Introduction Within Our Bosom and on Our Borders: Negotiating Shared Black and Native Histories

Abstract

Shared and often silenced histories between Native Americans and African Americans reveal important aspects about the nature or race, racism and identity in the Americas. Historical examples demonstrate that, as the newly formed nation began to simultaneously expand and contract its borders and self-definitions, intermixtures between African American and Native American communities contributed to a peculiarly American anxiety toward both “red” and “black” Americans. Thus, black Indian characters in American literature from the eighteenth century to the twentieth provide meaningful examples through which to explore and highlight American anxieties, stereotypes and definitions. These characters often find themselves on the losing end of both racial realities, but they just as often find that they can productively challenge attitudes toward race and perceptions about what it means to be American—if not for the other characters or their authors, at least for present and future readers.