4 - Non-fiction prose

Summary

Much of what has been written about American Indian literature so far generates the false impression that its beginnings date back to the 1960s and that poetry and fiction are its predominant genres. The literary potential of American Indian “legendary materials” has been recognized since the publication of Henry Rowe Schoolcraft's Algic Researches (1839) and Longfellow's Hiawatha (1855). Consequently, Euro-American readers have been more inclined to welcome the fusion of traditional storytelling and creative writing than to give up the common belief that there is an unbridgeable gap between expository writing and orally transmitted knowledge. English non-fiction prose produced by American Indians has received relatively little critical attention so far because “the keeping of written records” (Webster's) continues to be regarded as the essential distinction between civilization and primal oral societies. We are obviously much more familiar with the farewell orations attributed to Logan and Seattle than the countless letters, petitions, and tracts penned by acculturated Indian leaders seeking to affirm native rights to a prosperous future in America. Nonetheless, non-fiction prose has fully dominated American Indian letters since at least the second half of the eighteenth century. If one is also prepared to accept newspapers as a legitimate forum for literary production, then it continues to do so today. This essay focuses on the following fluid categories of non-fiction prose literature: evangelist, council, periodical, political, humorous, historical, and contemplative (see also the separate section on autobiographies in this book).