Note Taking and Abstract

Simpson, Audra. “From White into Red: Captivity Narratives as Alchemies of Race and Citizenship.” American Quarterly 60.2 (2008): 251-257.

This essay seeks to use the story of Eunice Williams to think about ways in which her experience and the types of attention it continues to receive influences modern gendered legislation and alienation among native peoples through the historical views and political movements that discourse around captivity narratives has influenced. Simpson contends that Eunice Williams’ father’s disbelief in her desire to remain a Mohawk and his rhetoric in describing the events in The Redeemed Captive has carried over to scholarship of the events and white beliefs on the mutual exclusivity of both ethnicities, influencing The Indian Act of 1876 to legally define mixed-race individuals and strip them of their heritage (252).

“From White into Red” takes an historic approach, describing the historic context of the captivity narrative of Eunice Williams among the Mohawks as told by her father, the Reverend John Williams and linking it to the current ostracization of native women (251). The fact that there are a multitude of facts about the girl, but not the Mohawk mother that adopted her is only part of the story (251); the retelling of this and other popular captivity narratives illuminates the need to enforce difference through legal frames in order to maintain a hierarchy of the value of cultures. It is this hierarchy that allowed for settlers to value the cultural identity of whites over natives and justify claims of ownership over land (254).

The need for racism to facilitate land ownership eventually led to legislation like The Indian Act in Canada that conferred right of land ownership not along traditional Iroquois lines of decent from one’s mother but through the ethnicity of one’s father. This legislation regulated mixed marriages, stripped women of their rights to their heritage by removing their legal right to pass their status to their children, and maintained the differences between the races needed to maintain hierarchical power structures (254). Though repealed in 1960, the lasting effect of this legislation has been the alienation of Native Indian women should they choose to marry outside the tribe; since women who married whites during the time when the legislation was active were no longer considered legally Indian, it was expected that they would leave the reservation to live with their new husband (255). This loss of identity is further explored in Simpson’s analysis of bill C-31 in her articles “Paths Towards a Mohawk Nation” and “To the Reserve and Back Again” (256).

Notes on the Essay:

Notation Style:

The Sentence Method Modified: Notes in sentences, but not in page order. Sentences are arranged in order of relevance to their final use in the abstract and will double as an outline later.

Abstract Notes: Write as concisely and yet as meaningfully as possible. 

·         Summarize and explain the scholar’s argument, including key points. (Here you are answering the question, What is the critic's project? (thesis, type of approach, major points and larger implications.)

252 Thesis: This essay seeks to use the story of Eunice Williams to think about ways in which her experience and the types of attention it continues to receive influences modern gendered legislation and alienation among native peoples through the historical views and political movements that discourse around this narrative has influenced.

252 Simpson contends that Eunice Williams’ father’s disbelief in her desire to remain a Mohawk has carried over to scholarship of the event and white attitudes on the mutual exclusivity of  both ethnicities, influencing The Indian Act of 1876 to legally define mixed-race individuals and strip them of their heritage.

·         Once you have summarized the article, please analyze how it works.  (How are arguments framed within an ongoing scholarly conversation about the issue or text the critic studies? What counts as evidence for this critic? What issues are attended to and/or overlooked by the critic’s approach?)

From White into Red take an historic approach, describing the historic context of the captivity narrative of Eunice Williams among the Mohawks as told by her father, the Reverend John Williams and linking it to the current ostracization of Mohawk women (251).

251 The fact that there are a multitude of facts about the girl, but not the Mohawk mother that adopted her is only part of the story;

253 the retelling of this and other popular captivity narratives illuminates the need to enforce difference through legal frames in order to maintain a hierarchy of the value of cultures.

254 It is this hierarchy that allowed for settlers to value the identity of the white female over the native and justify claims of ownership over the land.

·         Following this analysis, consider the relationship between the article/essay/chapter and your project.  Why is it important?  In what ways has this essay added to your thinking about your project?  Which one or two points are most compelling and why? Characterize your view of the argument—is it successful, confusing, inadequate, illuminating?  Was this article/essay/chapter useful for thinking through where you might want to go next?  Explain.   For what other research projects in the class might this article be useful?  Would you recommend it and why? 

254 The need for racism to facilitate ownership eventually led to legislation like The Indian Act in Canada that conferred right of land ownership not along traditional Iroquois lines of decent from one’s mother but through the ethnicity of one’s father. This legislation regulated mixed marriages, stripped women of their rights to their heritage by removing their legal right to pass their status to their children, and maintained the differences between the races needed to maintain hierarchical power structures.

255 Though repealed in 1960, the lasting effect of this legislation has been the alienation of Native Indian women should they choose to marry outside the tribe; since women who married whites during the time when the legislation was active were no longer considered legally Indian, it was expected that they would leave the reservation to live with their new husband.