English Letters and Indian Literacies: Reading, Writing, and New England Missionary Schools, 1750–1830 by Hilary E. Wyss (review)

“There are some traits in the character of my countrymen that are truly admirable, and are worthy of imitation,” declared Cherokee David Brown in 1823. “In these respects I firmly believe that Indians are more like the off-spring of Jehovah, than many who call themselves civilized. I fondly hope that these principles of virtue will never be wholly eradicated from the Indian character” (p. 174). Thus did a Christian convert actively employ his command of English and literacy to speak for his people, and indeed for all Native Americans, in the face of advancing white civilization.

Hilary E. Wyss, Hargis Associate Professor of American Literature at Auburn University, notes earlier scholarly attention to Indian literary productions such as novels, poetry, and translated oratory. But here, she strongly validates other forms of literacy. Acknowledging indigenous forms, including wampum and weaving, she focuses upon uses of English literacy gained at Congregational and Presbyterian mission schools from 1750 to 1830. She convincingly employs a binary categorization: readerly literacy, the passive ability to read and even write English; and writerly literacy, the deliberate use of the new skills to promote personal and communal goals, even if these clashed with missionary designs.

After contextualizing her study in the relevant scholarly literature, Wyss briefly outlines the history of the New England missions and moves to the sometimes surprising methods of teaching “technologies of literacy” then. In the body of the book she examines activities at a number of missionary schools both within and generating from New England: Moor’s Charity School, the Stockbridge School, the Brainerd Mission School among Cherokees in Tennessee, and the Cornwall Foreign Mission School. She also analyzes the writerly efforts of individual converts such as Brown and Joseph Johnson, a Mohegan who later taught Oneidas and helped found the Indian community of Brothertown. Rather than ending with a conventional conclusion, Wyss follows the struggles to achieve literacy in the Cherokee language and highlights Sequoyah’s “extraordinary achievement” (p. 198), the famous Cherokee syllabary. All such developments produced even greater degrees of writerly literacy, both in Cherokee and English.

This is a stunning performance by both Indians and by Wyss. The research is impressive, the argumentation sophisticated, the language clear—if occasionally difficult for a plain-talking historian. There are (a few) instructive illustrations. Above all, Wyss conveys the complexity of issues, including gender issues, relating to literacies: to indigenous forms, to literacies in English, or— as often occurred at both Catholic and Protestant missions—in tribal languages. Her readerly/writerly model is never used simplistically: an Indian might pass from one stage to the other, or oscillate between the extremes.

A few criticisms need to be noted. The question of race, touched upon occasionally (for example, pp. 77, 86), might have been more systematically examined. Wyss devotes valuable attention to the often writerly correspondence of Cherokee girls at Brainerd and even cites this reviewer’s article on these girls as “cultural brokers.”¹ Yet she avoids this term for such cultural mediators. Has the “broker” concept, so useful to ethohistorians, passed out of favor? Unmentioned is America’s Second Tongue: American Indian Education and the Ownership of English, 1860–1900 (Lincoln, NE, 2002), Ruth Spack’s important examination of English teaching in later boarding schools and Indian exploitation of the language.

This book is strongly recommended for scholars of literacy, both Indian and beyond; of missionary encounters with indigenous peoples; and of cross-cultural education. It is a demanding but enriching tour de force.