis:

NAME: (Erudite Redneck)

TITLE OF THESIS:
Civilized Scribes: Voices of Opinion in the Choctaw Press, 1849-1852

DIRECTOR OF THESIS: Dr. (Fellow Erudite Redneck)

PAGES: 226

ABSTRACT: Blistering topics -- slavery, the abolition movement, threat of secession, the glorious past and uncertain future of the Union – filled the nation’s newspapers in the years just after the Mexican War: the Choctaw Nation. The prospect of statehood for former Mexican California, what to do about New Mexico and its border with Texas, and how, exactly, to prosecute the “manifest destiny” that United States leaders envisioned for their country tore political scabs from sectional divisions only temporarily smoothed over by previous generations of compromisers. The constitutional tempest struck the Five Civilized Tribes -– Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole -- whose fortunes were tied directly to the United States. The Choctaw Telegraph, in 1848-1849, then the Choctaw Intelligencer, in 1850-1852, caught, repeated and refracted the rebellion talk and, like newspapers all over the continent, added their own voices to the journalistic cacophony. Contrary to some scholars’ assertions, such Indian voices can be discerned. The Choctaw editors’ voices were distinctly Southern in tone, content and rhetorical inflection –- not quite proto-Confederate, but, from the vantage of the twenty-first century, they were definitely antebellum accents from the Lower Mississippi Valley: Christian, racist, proud, nationalistic -– and Indian. Like white editors in the West, the “Civilized” natives also kept an eye on “wild” Indians on the still largely unexplored Plains. They joined Americans in their fascination with all the gold in California, as well as reports of similar wealth hidden in the nearby Wichita Mountains. The editors commented on local, state, national and international affairs. They condemned crime in their midst. The editors editorialized against alcohol in a crusade for the soul of the Choctaw nation. Except for their occasional use of Choctaw type and their place of publication, at Doaksville, Choctaw Nation, Indian Territory, a few miles north of a crook in the Red River east of present Hugo, Oklahoma, the Choctaw Telegraph and Choctaw Intelligencer could have been mistaken for white frontier newspapers. A close reading of their editorials, however, shows that they were not typical frontier newspapers. They were Indian newspapers. Their editors were “Civilized Scribes.”

Copyright 2005. All rights reserved.

--ER