Sunday, May 29, 2005
"Tubbee" and his nieces
Danged if I ain't gettin' some work done today!
I just up and decided to take a chapter from my thesis and pitch it to a historical journal that might find it interesting. This would the same chapter that provided grist for a presentation I made recently at a historical conference.
Pass a glass. I am milkin' my thesis for all it's worth.
And, I just whipped out an abstract for a paper I am fixin' to pitch to a university conference. From another chapter in said thesis. I'll tinker with it until time to actually submit it, but here 'tis:
“Tubbee” and His Nieces: A Colloquy on White Men, Choctaw Women, Intermarriage and ‘Indianness’ in the Choctaw Intelligencer, 1851.
The Choctaw Intelligencer’s editorial commentary wandered all over the Indian Territory racial map, so to speak, when it came to Choctaws and Chickasaws’ relationship with the United States. The most poignant opinions expressed came from letter writers and centered on the topic of what it meant to be “Indian.”
“Tubbee,” the nom de plume used by an obviously mixed-heritage Choctaw, joined a public colloquy on the types of settlers welcome in the Choctaw Nation with an open letter “To the Young Men of the United States” published June 4, 1851. He proposed to throw open the doors of the Choctaw Nation to white settlers – but not just anyone, only “those of you have attained twenty-one years – those of you who are not married, and those of you who have neither lands nor homes.”
A Choctaw woman writing under the pen name “Squaw” purported to answer for all Choctaw women. She held whites in lower regard than did Tubbee, and took exception to Tubbee’s desire to see homeless men come to the Choctaw Nation, “for if they were of any account they would have homes, and not be wandering about through the Indian nation in quest of homes.”
Squaw boldly dismissed Tubbee’s contention that Choctaw girls went wanting for husbands in a way that shows just where racial lines were drawn 150-plus years ago in the Choctaw Nation: “If we are squaws, we are doing far better than the young ladies of the Abolition land, where they are courted and gallanted by the Darkey gentlemen, and even marry (them).”
Letters from “Tubbee” and “Squaw,” who eventually was revealed as one of Tubbee’s nieces, along with writings from others drawn into the conversation, provide a snapshot of the Choctaws’ struggle to maintain the momentum of “progress” for their Americanized nation while securing their identity as a native people.
“Squaw” resisted the aims of her elite uncle by taking his letter, meant to boost white settlement, and turning it into a discussion of the appropriate roles of men and women in the Choctaw Nation in 1851.
xxxxxxxxxx
Not bad to get done before 3 p.m. Now, I can get some readin' done.
--ER
I just up and decided to take a chapter from my thesis and pitch it to a historical journal that might find it interesting. This would the same chapter that provided grist for a presentation I made recently at a historical conference.
Pass a glass. I am milkin' my thesis for all it's worth.
And, I just whipped out an abstract for a paper I am fixin' to pitch to a university conference. From another chapter in said thesis. I'll tinker with it until time to actually submit it, but here 'tis:
“Tubbee” and His Nieces: A Colloquy on White Men, Choctaw Women, Intermarriage and ‘Indianness’ in the Choctaw Intelligencer, 1851.
The Choctaw Intelligencer’s editorial commentary wandered all over the Indian Territory racial map, so to speak, when it came to Choctaws and Chickasaws’ relationship with the United States. The most poignant opinions expressed came from letter writers and centered on the topic of what it meant to be “Indian.”
“Tubbee,” the nom de plume used by an obviously mixed-heritage Choctaw, joined a public colloquy on the types of settlers welcome in the Choctaw Nation with an open letter “To the Young Men of the United States” published June 4, 1851. He proposed to throw open the doors of the Choctaw Nation to white settlers – but not just anyone, only “those of you have attained twenty-one years – those of you who are not married, and those of you who have neither lands nor homes.”
A Choctaw woman writing under the pen name “Squaw” purported to answer for all Choctaw women. She held whites in lower regard than did Tubbee, and took exception to Tubbee’s desire to see homeless men come to the Choctaw Nation, “for if they were of any account they would have homes, and not be wandering about through the Indian nation in quest of homes.”
Squaw boldly dismissed Tubbee’s contention that Choctaw girls went wanting for husbands in a way that shows just where racial lines were drawn 150-plus years ago in the Choctaw Nation: “If we are squaws, we are doing far better than the young ladies of the Abolition land, where they are courted and gallanted by the Darkey gentlemen, and even marry (them).”
Letters from “Tubbee” and “Squaw,” who eventually was revealed as one of Tubbee’s nieces, along with writings from others drawn into the conversation, provide a snapshot of the Choctaws’ struggle to maintain the momentum of “progress” for their Americanized nation while securing their identity as a native people.
“Squaw” resisted the aims of her elite uncle by taking his letter, meant to boost white settlement, and turning it into a discussion of the appropriate roles of men and women in the Choctaw Nation in 1851.
xxxxxxxxxx
Not bad to get done before 3 p.m. Now, I can get some readin' done.
--ER
