Native American Literature

Angel DeCora An Autobiography

Picture of Angel DeCora

"A very promising career must have been laid out for me by my grandparents, but a strange white man interrupted it.
I had been entered in the Reservation school but a few days when a strange white man appeared there. He asked me through an interpreter if I would like to ride in a steam car. I had never seen one, and six of the other children seemed enthusiastic about it and they were going to try, so I decided to join them, too. The next morning at sunrise we were piled into a wagon and driven to the nearest railroad station, thirty miles away. We did get the promised ride. We rode three days and three nights until we reached Hampton, Va.
My parents found it out, but too late."

Diary: Recently I have been through a lot. I was convinced to ride in a car, which I rode in for three days, leading me to Virginia. I feel lost. All I wanted to do was ride in the car, I did not realize I would be taken away from my family and all the plans they had for me. These white men have a way of capturing us Indians into things we have not agreed to do. My mother told me about the things that these men do, but I was too young to listen or understand. The past three years have been like torture to me. I have not been able to see the ones I love, or experience things through my culture.

- Angel DeCora

Reflection: Though Native American’s were in America first, and also helped the early English settlers, I feel that Native Americans are not appreciated nearly as much as they should. This autobiography by Angel DeCora shows the way that some Native American children were taken advantage of. I feel the way in which this man went about taking Angel out of her hometown, was unethical and selfish, as he used the curiosity of the child as a captive tool to make her and others move. I also feel that it was wrong in taking Angel and other children away from their parents, at such young ages. This autobiography also brings up some of the obstacles that Native Americans had to overcome because of English settlers. I feel that it is very nice and that Angel did get the opportunity to succeed in the career that she chose, but I also think she could have succeed easier without the English men. Many of the reasons that Angle was forced to move and a change school was because of the white men, which in turn postponed her from achieving her dream.Likewise, if a man was to commit a crime like this the child would more than likely not be gone for near as long. The man would also be put in jail for a long period of time.

Essential Question: Puritan Literature

While the American Dream can offer hope in a verity of ways, it can seemingly also promote religious fears and intolerance. For example, puritans, were one of the first groups of people to move to America and were seeking religious freedom, people such as Bradford, Bradstreet and Taylor, all of who found their hope in their freedom to practice religion as they pleased. With this new freedom these people were able to live out their meaning of the American Dream with a new found hope. Likewise, after this freedom was established people such as Bradford, Bradstreet, and Taylor began to also pursue their own religion on other, and not tolerate anyone who did not worship as they did. People such as these began to fear other people achieving their own personal dreams, and began to in tolerate anything that was different from the religion of their own. The puritan era drastically showed the hope that people were looking for, but also showed the fear that they single handedly created, causing intolerance of any other religion.

William Bradford: Of Plymouth Plantation

"Being thus arrived in a good harbor, and brought safe to land, they fell upon their knees and blessed the God of Heaven who had brought them over the vast and furious ocean, and delivered them from all the perils and miseries thereof, again to set their feet on the firm and stable earth, their proper element."

Diary: The journey to this new land was very displeasing. Many of our people became sick because of the rough and tremulous sea; one young man even fell overboard. Maybe this is Gods way of ensuring we are pleased by our new home. The savages were very hostile in this land; if things don’t change soon, they may become a problem. The savages are getting braver and starting to attack our men. But thus is the will of God. We killed over 400 of the savages in there town. We have run into many misfortunes on our voyage but god has been on our side, and we have managed to survive thus.
- William Bradford

Reflection: One of the important things in coming to a new land is to build up a safe "home" like enviorment, which is not shown in "Of Plymouth Plantation". When the ship landed in Cape Cod they should have built up a safe haven. In building this safe haven there would be a place to protect themselves from the savages. The men might have been better off protecting themselves instead of scouting the land so much searching for the savages home. I also feel that the deaths of the 400 men could have been avoided. Although there were many issues that needed to be dealt with, an attack was not necessarily the only choice. The English could have easily reasoned with the Indians, and avoided the conflict all together. And also in avoiding this the English would not only protect themselves but also the Indians.

Anne Bradstreet: To My dear and Loving Husband

Diary: It depresses me how often I am away from my husband after moving to this new land. My love for him is so great and I could never picture being with anyone else. I do not feel that any woman could feel as strong as I do for my husband, but yet I still love God more. God is the reason for the love I have for my husband and answers to all the questions I have about my love.
- Anne Bradstreet

Reflection: The poem by Bradstreet exposes many different aspects of the Puritan life style. First this woman shows how she can be “human” and not hold God responsible for all of the things that happen in her life. Yet she also realizes that this is not the way that her religion is supposed to work. Finally she does acknowledge God for the things that have happened in her life. This poem gives me hope and insight because I realize that even though people may be very religious, they still hold common human flaws that all of us have, such as selfishness.

Anne Bradstreet: The Night When Others Soundly Slept

Diary: More and more often I find myself being vain, and then I realize I am living in Gods world. When I am missing something it is because God wants it to be this way. Everything that happens in my life is because of him. I do not know how to repay him. He is my savior, and the one who fills my body with hope. If there was a way I could repay him I wish I could, but he has done too much for me now.
-Anne Bradstreet

Reflection: This poem really exposes Bradstreet’s belief in God, as she starts to feel lost and depressed because of suffering, but then regains her faith in God. She begins to show her human qualities as she begins to feel sympathy for herself, because of the things she does not have. After realizes how vain she is being she begins to focus on her religion and enforce how God is responsible for everything that does happen. This poem also makes me realize that everyone can be vain at some time, even the most religious people.

Anne Bradstreet: Upon the Burning of our House

Diary: I have lost my house in a horrible fire! I have lost everything that I worked so hard for. All of my belongings are gone, all my memories, this fire has been a devastation to me. Just how could all that I love be gone with one simple fire? And yet this must be the will of God. God please forgive me for being so vain. This fire was part of your plan in my life, and all is good because you are in my life. I have not lost anything because I still have my faith in you dear Lord.
-Anne Bradstreet

Reflection: This poem really exposes Bradstreet’s belief in God, as she starts to feel lost and depressed because of suffering, but then regains her faith in God. She begins to show her human qualities as she begins to feel sympathy for herself, because of the things she does not have. After realizes how vain she is being she begins to focus on her religion and enforce how God is responsible for everything that does happen. This poem also make me realize that everyone can be vain at some time, even the most religious people.

Edward Taylor: Huswifery

Diary:Dear lord please embrace yourself in every aspect of my body. Make all of my actions, decisions, and words reflect you. I want to be guided by you sequentially to make me all that I can. I want to resemble you in everything that I do. I know with you as my guldens tool I will receive not only your grace but also the opportunity to be all that I can.

-Edward Taylor

Reflection: While the poem “Huswifery” is about a man’s prayer for God’s grace, it took me several readings of this poem to understand the message. One of the most outstanding parts of the poem is the author’s use of metaphor as he compares his struggle to receive God’s grace to the time consuming task of making cloth on a spinning wheel. Once we discussed this in class, I found the way Taylor compared himself to a spinning wheel and all the aspects of the spinning wheel to receiving the grace of God to be a very interesting comparison device. After understanding this comparison I realized the importance of God in this mans life, through the importance of different parts of the spinning wheel.

Mimic:

I am thy lord the seed you have planted and forgotten
Make me grow to be the tallest tree in fall
Your words are to be my roots
Make my roots the sturdiest of all
My branches are what you make of me
Make my branches brighten

Cover my roots with the finest soil
Make them grow longer then any other
And reach and touch the others

From your words my roots will have grown
And make I grow beneath your sun, and rain
Make my branches sturdy and flow with the pace of your wind
My branches will be so beautiful I will inspire others
To grow from only the finest roots

Jonathan Edwards: Sinners at the Hand of an Angry God

Diary: I do not understand why people will not listen to me. God is the only way, ONLY WAY, you hear me. If they do not find their faith they will die in hell. How could a person say that God does not exist, that is just asking to be killed. They must find their faith in me soon, because they are really making me made. I preach to them everyday telling them that God is the only way, and yet they choose not to listen to me, and rather say he does not exist. What am I to do with these people?

-Jonathan Edwards

Reflection: After reading Sinners At the Hand of an Angry God I realized that the pursuit of one’s religion has always been an issue as many people feel the need to force others to believe what they believe. Edward Taylor is a great example of this as he wants to chase his religion to its full extent but also captivates and force others in doing so. I really do not feel that this is the way to go about influencing your religion on others, because at the same time it is presenting your religion as very controlling.

Essential Question: Slave Narrative

In the American Dream hope can be more accessible to some then other, but there is often a fear created leading to racial intolerance. This racial intolerance can be shown through the African American culture, like in ”Equiano Narrative”, where the African American Equiano’s hope is not as easily accessible as the white mans, and he must fight for his hope of freedom through his beliefs. This hope that is offered to him, though it is more difficult to achieve, confirms that the American Dream is accessible to all. Likewise the American Dream is not as easily accessible to the African American culture because of the white mans fear of a minority succeeding. With this fear the white men create racial intolerance, because of their own personal fear. “Equiano Narrative” is good example of the American Dream being easier for some to achieve then others, and how the fear of minorities succeeding results in racial intolerance.

Slave Narrative

Equiano Narrative

"'Sometimes when a white man take away my fish, I go to my maser, and he get me my right; and when my maser by strength take away my fishes, what me must do? I can't go to any body to be righted; then,' said the poor man, looking up above, I must look up to God Almighty, in the top, for right.' This artless tale moved me much, and I could not help feeling the just cause Moses had in redressing his brother against the Egyptian. I exhorted the man to look up still to the God on the top, since there was no redress below."

Diary: I do not care of the opinion people have of me, because of how I feel about slavery and racism. Slavery is not only morally wrong; but it is economically not beneficial to the economy. We have to stop slavery all together. When slaves are freed they become better people, which no longer feel the need to steal. Honestly the best way to solve the racial problems we have is to have interracial marriages occurring more and more often.
-Equiano

Reflection: This narrative opened a new perspective of the impact that one person can have of society. Equiano was a very brave man who spoke up for his beliefs about slavery and racism, and inevitable made a change. Though many people may not see it this way this showed me that every opinion counts for something, and if you have the will to speak out against something you can make an impact. Equiano believed so strongly in anti-slavery that he spoke out was not afraid of how others viewed him. To me this is very inspirational.

Half Hanged Mary

Questions
1. What types of people were vulnerable to these kinds of charges during this period?
· Any person that was different in any was accused of practicing witchcraft during this time period. Even the simplest thing as a women living alone was accused of practicing witchcraft.
2. Define Trussed
· trussed- to be bound or secured closely
3. How is she similar to a flag being raised?
· This woman is like a flag being raised because she is representing something; she is representing what happens to people after being accused of witchcraft, as the flag represents a certain area.
4. Who are "the bonnets"? Why are they afraid?
· The bonnets are spectators, and common people, who likewise do not want to be accused of the same crime that this woman was accused of.
5. What favors had she done for these women?
· This woman helped these women by causing them to have miscarriages so they would not be accused and killed for practicing witchcraft.
6. What could happen if they try to help her? What would "rub off"?
· If they tried to help her down then they would also be accused of witchcraft, because the sin would “rub off” on them causing them to be witches too.
7. What are her feelings toward God right now? How do you know?
· She has a feeling of disgust towards God because she is wonder why she is being killed, and also wondering why if he controls everything what the reason behind letting her be killed for no reason was.
8. How is Death like a crow? A judge? A dark angel?
· These three things work to represent death because just like them it is waiting, or anticipating taking her away and adding her to the billions of others whose spirits have left them. A crow waits anticipating a meal, a judge waits to use his authority for a nasty conviction, and a dark angel waits for one more poor soul to take away. Likewise, death waits for another lost soul to walk it’s hapless halls.
9. What is she trying to convince herself to do?
· She is trying to convince herself to finally let go and to die.
10. What two different kinds of prayers is she talking about? What is HER prayer?
· The first prayer she is talking about is the kind that we all use asking God to give us what we want in life while the other, one she is saying, is asking God not to end her life.
11. Why is the wording here so deliberately awkward here? What is the poet trying to show us?
· This wording is awkward because it shows that it is becoming night, and Mary is coming to the end of her struggle for life, and as she dangles there in the gathering darkness, her faith in God is also waning.
12. What does she see as her only crime? What is the significance of the repetition of the word "born/borne"?
· She is saying that she will not commit the crime of giving into death and letting it overtake her. She repeats the words born and borne because they represent life and she plans to come through this and be reborn instead of hanging to death.
13. How long has she been hanging?
· 11 hours
14. Why is the sun no longer a simile for God?
· The sun is no longer a simile for God because before this experience God would be seen as a savior and a giver of life, like the sun, but now after Mary lives through this experience her last glimpse of God faded with the fading light of the day before. All God is to her now is the blackest night.
15. How might the townsfolk have felt when they found her still alive?
· The townsfolk would have probably been very surprised to find her still alive, or else believe in her affiliation with witches even more, because she had lived passed being hanged.
16. Why does she say this?
· She is saying the before this experience she was a Christian and a firm believer in God and what she stood for. She believed in her community and her church, but now after she survived that night, all of her previous faith in God has diminished so she could very well be considered a witch though she wasn’t to begin with.
17. How do the townsfolk feel about her now? Why?
· They are all scared of her, if she ever comes near they get out of her way as quick as possible, diving into bushes because they now truly see her as a witch for she survived a hanging.
18. How have things changed since her hanging? How has she changed? What is her mental state?
· Since her hanging she has been shunned from most of the society. They are afraid of the women who survived her immanent death. She has now been granted the freedom to say any blasphemous or “with-like: thing she ccan think of because she cant be convicted twice for witchcraft. She feels liberated and reborn.

Essential Question: Revolutionary Period

Revolutionar Period: Patrick Henry

"It is in vain, sir, to extentuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace--but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"

Reflection: In this speech Patrick Henry uses logos, ethos, and pathos, in an attempt to persuade his audience. He uses logos in an attempt to make people think back to previous situations that have occurred. Likewise he used ethos when he is explaining his own personal thoughts on the situations making him credible as a speaker because he has experience. Such as how he feels about patriotism. Similarly he uses pathos by asking rhetorical questions, that capture the emotion of the audience. I find this man to be a person to admire, because he is speaking out for what he truly believes in, even when other people to don't.

Diary: Why do people not see that all we need is liberty? Am I the only person that feels the need to change this situation? Fellow people you live in the same country as me, you must feel a little of what I feel. Weather or not these people are willing to speak out is up to them. These people have not opened their eyes to the need for change, but when they do liberty is what they will want to. I am a man for change and all I want is Liberty.

Revolutionary Period: Thomas Paine

"I have as little superstition in me as any man living, but my secret opinion has
ever been, and still is, that God Almighty will not give up a people to military
destruction, or leave them unsupportedly to perish, who have so earnestly and so
repeatedly sought to avoid the calamities of war, by every decent method which
wisdom could invent. Neither have I so much of the infidel in me, as to suppose
that He has relinquished the government of the world, and given us up to the care
of devils; and as I do not, I cannot see on what grounds the king of Britain can
look up to heaven for help against us: a common murderer, a highwayman, or a
house-breaker, has as good a pretence as he."

Reflection: As for Thomas Pains writing, he uses logos, ethos, and pathos too, but he uses metaphors in doing so. Through the use of this he make Britain seem like horrible people, leading to support form Americans. I think it is very intelligent for a man to be able to persuade people like this. I also think he did a very good job in persuading is audience that Britain was bad, and that we should fight against them.

Diary: Why do people not see that all we need is liberty? Am I the only person that feels the need to change this situation? Fellow people you live in the same country as me, you must feel a little of what I feel. Weather or not these people are willing to speak out is up to them. These people have not opened their eyes to the need for change, but when they do liberty is what they will want to. I am a man for change and all I want is Liberty.

Personal Extention

Before I can explain how I am working to live out my American Dream, I realized I needed to recognize it first. Though it may seem like a very vague American Dream, mine is to be successful in my own standards. For me to consider myself successful I would like to be financially stable, help less fortunate people, and also recognize, appreciate, and help the people that impacted my life and also helped me along the way. I am in the process of completing this Dream, though it will never be completely completed, by attending school and receiving an education that will help me get the job of my dreams. I also find myself finding people who have impacted my life by simple actions, and begin to look up to them as a role-model. When I do encounter obstacle I sometimes find myself giving in, even though I know this will not help me over come this obstacle. Often times, I find one person that will help me over come this obstacle, even though they may not realize it, and this is why I would like to recognize these people. I am very far completing this dream, and also will be because there is always something more that you can add to your own personal definition of being successful.

American Dream Interview

Dorothy Mazur
My American Dream was fairly easy for me to accomplish. I first started out by marry for love, and living happily with my husband which was one of my personal Dreams. Secondly from a business and professional aspect I always worked hard, and evaluated and thought out my decisions so I did not make any mistakes. I also lived out my financial dream by handling my own finances appropriately and never hurt anybody, I also found it important to invested money wisely, and never spent more then I made.
Renee Theophilos
I do not think I have accomplished my American Dream, because I think that when I was young I did not dream big enough. My dream that I have accomplished and feel wonderful about is that I have two wonderful children that have grown and become wonderful people. When I got married I stopped my career to raise my children, not to any regret, and I am very proud of the dream I have accomplished. I love what I do, and I love being around all the kids, I just wish I could be more successful doing it.