Remembering the woman known as Pocahontas and the myths surrounding her down to the present day This collection of essays is the first of its kind to focus exclusively on the woman known as Pocahontas. Contributions from established leaders in the field offer innovative perspectives on the life of Matoaka/Pocahontas, especially on the creation and perpetuation of her cultural image in the seventeenth century and beyond—and on how new archival research, interdisciplinary methodologies, and contemporary creative practice challenge that image. The chronological scope of this collection, compiled in honor of the late Monacan poet and historian Karenne Wood, illustrates the ongoing legacies of colonialism as they relate to recurring representations of and by Native American women. Contributors Karen Kupperman, New York University * Helen Rountree, Old Dominion University * Karenne Wood, Virginia Humanities * Lucinda Rasmussen, University of Alberta * Camilla Townsend, Rutgers University * E. M. Rose, Oxford University * James Ring Adams, National Museum of the American Indian * Graziella Crezegut, independent scholar * Cristina L. Azocar, San Francisco State University * Ivana Markova, San Francisco State University * Stephanie Pratt, independent scholar * Sarah Sense, artist

In Canada, adaptation is a national mode of survival, but it is also a way to create radical change. Throughout history, Canadians have been inheritors and adaptors: of political systems, stories, and customs from the old world and the new. More than updating popular narratives, adaptation informs understandings of culture, race, gender, and sexuality, as well as individual experiences. In Political Adaptation in Canadian Theatre Kailin Wright investigates adaptations that retell popular stories with a political purpose and examines how they acknowledge diverse realities and transform our past. Political Adaptation in Canadian Theatre explores adaptations of Canadian history, Shakespeare, Greek mythologies, and Indigenous history by playwrights who identify as English-Canadian, African-Canadian, French-Canadian, French, Kuna Rappahannock, and Delaware from the Six Nations. Along with new considerations of the activist potential of popular Canadian theatre, this book outlines eight strategies that adaptors employ to challenge conceptions of what it means to be Indigenous, Black, queer, or female. Recent cancellations of theatre productions whose creators borrowed elements from minority cultures demonstrate the need for a distinction between political adaptation and cultural appropriation. Wright builds on Linda Hutcheon's definition of adaptation as repetition with difference and applies identification theory to illustrate how political adaptation at once underlines and undermines its canonical source. An exciting intervention in adaptation studies, Political Adaptation in Canadian Theatre unsettles the dynamics of popular and political theatre and rethinks the ways performance can contribute to how one country defines itself.

"A gripping account of a fascinating woman and the role she played in the shaping of America."—TONY HILLERMAN AMERICA'S FOUNDING MOTHER In striking counterpoint to the conventional account, Pocahontas is a bold biography that tells the extraordinary story of the beloved Indian maiden from a Native American perspective. Dr. Paula Gunn Allen, the acknowledged founder of Native American literary studies, draws on sources often overlooked by Western historians and offers remarkable new insights into the adventurous life and sacred role of this foremost American heroine. Gunn Allen reveals why so many have revered Pocahontas as the female counterpart to the father of our nation, George Washington. "This first-rate biography of Pocahontas, one of the most important and elusive women in American history, ought to be required reading."—N. SCOTT MOMADAY, author of the Pulitzer Prize—winning House Made of Dawn "A fascinating study of the life and times of one of the most famous and at the same time least-known American women. I urge everyone to read this great eye-opener and monumental work."—ROBERT J. CONLEY, author of Sequoyah "Nothing less than a watershed event in the historiography of the Americas—not to mention one of the wittiest and wisest biographies I have ever read."—THE NEW YORK SUN "Gunn Allen attempts to place Pocahontas firmly in her Algonquin world and tell her story honoring the oral tradition of which Pocahontas was a part."—CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER "[In] Ms. Allen's spirited revision, [she] insists that Pocahontas cannot be understood except within an Algonquin Indian context."—WALL STREET JOURNAL "[F]ascinating and provocative . . . [Gunn Allen's] book gives powerful insight into the relationship between Native Americans, American colonists, and the British."—TIKKUN

Despite a recent increase in the productivity and popularity of Indigenous playwrights in Canada, most critical and academic attention has been devoted to the work of male dramatists, leaving female writers on the margins. In Indigenous Women’s Theatre in Canada, Sarah MacKenzie addresses this critical gap by focusing on plays by Indigenous women written and produced in the socio-cultural milieux of twentieth and twenty-first century Canada. Closely analyzing dramatic texts by Monique Mojica, Marie Clements, and Yvette Nolan, MacKenzie explores representations of gendered colonialist violence in order to determine the varying ways in which these representations are employed subversively and informatively by Indigenous women. These plays provide an avenue for individual and potential cultural healing by deconstructing some of the harmful ideological work performed by colonial misrepresentations of Indigeneity and demonstrate the strength and persistence of Indigenous women, offering a space in which decolonial futurisms can be envisioned. In this unique work, MacKenzie suggests that colonialist misrepresentations of Indigenous women have served to perpetuate demeaning stereotypes, justifying devaluation of and violence against Indigenous women. Most significantly, however, she argues that resistant representations in Indigenous women’s dramatic writing and production work in direct opposition to such representational and manifest violence.

Engaging Children in Vast Early America examines the often overlooked roles that children played in moments of contact between Indigenous groups, Europeans, and Africans in North and South America over the course of the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries. Adulthood is the default lens through which most of history is examined. This is because so few historians analyze the age or life stage of those they study. As a result, people of the past are often assumed to be adults when their actions or experiences align more closely with what modern society deems “adultlike.” Many of these “assumed adults,” however, were agentive children. This collaborative collection is the first of its kind to invite experts in the field of Vast Early America to engage with the history of childhood and youth. The result is nine innovative essays that expand our understanding of childhood and agentive children but also of empire and everyday life in Vast Early America. This accessible text is a unique resource for undergraduate courses in childhood and youth history, family history, and early American history.

Embarking on a quest to uncover your ancestry? Finding Your Family Tree is the perfect genealogy guide to have at your side, with special research techniques for underrepresented groups. Genealogy offers you the opportunity to understand who you are through your family history. With this knowledge, you can embrace your identity, understand your own health and wellness, reconnect with your roots and family origins, and find an overall sense of wholeness. Finding Your Family Tree: A Beginner’s Guide to Researching Your Family Tree is an ideal starting point for your own journey of self-discovery. Your are eager to learn your ancestry, but in these disconnected times it can be hard to figure out on your own. With author and expert genealogist Sharon L Morgan as your guide, you can explore even the thorniest family tree. Sharon shows you how to embrace the world of genealogical research and provides guidance for underrepresented groups, such as African Americans and Native Americans, and anyone else who is interested in connecting with their family background. In this engaging, accessible guide on how to do family research, you’ll find: Tips and tricks for using major online and offline research sources—without falling for false leads. Techniques for overcoming common research obstacles. Special attention to the challenges of genealogical research for groups that are underrepresented in the historical record. Sample research documents and useful visuals on how to interpret old records. Beyond exploring the practical challenges of researching your family history, this book will show you what’s most exciting about this research—the unique family stories and histories you’ll discover, but also the essential truths that bind and connect us all.

Encompassing view of humor in recent Native North American literature, with particular focus on Native self-image and identity. In contrast to the popular cliché of the "stoic Indian," humor has always been important in Native North American cultures. Recent Native literature testifies to the centrality of this tradition. Yet literary criticism has so farlargely neglected these humorous aspects, instead frequently choosing to concentrate on representations of trauma and cultural disruption, at the risk of reducing Native characters and Native cultures to the position of the tragicvictim. This first comprehensive study explores the use of humor in today's Native writing, focusing on a wide variety of texts spanning all genres. It combines concepts from cultural studies and humor studies with approaches byNative thinkers and critics, analyzing the possible effects of humorous forms of representation on the self-image and identity formation of Native individuals and Native cultures. Humor emerges as an indispensable tool for engaging with existing stereotypes: Native writers subvert degrading clichés of "the Indian" from within, reimagining Nativeness in a celebration of laughing survivors, "decolonizing" the minds of both Native and non-native readers, andcontributing to a renewal of Native cultural identity. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of Native Studies both literary and cultural. Due to its encompassing approach, it will also provide a point of entry for the wider readership interested in contemporary Native writing. Eva Gruber is Assistant Professor in the American Studies section of the Department of Literature at the University of Konstanz, Germany.

Most Americans know the story of Pocahontas, but not the fact that she was a Christian, and the reasons for her dramatic conversion. Pocahontas had a history-altering encounter with Jesus Christ. A key figure was Alexander Whitaker, pioneer Anglican missionary in Virginia, who taught Pocahontas the Christian faith--but is almost totally unknown today. This story of Pocahontas has never fully been told. Or it has been ridiculed. Yet it is true, as this book now documents. In these pages the real Pocahontas comes alive as a flesh-and-blood person with her own thoughts and decisions. This book shows the beauty, the romance, and the tragedy of Pocahontas's short life. It also traces the way the Pocahontas story has been used and misused over the past four hundred years, opening the door to the larger issue of the suppression of native peoples in U.S. history. The real story of Pocahontas presents a timely case study both in the history of missions and the history of America--an investigation of the interplay between gospel, culture, and national mythology.