Native American Literature

Silently, the wounded brave
Offers his final prayer
To the eternal clan bear;
Totem and guardian
Of his battle slain tribe.
The enemy, exultant,
Are almost upon him,
Yet he looks not behind:
He sees only the Great Spirit,
Surrounding him kindly
In loving, firm embrace.
While the enemy closes in,
He straightens himself;
His voice rings loud and clear,
Echoing across the land
To the distant cloudless sky.
One last defiant war cry
As he spurs on his pony,
And leaps...
Into the world of his ancestors.

REFLECTION
I feel that the Indian warrior is defiant towards his enemies when, even in death, he has the power to hold to his beliefs and enbraces the Great Spirit. This shows his fervor and respect for his religious and cultural beliefs, holding on to them even in the face of death.

Dear Diary,
We lost many tribesmen today in the battles. I saw many warriors fall, but one stood out in particular, Roaring-Bear. He was the last to fall, and he gave a prayer to the Great Spirit before his death. This was done in front of his enemy. Roaring-Bear did not care about the fact that his enemy was drawing near; he needed to give him self to the Great Spirit. His war yell to defy his enemy was testament to his willingness to give him self up to the Great Spirit.
Peace be with those who lost thier lives in battle,
Grand Oak

ESSENTIAL QUESTION
How has the American Dream changed over the years? And how does this change reflect community values?

The American Dream for the Native Americans is to be in harmony with nature, honoring and showing respect for the land. This has been skewed by the arrival of the white man, who takes liberally and destroys without thought for the land or its inhabitants. This change in the way of thinking reflects that while the Native Americans as a whole hold nature as an equal, the white man's community takes what it needs and moves one, not repairing or saving what it could.

Puritan Literature

William Bradford

Anne Bradstreet

To my Dear and Loving Husband
If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee;
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye women, if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee, give recompense.
Thy love is such I can no way repay,
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love let's so persevere
That when we live no more, we may live ever.

Edward Taylor

Huswifery
Make me, O Lord, thy Spinning Wheele compleat;
Thy Holy Worde my Distaff make for mee.
Make mine Affections thy Swift Flyers neate,
And make my Soule thy holy Spoole to bee.
My Conversation make to be thy Reele,
And reele the yarn thereon spun of thy Wheele.

Make me thy Loome then, knit therein this Twine:
And make thy Holy Spirit, Lord, winde quills:
Then weave the Web thyselfe. The yarn is fine.
Thine Ordinances make my Fulling Mills.
Then dy the same in Heavenly Colours Choice,
All pinkt with Varnish't Flowers of Paradise.

Then cloath therewith mine Understanding, Will,
Affections, Judgment, Conscience, Memory;
My Words and Actions, that their shine may fill
My wayes with glory and thee glorify.
Then mine apparell shall display before yee
That I am Cloathd in Holy robes for glory.

Jonathan Edwards

Sinner in the Hands of an Angry God!

Slave Narrative

While I was thus employed by my master, I was often a witness to cruelties of every kind, which were exercised on my unhappy fellow slaves. I used frequently to have different cargoes of new negroes in my care for sale; and it was almost a constant practice with our clerks, and other whites, to commit violent depredations on the chastity of the female slaves; and these I was, though with reluctance, obliged to submit to at all times, being unable to help them. When we have had some of these slaves on board my master's vessel, to carry them to other islands, or to America, I have known oar mates to commit these acts most shamefully, to the disgrace, not of Christians only, but of men. I have even known them gratify their brutal passion with females not ten years old; and these abominations, some of them practiced to such scandalous excess, that one of our captains discharged the mate and others on that account. And yet in Montserrat I have seen a negro man staked to the ground, and cut most sbockingly, and then his ears Ccut off bit by bit, because he had been connected with a white woman, who was a common prostitute. As if it were no crime in the whites to rob an innocent African girl of her virtue; but most heinous in a black man only to gratify a passion of nature, where the temptation was offered by one of a different color, though the most abandoned woman of her species.One Mr. D--- told me that he had sold 41,000 negroes, and that he once cut of a negro man's leg for running away. I asked him if the man had died in the operation, how he, as a Christian, could answer for the horrid act before God? and he told me, answering was a thing of another world, what he thought and did were policy. I told him that the Christian doctrine taught us to do unto others as we would that others should do unto us. He then said that his scheme had the desired effectÑ-it cured that man and some others of running away.

In Olaudah Equiano's narrative of his life as a slave to a white man in the West Indies, he relates the lack of equity between Blacks and Whites. The fact that a white man can rape a black girl and recieves no punishment befuddles him, when a black man and a white woman have willing procreation, the black man is tortured and eventually killed. He feels that this is a terrible bomination against God.

Dear Diary,
I saw one of my brothers, Reiu, get sold today. His master seemed to be friendly, his slaves were well fed and were similar to cabin boys on the big canoes that brought us here. I was sold to an other man, he looks like a raving boar of a man. His slave, my new brothers and sisters, have many scars, and have a hungry look about them. I hope this is not real and that he is actually a nice person.
From,
Ufeka

Essential Question
How has the American Dream changed over the years? And how does this change reflect community values?

The American Dream for the black people is to be freed from the hands of the slaveowners that keep that freedom from them, as Mr. D does to Olaudah Equiano. The white man, however, has the dream to become wealthy, and this is accomplished by having slaves to do thier work. These two peoples dreams conflict, causing the American Dream to become a contest of power between the white and black communities. This reflects the communities values by having freedom from the white man for the black community, whereas the white community is focused on power over another, here in the form of slaves.

Revolution!!

Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death by Patrick Henry
Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be called in to win back our love?

Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation; the last arguments to which kings resort. I ask gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it? Has Great Britain any enemy, in this quarter of the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies? No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us: they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British ministry have been so long forging. And what have we to oppose to them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years....

... Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston!

In Patrick Henry's speech, his use of pathos, or emotion, is displayed to show the anger at the British forces used to try and subdue the American Colonists in submission and slavery, "There is no retreat but in subission and slavery! Our chains are forged!" logos, or logic, was also used in he speech, in the statesment: "Has Great Britain any enemy, in this quarter of the world, to call for ths accumulation of navies and armies? No sir, she has none. They are meant for us: they nust be meant for no other. This is shown to put together a picture of why the Colonists must go to war against the British.

Dear Diary,
Sir Henry spoke eloquently this past evening, his speech caused tears of joy to well up in my eyes. I feel so strongly about his position, in that, the British are just here to subdue and take our materials, giving nothing in return! I plan to join the war at the soonest possibility, be it a cook, soldier, or even a latrinesman! I wish to fight for our freedom and keep our money in the Colonies! Hurrah to General Washington! Hurrah to Sir Henry!
Pray we achieve victory against the enemy!
With freedom,
Richard Brown

Essential Question
How has the American Dream changed over the years? And how does this change reflect community values?

The dream has become focused on the dream of freedom from the British, who has used the American colonies as a tributary for the British Empire, similar to India and Africa's northern and western coastline. The dream of freedom from the British becomes not just a communities goal, but the entire nation's goal.

Interviews

Romantism

Anti-Transcendentalists