Bearer of This Letter

J. Morgan Mindy

Description

The Bearer of This Letter illuminates the enduring effects of colonialism by examining the decades-long tension between written words and spoken words in a reservation community. Drawing on archival sources and her own extensive work in the community, Mindy J. Morgan investigates how historical understandings of literacy practices challenge current Indigenous language revitalization efforts on the Fort Belknap Reservation in Montana.

 

Created in 1887, Fort Belknap is home to the Gros Ventre and Assiniboine peoples. The history of these two peoples over the past century is a common one among Indigenous groups, with religious and federal authorities aggressively promoting the use of English at the expense of the local Indigenous languages. Morgan suggests that such efforts at the assimilation of Indigenous peoples had a far-reaching and not fully appreciated consequence. Through a close reading of federal, local, and missionary records at Fort Belknap, Morgan demonstrates how the government used documents as a means of restructuring political and social life as well as regulating access to resources during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As a result, the residents of Fort Belknap began to use written English as a means of negotiating with the government and when arguing for structural change during the early reservation period while maintaining distinct arenas for Indigenous language use. These linguistic practices have significantly shaped the community’s perceptions of the utility of writing and continue to play a central role in contemporary language programs that increasingly rely on standardized orthographies for Indigenous language programs.

Sujets

• Sociologie, société et politique
• USA
• Sociolinguistics
• Indigenous peoples
• History of the Americas
• États-Unis
• Montana

Informations

• Publié par: Nebraska
• Date de parution: 01 novembre 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780803226296
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

The Bearer of This Letter

Indigenous Education

series editors

Margaret Connell Szasz University of New Mexico

Brenda J. Child University of Minnesota

Karen Gayton Swisher Haskell Indian Nations University

John W. Tippeconnic III The Pennsylvania State University

The Bearer of This Letter Language Ideologies, Literacy Practices, and the Fort Belknap Indian Community

Mindy J. Morgan

university of nebr ask a press| lincoln and london

© 2009 by the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America

A portion of chapter 4 appeared in an earlier form in the article: “Constructions and Contestations of the Authorita- tive Voice: Native American Communities and the Federal Writers’ Project, 1935–1941.” Reprinted from theAmerican Indian Quarterlyvol. 29, numbers 1 & 2, by the permission of the University of Nebraska Press. Copyright © 2005 by the University of Nebraska Press.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Morgan, Mindy J. The bearer of this letter : language ideologies, literacy practices, and the Fort Belknap Indian community / Mindy J. Morgan. p. cm. — (Indigenous education series) Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn978-0-8032-6757-2 (cloth : alk. paper) 1.Assiniboine Indians — Education — Montana — Fort Belknap Indian Reservation. 2.Assiniboine Indians — Montana — Fort Belknap Indian Reservation — Languages. 3.Hidatsa Indians — Education — Montana — Fort Belknap Indian Reservation. 4.Hidatsa Indians — Montana — Fort Belknap Indian Reservation — Languages. 5.Yankton dialect — Montana — Fort Belknap Indian Reservation. 6.English language — Study and teaching — Montana — Fort Belknap Indian Reservation. 7.English language — Written English — Montana — Fort Belknap Indian Reservation. 8.Bilingual education — Montana — Fort Belknap Indian Reservation. 9.Multicultural education — Montana — Fort Belknap Indian Reservation. 10.Fort Belknap Indian Reservation (Mont.) — History. 11.Fort Belknap Indian Reservation (Mont.) — Social conditions.I. Title. e99.a84.b43 2009 305.897'524078615 — dc22 2009014554

Set in Iowan Old Style by Kim Essman. Designed by R. W. Boeche.

To all past, present, and future language learners at Fort Belknap Reservation, Montana

 List of Maps

 Preface ix

viii

Contents

 Notes on Terminology and Abbreviations xv

 Introduction Fort Belknap and the Question  of Indigenous-Language Literacy 1

1. Before the Reservation Language Practices and the Documentary Record 17

2. Creating Boundaries English Literacy in the Early Reservation Era 43

3. English Only Language Ideologies and the Limits of Literacy 83

4. Shifts in Practice Literacy during the Indian New Deal 119

5. Bringing the Languages Back Developing Bilingual Education at Fort Belknap 163

6. The Nakoda Alphabet Reimagining Literacy and Tradition

 Summary  New Literacies and Old Ways

 Notes 251

 Bibliography 279

 Index

Maps

297

241

201

1. Assiniboine and Gros Ventre territories in the  eighteenth and nineteenth centuries 23 2. Contemporary northern U.S. reservations  and southern Canadian reserves 24 3. Fort Belknap (Assiniboine and Gros Ventre)  contemporary reservation 31

Preface

I have a daughter. At the time of this writing she is two years old and is fully engaged in the activities that lead to literacy acquisition. She uses drafts of my book chapters as the paper for her inspired crayon drawings and she “reads” my words by mimicking what she sees me do as I read text aloud. She is lucky, and so am I, in that we see read- ing and writing as a way to channel creativity and express ourselves. These practices also enable us to inhabit alter- nate and even imaginary worlds—some far better than our own. These are undeniable beneÀts to reading and writ- ing; however, these are not the only consequences of lit- eracy practices. As much as reading and writing are about freedom and expression, literacy is also about standard- ization, routinization, and control. People use documents to inÁuence the actions of others; governments use them to create subjects who must abide by their dictates. While my daughter will eventually learn these lessons as well, her foundational experiences will likely predispose her to a positive view of literacy. This is not the case for everyone. During the late nine- teenth century, Native children throughout the United States were often separated from families in the course of