Abstract
For a time in the late 1810s and into the 1820s, in the Cherokee Nation and in reading spaces throughout New England, one Native woman’s body became a site where the struggles of empire were played out, both physically and textually. Kätý Brown (Cherokee, 1800?–1823), called Catharine by her missionary educators, entered the Brainerd Mission School in the Cherokee Nation in 1817 at the age of approximately seventeen. Brown soon distinguished herself among the students there with her academic talents and her striking piety. Within a year of her enrollment, she became the first Cherokee convert claimed by the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions, a New England-based organization comprised primarily of Presbyterians and Congregationalists.
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© 2016 Theresa Strouth Gaul
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Gaul, T.S. (2016). Catharine Brown’s Body: Missionary Spiritualization and Cherokee Embodiment. In: Balkun, M.M., Imbarrato, S.C. (eds) Women’s Narratives of the Early Americas and the Formation of Empire. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137543233_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137543233_14
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
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