Disturbing Indians: The Archaeology of Southern Fiction

239 Pages·2006·1.37 MB·English

by  Annette Trefzer

Disturbing Indians

Disturbing Indians
(cid:2)
The Archaeology of Southern Fiction
Annette Trefzer
The University of Alabama
Tuscaloosa
Copyright © 2007
The University of Alabama Press
Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487-0380
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Typeface: Minion
∞
The paper on which this book is printed meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for
Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Trefzer, Annette, 1960–
Disturbing Indians : the archaeology of southern ¤ction / Annette Trefzer.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8173-1542-9 (alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-8173-1542-X
1. American ¤ction—Southern States—History and criticism. 2. Indians in literature.
3. Southern States—In literature. 4. American ¤ction—20th century—History and
criticism. 5. Lytle, Andrew Nelson, 1902—Criticism and interpretation. 6. Gordon,
Caroline, 1895–1981—Criticism and interpretation. 7. Welty, Eudora,
1909–2001—Criticism and interpretation. 8. Faulkner, William, 1897–1962—
Criticism and interpretation. I. Title.
PS374.I49T74 2007
813′.52—dc22
2006017246
To my parents,
Christel and Hans Trefzer
There was a time when archaeology, as a discipline devoted to silent
monuments, inert traces, objects without context, and things left to the
past, aspired to the condition of history, and attained meaning only
through the resituation of a historical discourse; it might be said, to play on
words a little, that in our time history aspires to the condition of
archaeology, to the intrinsic description of the monument.
—Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge
Precious lamb, take the pencil,
mark your colonial ¤elds,
your revolutionary storage bins and pantry
Your whole map.
—Diane Glancy, “Cartography,” in The Relief of America
Contents
(cid:2)
List of Maps
ix
Acknowledgments
xi
Introduction
1
1. Excavating the Sites
Indians in Southern Texts and Contexts
6
2. Colonialism and Cannibalism
Andrew Lytle’s Conquest Narratives
31
3. Gendering the Nation
Caroline Gordon’s Cherokee Frontier
65
4. Native Americans and Nationalism
Eudora Welty’s Natchez Trace Fiction
109
5. Mimesis and Mimicry
William Faulkner’s Postcolonial Yoknapatawpha
145
Conclusion
180
Notes
183
Bibliography
201
Index
219
vii

Maps
(cid:2)
1. “Southern States and Mississippi Territory, 1816”
7
2. Detail of Giacomo Gastaldi’s map “Tierra Nova” of 1548
32
3. “Map of the Former Territorial Limits of
the Cherokee Nation of Indians”
66
4. Detail of “Master Development Plan of
the Natchez Trace Parkway”
110
5. “Lands in Mississippi Ceded by the Chickasaws to
the United States in 1832 and 1834”
146
ix