Reconstructing the Native South: American Indian Literature and the Lost Cause by Melanie Benson Taylor (review)

The literature of the Native South has received amplified scrutiny as an increasingly important ethnic study, especially concerning feelings of loss with post- Removal Native Americans. In this expanding field, Melanie Benson Taylor presents a remarkable examination of dozens of literary works by and concerning Native Americans of the South. Within her monograph Reconstructing the Native South: American Indian Literature and the Lost Cause, Taylor places a “challenging claim: that the biracial U.S. South and its Native American survivors have far more in common than geographical proximity” (1). This claim is centered on this sense of loss for both the South and the Native Americans who used to inhabit the region. With this book, Taylor is able not only to successfully link the history of the South and Native literature but also to examine its place and purpose within an increasingly tightening global capitalist landscape that threatens to erase the regionalism of the South.

Taylor’s work is discussed in four definitive chapters concerning Native literature. These chapters examine the Lost Cause of the South, interaction with a biracial southern history, the condition of capitalism within remembrance, and finally the landscape and archaeology of the southern backdrop. Within these chapters Taylor presents a remarkable set of essays, poems, and other works of literature pertaining to or by Native Americans and the South. What is fascinating is that “throughout Reconstructing the Native South, the Native and non- Native Souths together offer a bleak, composite account of domination, hunger, erasure, and greed,” one that “can only be formed in a common lot” (209). Thus, with this in mind, many of the literary works within the book are darker and deal with either a sense of loss or a rediscovery that is seldom the ideal that one has upheld in the main character’s mind.

Taylor deftly cuts through many of these literary works to discover the meaning to the metaphors placed throughout them. Concerning the Lost Cause and Native American place within this history, Taylor must “confront a world saturated with Indian characters, themes, and references and yet uncannily absent of ‘real’ Indian survivors” (27). Within this world, Taylor confronts Faulkner and other southern literary icons, noticing that these “Indians are not really Indians at all but either black or white” (31). This biracial culture is explored throughout the book, and Taylor presents dozens of examples concerning the way that many Native Americans are pigeonholed into being considered black or white by the majority of the populace. The simple fact is that many writers as well as normal citizens in the South represented in many of these works consider Native Americans a part of a fanciful past that is no longer present in this day and age of global capitalism.

The fanciful representation of the Native American within the South is a primary focus throughout the monograph. But Taylor is quick to point to the use of this representation by Native Americans themselves both for profit and as a way to rediscover themselves. Taylor uses the Eastern Cherokee tribe as a prime example of using casinos, a possible Walmart lease, and primarily a depiction of their past that is attractive to European Americans to coerce tourists to visit their tribe. While Taylor is by no means condemning the tribe, what she does point to is the increasingly tightening grip global markets maintain. To continue this discussion of the influence of global capitalism on the South and its Native inhabitants, Taylor looks to newer literary works. One set of these works that Taylor continuously discusses is authored by Dawn Petti-grew. Taylor utilizes Pettigrew’s work to discuss, specifically in chapters 2 and 3, the use of nativism as a commodity. When Manna, one of Pettigrew’s primary characters, finds success through “’authentic’ Indian mysticism,” she uses her “newfound fame and fortunes to bring manna to the people in...