To Marry an Indian: The Marriage of Harriett Gold and Elias Boudinot in Letters, 1823-1839Theresa Strouth Gaul When nineteen-year-old Harriett Gold, from a prominent white family in Cornwall, Connecticut, announced in 1825 her intention to marry a Cherokee man, her shocked family initiated a spirited correspondence debating her decision to marry an Indian. Eventually, Gold's family members reconciled themselves to her wishes, and she married Elias Boudinot in 1826. After the marriage, she returned with Boudinot to the Cherokee Nation, where he went on to become a controversial political figure and editor of the first Native American newspaper. Providing rare firsthand documentation of race relations in the early nineteenth-century United States, this volume collects the Gold family correspondence during the engagement period as well as letters the young couple sent to the family describing their experiences in New Echota (capital of the Cherokee Nation) during the years prior to the Cherokee Removal. In an introduction providing historical and social contexts, Theresa Strouth Gaul offers a literary reading of the correspondence, highlighting the value of the epistolary form and the gender and racial dynamics of the exchange. As Gaul demonstrates, the correspondence provides a factual accompaniment to the many fictionalized accounts of contacts between Native Americans and Euroamericans and supports an increasing recognition that letters form an important category of literature. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Connecticut Letters 18231826 | 77 |
Illustrations | 145 |
Cherokee Letters 18271839 | 151 |
205 | |
215 | |
Other editions - View all
To Marry an Indian: The Marriage of Harriett Gold and Elias Boudinot in ... Elias Boudinot,Harriett Gold Boudinot No preview available - 2005 |
Common terms and phrases
ABCFM agents August Benjamin and Eleanor Benjamin Gold Brinsmade Brother & Sister Butrick Catharine Gold cause Chero Cherokee Editor Cherokee Nation Cherokee Phoenix Christ Christian Connecticut connexion Cornwall Dale and Litton Daniel Brinsmade daughter Dear Brother death East Haddam Echota Elias and Harriett Elias Boudinot Elias's Evarts Everest express father fear feel Flora Gold Vaill Foreign Mission School friends Georgia GOLD TO HERMAN Harriett and Elias heathen Herman and Flora Herman Landon Vaill Herman Vaill HLVC hope husband illegible Jeremiah Evarts John Ridge Landon Vaill Collection letter to Herman live manuscript marriage Millington Society missionary mother native never Northrop-Ridge paper parents Perdue Postage pray Return address Samuel Worcester Sarah Northrop September 1825 soon Starr Stephen tell things thought tion Vaill and Catharine wife wish woman Worcester write written wrote
References to this book
Science, Sexuality, and Race in the United States and Australia, 1780s 1890s Gregory D. Smithers No preview available - 2008 |