Prophetstown Revisited: A Summit on Early Native American Studies (review)

Recent developments in Native studies have been informed and vitalized by considerations of sovereignty, by the recognition of indigenous knowledges and methodologies, and by a focus on tribally specific kinds of analysis. The impetus behind “Prophetstown Revisited: A Summit on Early Native American Studies,” a conference held at Purdue University in April 2008 and co-sponsored by Purdue and the Society of Early Americanists, was to explore how these recent developments might open up new approaches and materials for the study of Native peoples, cultures, and nations during the early days of America. This is not an easy task given the lack of documents from this period written by Natives or from informed non-Native perspectives. Moreover, given the overwhelming shadow of America’s colonialist history, many studies of early America continue to focus on white settlement, conquest, New England, or the flow of settlement west. In contrast, the goal of “Prophetstown Revisited” was to shift our frame of reference by placing Native peoples and nations at the center of this picture.

The timing of the conference played an important role in strategically focusing attention on Native history. Plans are underway for 2011, when what is now Tippecanoe County in north-central Indiana will commemorate William Henry Harrison’s 1811 victory over Indian peoples. But this conference deliberately marked the 200th anniversary of the founding of Prophetstown—the pantribal community the Shawnee prophet Tenskwatawa and his brother, Tecumseh, established in 1808 along the banks of the Wabash—to resist white encroachment and settlement. Focusing attention on Prophetstown is significant: the site has been misunderstood and neglected, but clearly has spiritual resonances for descendants of the Native peoples who gathered here in 1808, and it offers a rich intellectual site for reframing our understanding of Native history. Important ideas emerged from the conference about how we might revise and complicate our sense of early Native America by focusing on the middle part of the country, by paying attention to local points of contact that might go under-written in larger historical narratives, by highlighting the existence of pantribal alliances, and by re-examining archives, documents, and other kinds of texts available in local historical societies, tribal centers, and various locations.

Pantribal resistance was a central focus in the keynote address from Gregory Evans Dowd, director of the American Culture program and professor of history at the University of Michigan. Dowd argued persuasively that “anti-colonial pan-Indian cooperation” (especially in the hands of such dynamic leaders as Pontiac and Tecumseh) led to acts of resistance with effects that lingered in spite of defeat; to underscore this point, Dowd described several British and American attempts to achieve absolute victories over Native peoples as “false conquests.” Dowd’s ability to reframe Native history by focusing on pantribal resistance offers an important challenge to typical historical narratives of Anglo-American victory and Indian land loss. Moreover, his address signified the ways in which Early Native Studies may lend support to today’s resistance and activist movements.

While many papers presented at the conference employed historical methods, the conference also demonstrated that interdisciplinary approaches and methods are crucial for Early Native Studies. Participants included historians and literature scholars, language preservationists and experts in digital media, teachers and students, museum professionals, tribal representatives, and librarians. The plenary events of the conference also reflected a commitment to an expansive, interdisciplinary approach to the field and included a keynote address from W. Richard West, Jr., the founding director of the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI); a film screening and discussion featuring the acclaimed Cheyenne-Arapaho filmmaker Chris Eyre; and the keynote address from Gregory Evans Dowd; as well as a visit to Prophetstown on the first morning of the conference and, on the final afternoon, a trip to the Eiteljorg Museum in Indianapolis, which features contemporary Native art.

One other particularly notable feature of “Prophetstown Revisited” was the inclusion of workshops offered...