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Modernity
and Its Other The
Encounter with North American Indians in the Eighteenth Century
Robert
Woods Sayre
Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2017 Paperback. vxiii+438 p. ISBN 9780803280977. $35
Reviewed
by Florent Atem Université de la Polynésie française (Tahiti) Originally
published in French in 2008, this book has been translated, revised and
expanded by the author. Published in 2017 and “destined for an American public”
[xi], the new edition features two additional chapters –
on French Creole colonist Moreau de Saint-Méry (chapter 3) and on fur
traders Alexander Mackenzie and Jean-Baptiste Trudeau, respectively of British
and French Canadian origins (chapter 8) – as well as an epilogue on
American traveler and painter George Catlin. As specified in the
“Acknowledgements” section [xvi-xvii], all the chapters of this book have appeared, in
earlier forms, in various journals or collective works over the last few
decades – material for chapter 2 was initially published as early as April
1989 while the epilogue first appeared in 2015. In the
preface, the author defines the key notions contained in the title of the book.
Thus, “modernity” is to be understood as “the overall civilization created by
developing capitalist economic structures”, while the “Other” refers to “the
indigenous communities that persist and resist its incursion” [xii]. The
author further explains that the “civilization of modernity” has fully blossomed
in the British colonies, where it has reached its “purest form” [xii]. In
this respect, French presence in North America may be viewed as having a
mediating function of sorts. One of the most original aspects of the book is
that it confronts both British and French perspectives on American Indians,
thus taking advantage of the two vantage points to tackle a quite complex topic
in different, complementary ways. The ideas of
“modernity” and “Otherness” are further discussed in the very detailed
introduction, in which the author offers an interesting and useful reflection
on notions such as “capitalism”, “consumerism”, “mercantilism”, “market”, “commodification”,
“colonialism”, “civilization”, as well as an analysis of the opposition between
“modern” and “premodern” – or “primitive” – societies in the context of the “transition
to capitalism” [10]. Observations regarding the travel account as a
literary genre are equally relevant. The book is
divided into two parts. The first one, which includes chapters 1 to 3,
deals with different “views of modernity” [27]. Chapter 1
focuses on J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur (Letters from an
American Farmer, 1782) while chapter 2 deals with poet Philip Fréneau
(“The Rising Glory of America”, first published in 1772 and then in 1786; “The
American Village”, 1772; “Sketches of American History”, published in two parts
in 1778 and 1784; “The Rising Empire”, 1790). French-born but naturalized as a
British subject, Crèvecœur “seems to have leaned towards the Tory side” [32] while
Fréneau, a native-born American also of French ancestry, appears to have
adopted a “Whiggish posture” [78]. The author’s strategy is already apparent in the
first two chapters: the fact that the two characters “stood at the opposite
ends of the political spectrum” [58] makes the similarities in their social analyses all
the more relevant. In this respect, the third chapter, which focuses on the
account of Moreau de Saint-Méry, a French Creole from Martinique and
Saint-Domingue who traveled through the United States in the early days of the
American Republic (Voyage aux États-Unis d’Amérique, 1793-1798), constitutes
“the most external view of the three” [81]. Thus, Crèvecœur’s and Fréneau’s writings, as well as
Saint-Méry’s travel account, are all records of individual discoveries of “modernity”,
from different perspectives. Entitled
“Views of the Other”, the second part includes chapters 4 to 8 and deals
with travels in “Indian Territory” [99]. In chapter 4, the author discusses a central
concept in the book – that of “adventure”, which he defines as the “zero degree
of encounter” with Indians, characterized by “confrontation, misunderstanding,
rejection, and hatred” [101]. At this stage, diverging aspirations and ruthless rivalries
result in a profoundly conflictual situation which, by essence, makes it
virtually impossible for positive cultural exchanges to occur. The chapter also
analyzes the various representations of Indian violence through different types
of narratives – including military accounts, captivity narratives, as well as
historical writings and literary pieces – and ends with discussions on British
Army officer Thomas Morris’s military journal (Journal of Captain Thomas
Morris, 1791) and British trader Alexander Henry the Elder’s captivity
narrative (Travels and Adventures in Canada and the Indian Territories
between 1760 and 1776, published in 1809) as illustrations of accounts
written on the “adventure” mode. Both writings deal with the period of Ottawa
Chief Pontiac’s rebellion and, naturally, depict Indians as violent brutes and
blood-thirsty savages. Chapter 5 focuses on the travel account as a
specific genre and analyzes the narratives of two very different French
voyagers – Louis-Armand de Lom d’Arce, baron de Lahontan (Dialogues de M. le
Baron de Lahontan et d’un sauvage, Nouveaux Voyages de M. le Baron de
Lahontan dans l’Amérique septentrionale and Mémoires de l’Amérique septentrionale,
1703-1704) and Jesuit priest François-Xavier de Charlevoix (Journal d’un
voyage fait par ordre du Roi dans l’Amérique Septentrionale, published in 1744).
Regarded as “the antithesis of Lahontan”, Charlevoix – who is also
referred to as “Lahontan’s declared enemy” who “actively attempted to discredit
him” [153] – strongly opposed the French aristocrat. However, in
spite of such extreme ideological oppositions, their views on Native Americans
appear to be strikingly similar. The same strategy used by the author in the
first two chapters – with the analysis of Crèvecœur’s and Fréneau’s works – is
resorted to once again here and provides an interestingly cohesive and
generally positive portrait of the American Indian, beyond the personal struggle
between the two Frenchmen. As a literary genre, the travel account is presented
as “moving decisively away from the zero degree of violence and adventure” [131],
thus emerging as a “genre of cultural translation” [132]. The next three
chapters are centered on travel narratives which originated in the Anglo-American
sphere of influence. Chapter 6 deals with the accounts of Anglo-American travelers
John Lawson (A New Voyage to Carolina, 1709) and Jonathan Carver (Travels
through the Interior Parts of North America in the Years 1766, 1767, and 1768,
published in 1778). While Lawson sees American Indians through the framework of
his own sociocultural prejudices, Carver is more open-minded – he allows
himself to be given an Indian name, for instance, and praises the Natives, whom
he views as superior to modern Europeans and equal to ancient Greeks and
Romans. Beyond their differences and in spite of “the gap between Carver and
Lawson in terms of their degree of projection into the culture of the Other” [195],
both accounts, to varying degrees, seem to point to a similar paradox – often
described as savage and primitive, the autochtonous populations perfectly
fulfill European ideals and actually appear to be morally superior to the
colonists, according to the latter’s own ethical standards. Such convergences
link these two accounts to those of Lahontan and Charlevoix. In the
previous chapters, it appeared that French observers were the ones who tended
to view Indians in a genuinely positive light. However, the discussion in chapter 7,
based on William Bartram’s Travels, published in 1791, reveals the uniqueness
of the Quaker botanist’s account. Referred to as a pioneer of the “nature
writing” genre, Bartram harshly criticizes the values of modern society and his
literary celebration of “an ‘enchanted’ Nature” [212]
made him a source of inspiration for romantic writers such as Wordsworth,
Coleridge, Chateaubriand and Carlyle. Characterized by his sympathy for
indigenous people, he seems to directly owe his “particularly favorable
predisposition to encounter with Amerindians” to his “radical alienation from
his own society” [206] – or “estrangement from the civilization of
modernity” [212]. His nonhierarchical and comprehensive vision of
living entities, seen as equal manifestations of the divine, likens his views
to Indian beliefs. Furthermore, his sensitivity to animal suffering and
awareness regarding ecological concerns stand in sharp contrast with the
descriptions of white travelers’ cruel attitudes, barbaric behaviors and
careless wasting of natural resources. Believing all human beings to be
governed by an innate moral sense, he recounts a particularly dangerous
incident involving an angry Indian, presenting it as a “spiritual” moment. He
respects the Natives’ myths, legends and customs, praising indigenous societies
as organized, well-structured and even “civilized” [227]
communities, allowing “the best human qualities to flourish” [234]. In the wake of
Carver’s expedition, more Anglo-American voyages in Indian territories were
organized. Chapter 8 deals with “a specific category of traveler: the fur
trader” [235] and focuses on the journal of British explorer Alexander
Mackenzie (Voyages from Montreal on the River St. Lawrence through the
Continent of North America to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans in the Years 1789
and 1793, with a preliminary account of the rise, progress, and present state
of the fur trade of that country, 1801) and on the account of French
Canadian trader Jean-Baptiste Trudeau (Voyage sur le Haut-Missouri,
1794-1796, published in a scholarly edition in 2006). With the inclusion of
Trudeau’s narrative, adding to the discussions in chapter 5 on Charlevoix
and on Lahontan’s travel from the early eighteenth century, the study has come
full circle as the analysis of French perspectives on the “Other” now covers
the whole century. Ending the
book, the epilogue mentions some major developments that occurred in the
nineteenth century – such as President Andrew Jackson’s removal policy – and their
influence on the relationships between white Americans and Indians. The author
also provides interesting comments on the evolution of the various literary
genres discussed in the study – the “prolongations of the earlier literature
into the nineteenth century” and the “proliferation of new works” [272] –
before focusing on George Catlin’s writings (Letters and Notes on the
Manners, Customs, and Conditions of the North American Indians, 1842). The analysis
of some textual ambiguities – or, sometimes, even contradictions – in the
traveler’s works illustrates the complexity of the psychological mechanism of
encounter. Far from revealing “a betrayal of an earlier purity of mission”,
such incongruities are actually an integral part of the fundamentally
“conflicted vision” [288] that seems to have characterized the writer’s
perspective throughout his life. In a systemic and comprehensive approach,
this book discusses topics usually tackled in a compartmentalized way, namely
the socioeconomic history of the North American colonies in the eighteenth
century and the ethnohistory of the native populations, as well as their
relations with the colonists. In a literary perspective, the author analyzes
these subjects “from the angle of memory”, laying emphasis on the various representations
of the North American Indian as they emerge from “the collective memory of
Europeans” [295]. By opting for such a method instead of a purely descriptive and factual
one, the author successfully captures the essence of a truly historical moment,
as the inevitable confrontation between two radically different civilized
models was being experienced, through changing times, in different ways and on
various degrees of “encounter” between “modernity” and its “Other”.
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