Hartford's Ann Plato and the Native Borders of Identity, livre ebook

Who was Ann Plato? Apart from circumstantial evidence, there's little information about the author of Essays; Including Biographies and Miscellaneous Pieces, in Prose and Poetry, published in 1841. Plato lived in a milieu of colored Hartford, Connecticut, in the early nineteenth century. Although long believed to have been African American herself, she may also, Ron Welburn argues, have been American Indian, like the father in her poem "The Natives of America." Combining literary criticism, ethnohistory, and social history, Welburn uses Plato as an example of how Indians in the Long Island Sound region adapted and prevailed despite the contemporary rhetoric of Indian disappearance. This study seeks to raise Plato's profile as an author as well as to highlight the dynamics of Indian resistance and isolation that have contributed to her enigmatic status as a literary figure.
Illustrations and Maps
Prologue
Acknowledgments
A Speculative and Factual Chronology for Ann Plato
Introduction
1. Ann Plato: Hartford’s Literary Enigma
2. “The Natives of America” and “To the First of August”: Contrasts in Cultural Investment
3. Missinnuok at the Hartford Space
4. Long Island Sound Platos and Their Circle
5. Coordinates of a Social and Religious Personality
6. Schooling: Some Speculations; Teaching: Some Records
7. Essays: Publication and Reception of the Book
8. Essays and Lydia Sigourney: The Poetics of Borrowing
9. The Literary Personality of the Essay Topics
10. Four Women as a Cultural Circle
11. The Poetics of a Young Writer
Epilogue: After the Paper Trail
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index