Staging the Cherokee Othello: An Imperial Economy of Indian Watching

In November 1752, a performance of Othello at Williamsburg’s newly refurbished theater served as a diversion from unresolved trade negotiations between Virginia’s lieutenant governor Robert Dinwiddie and Cherokee dignitaries. The Virginia Gazette reported that the empress of the Cherokees interrupted the play because she thought actors engaged in a swordfight truly intended to kill each other. This event has never been considered in light of a spate of newspaper reports on gullible Indian spectators at British Atlantic playhouses. Yet for the British, Indian errors at the theater predicted the latter’s inability to deal with other mediations, such as paper treaties and abstract economic value. The reported interruption of Othello invites an interpretation that considers both the British desire to restage scenarios involving Indian dupes and the empress’s intrusion in a political sphere from which the British were trying to exclude native women. The implications for early American history and for the larger history of race are significant.