A Mixed Race: Ethnicity in Early AmericaFrank Shuffelton This collection of new essays enters one of the most topical and energetic debates of our time--the subject of ethnicity. The recent vigorous debates being waged over questions raised by the phenomenon of multiculturalism in America highlight the fact that American culture has arisen out of an unusually rich and interactive ethnic mix. The essays in A Mixed Race suggest that American society was inescapably multicultural from its very beginnings and that this representation of cultural differences fundamentally defined American culture. While recent scholarship has looked extensively at the ethnic formation of modern American culture, this study focuses on the eighteenth century and colonial American values that have been previously overlooked in the debate, arguing that a culture shaped by responses to ethnic and racial difference is not merely a modern circumstance but one at the base of American history. Written by a group of first-class contributors, the essays in this collection discuss the representation of cultural differences between European immigrants and Native Americans, the circumstances of the first African-American autobiographical narratives, rhetorical negotiations among different European-American cultural groups, ethnic representation in the genre literature of jest books and execution narratives, and the ethnic conceptions of Michel de Crevecoeur, Phillis Wheatley, and Thomas Jefferson. A Mixed Race offers agile and original yet scholarly readings of ethnicity and ethnic formation from some of our best critics of early American culture. Moving from questions of race and ethnicity to varieties of ethnic representation, and finally to individual confrontations, this volume sheds light on the confrontations of ethnically diverse peoples, and launches a timely, full-scale investigation of the construction of American culture. |
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Abigail Abigail Adams African African-American American Jest Book become Boston British Byrd Byrd's captivity narratives captured Christian Christopher Schultz colonial colonists cosmopolitanism Cotton Mather Crèvecoeur's crime describes discourse Dutch Early American eighteenth century England English essays ethnic groups ethnic humor ethnic Norm European example experience Francis Daniel Pastorius Franks Franks's French genre Hammon human immigrants Irish Irishman James Jefferson Jewish Jews John jokes land language laugh Letters literary Marrant Mary Rowlandson master Mather Merry Fellow's Companion moral Mountain narrator Native Americans nature Negro never Notes observation Pennsylvania Germans Philadelphia Phillis Wheatley philosophical poem political published Puritan Quaker Quath race racial rape rapist readers Revolution Revolutionary Richard Slotkin Sambo savage says settlers Sheehan slave slave narrative slavery Slotkin social society Sollors stereotype Stockwell story Swarton Thomas Thomas Jefferson tion University Press Virginia voice Wheatley's William Williams's writing York young
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Page 80 - We have had some experience of it ; several of our young people were formerly brought up at the colleges of the northern provinces; they were instructed in all your sciences ; but, when they came back to us, they were bad runners, ignorant of every means of living in the woods, unable to bear either cold or hunger, knew neither how to build a cabin, take a deer, nor kill an enemy, spoke our language imperfectly, were therefore neither fit for hunters, warriors, nor counsellors ; they were totally...
Page 249 - He is an American, who, leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds.
Page 235 - ... enslave the land. Should you, my lord, while you peruse my song, Wonder from whence my love of Freedom sprung, Whence flow these wishes for the common good, By feeling hearts alone best understood, I, young in life, by seeming cruel fate Was snatch'd from Afric's fancy'd happy seat: What pangs excruciating must molest, What sorrows labour in my parent's breast?
Page 238 - What do we mean by the Revolution? The war ? That was no part of the Revolution. It was only an effect, and consequence of it. The revolution was in the minds of the people, and this was effected, from 1760 to 1775, in the course of fifteen years, before a drop of blood was drawn at Lexington.
Page 121 - This is to the monthly meeting held at Richard Worrell's: These are the reasons why we are against the traffic of men-body, as followeth: Is there any that would be done or handled at this manner?
Page 238 - Religion indeed has produced a Phyllis Whately [sic]; but it could not produce a poet. The compositions published under her name are below the dignity of criticism.
Page 268 - But on whatever occasion they may have been made, they are of considerable notoriety among the Indians : for a party passing, about thirty years ago, through the part of the country where this barrow is, went through the woods directly to it, without any instructions or inquiry ; and having staid about it some time, with expressions which were construed to be those of sorrow, they returned to the high road, which they had left about half a dozen miles to pay this visit, and pursued their journey.
Page 48 - And there was a great famine in Samaria : and, behold, they besieged it, until an ass's head was sold for fourscore pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a cab of dove's dung for five pieces of silver.