Possible Pasts : Becoming Colonial in Early America.

432 Pages·2018·26.13 MB·English

by  St. George

Podejitte Pa0to
This book was developed in association
with the McNeil Center for Early American
Studies and the Omohundro Institute
of Early American History and Culture
THE McNEIL CENTER FOR
EARLY AMERICAN STUDIES
Potfdi ble PdiJto
Becoming Colonial
in Early America
Edited by
ROBERT BLAIR ST. GEORGE
Cornell University Press / Ithaca and London
Copyright © 2000 by Cornell University
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review,
this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any
form without permission in writing from the publisher. For
information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House,
512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.
First published 2000 by Cornell University Press
First printing, Cornell Paperbacks, 2000
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Possible pasts : becoming colonial in early America / edited by Robert Blair St. George.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8014-3344-4 (cloth) — ISBN 0-8014-8392-1 (paper)
i. America—Colonization—Historiography—Congresses. 2. America—Colonization—
Social aspects—Congresses. 3. United States—History—Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775—
Congresses. 4. America—History—To 1810—Congresses. 5. Culture diffusion—
America—History—Congresses. 6. Culture conflict—America—History—Congresses.
7. Intercultural communication—America—History—Congresses. 8. Acculturation—
America—History—Congresses. I. St. George, Robert Blair.
Eioi .P67 2000
973.2—dc2i
99-089817
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Cloth printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 21
Paperback printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 21
Ambiguity.. .is a fundamental attribute of power.
—Georges Balandier, Political Anthropology
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Contents
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 1
Robert Blair St. George
Part One Interrogating America
Postcolonial Theory and Early America: An Approach from
the Caribbean 33
Peter Hulme
What's Colonial about Colonial America? 49
Michael Warner
Part Two Translation and Transculturation
DISSENT AND DIFFERENCE
The Native Translator as Critic: A Nahua Playwright's
Interpretive Practice 73
Louise M. Burkhart
Dissent and the Frontier of Translation: Roger Williams's
A Key into the Language of America 88
Anne G. Myles
COLONIAL VISIONS
The Inca's Witches: Gender and the Cultural Work of
Colonization in Seventeenth-Century Peru 109
Irene Silverblatt
viii Contents
Mestizo Dreams: Transculturation and Heterogeneity in
Inca Garcilaso de la Vega 131
Jose Antonio Mazzotti
PURITANISM'S PROGRESS
From "Religion and Society" to Practices: The New
Religious History 148
David D. Hall
What Did Christianity Do for Joseph Johnson? A Mohegan
Preacher and His Community 160
Laura J. Murray
NATION AND RACE
War, the State, and Religious Norms in "Coromantee"
Thought: The Ideology of an African American
Nation 181
John K. Thornton
Consolidating National Masculinity: Scientific Discourse
and Race in the Post-Revolutionary United States 201
Dana D. Nelson
Part Three Shaping Subjectivities
Secret Selves, Credible Personas: The Problematics of Trust
and Public Display in the Writing of Eighteenth-Century
Philadelphia Merchants 219
Toby L. Ditz
Black Gothic: The Shadowy Origins of the American
Bourgeoisie 243
Carroll Smith-Rosenberg
Bodies of Illusion: Portraits, People, and the Construction of
Memory 270
Margaretta M. Lovell
Contents ix
A Criminal Is Being Beaten: The Politics of Punishment and
the History of the Body 302
Michael Meranze
Part Four Oral Performance, Personal Power
Massacred Language: Courtroom Performance in
Eighteenth-Century Boston 327
Robert Blair St. George
"Neither male nor female": Jemima Wilkinson and the
Politics of Gender in Post-Revolutionary America 357
Susan Juster
The Genders of Nationalism: Patriotic Violence, Patriotic
Sentiment in the Performances of Deborah Sampson
Gannett 380
Sandra M. Gustafson
Contributors 401
Index 405