Catharine Sedgwick Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Philip Gould

Critical Essay by Philip Gould

SOURCE: “Catharine Sedgwick's ‘Recital’ of the Pequot War,” in Covenant and Republic: Historical Romance and the Politics of Puritanism, Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 61-90.

In the following essay, Gould illustrates how Sedgwick uses a revisionist account of the Pequot War to present a larger cultural debate over the nature of citizenship in the early American republic.

I hope my dear Mrs. Embry [sic] you will go on to enrich your native country and to elevate the just pride of your country women.

—Catharine Sedgwick to Emma Embury, January 29, 1829¹

It has been the fate of all the tribes to be like the Carthaginians, in having their history written by their enemies. Could they now come up from their graves, and tell the tale of their own wrongs, reveal their motives, and describe their actions, Indian history would put on a different garb from the one it now wears,...
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