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Indigenous intellectual traditions and biography in the northeast: A historiographical reflection
Author(s) -
Peace Thomas
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
history compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.121
H-Index - 1
ISSN - 1478-0542
DOI - 10.1111/hic3.12445
Subject(s) - historiography , indigenous , biography , colonialism , history , sovereignty , power (physics) , trace (psycholinguistics) , intellectual history , sociology , anthropology , gender studies , art history , political science , law , politics , philosophy , archaeology , ecology , biology , linguistics , physics , quantum mechanics , economic history
Abstract Over the past two decades, a substantial literature has developed probing Robert Warrior's idea that we can trace a written Indigenous intellectual tradition back to the mid‐eighteenth century. Focused on Indigenous peoples who wrote fairly extensively, much of this literature has tended to treat the same individuals: Samson Occom, Joseph Brant, Peter Jones, William Apess, and George Copway (among others). Over the past 5 years, a series of biographies have been published on other individuals who fit within this community of intellectuals. Drawing together these two streams within the historiography, this essay probes the concept of Indigenous intellectual traditions, suggesting that scholars need to look beyond print culture. Doing so will better account for Indigenous concepts of sovereignty and territory, the involvement of women, the role of class, as well as the relationship between these traditions, historiographical practices, and settler colonial systems of power.