Oh dear, another blog about Elias Boudinot...can't get enough of this guy.
Poor Sarah, such a strange and depressing story. We had a lot of discussion in class about whether or not Elias Boudinot actually wrote it. Here I am sharing my insights on the author of Poor Sarah.
Let's just begin by saying that as I was reading this story, I was completely confused because the "author" stated was Elias Boudinot but it completely seemed like a woman wrote this. It actually got to the point where I was just like "What does Misse mean?! Isn't that like a woman or something?!" because I kept seeing Sarah refer to the narrator as "Misse" (or am I wrong on this and she was actually talking to another woman?). Not only that though, the whole reading just gave me this vibe that a woman wrote it and I'm really not sure why.
But I'll say some things about the class discussion (or what I can remember of it).
During class, many students believe that Boudinot wrote the English version because it had the aspect of assimilation. Also because it kind of foreshadowed the things that Boudinot ended up doing later on in his life. I'd actually have to disagree with that idea. I mean yeah, it does show Sarah's assimilation to Christianity which reflects his signing of the treaty, but this was 13 years before he actually signed the treaty and wrote those papers/speeches!
I just feel that maybe this "Poor Sarah" was written by someone else. And to argue against how this story portrays something that Boudinot "would do", I'd just like to point out the morals of stories. People would think that he wrote it, he thinks that way, it's something he would do. I think that this story is the one that he might have referred to when he was deciding to sign the treaty; maybe he was thinking "what's the lesson I can get out of this?" Similar to old folk tales and fairy tales, they all have lessons, we all somewhat learn those lessons and act that way, but it doesn't mean that we wrote the tales, right? We just have keep lessons in mind.
Not to mention that 13 years is a pretty long time, who's to say that Boudinot didn't start off totally against assimilation and eventually had to give in? Most people wouldn't agree that they have the same mindset as they did 13 years ago (I realize that is before adolescence for most of us, but I think you guys get what I mean).
But then again, I have this thought in the back of my mind that it doesn't matter if he wrote it, but he DID choose to translate it. Now I haven't really thought too much into why he might have done that yet. Well, Sarah's case in the story did seem a little sad and pathetic, I mean who would want to spend their lives praying and putting themselves down all the time? Who wants to spend their lives, waiting for an afterlife? It does have that pathetic aspect to it, and maybe Boudinot translated it to show this; kind of like "assimilation is bad!"? Just a thought, anyone else care to share what they think?
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That is an extremely interesting way to view the reasoning behind Boudinot translating this piece. I might not be remembering correctly, but I believe Boudinot started out completely against assimilation. I see this very clearly in the previous work of his that we read. It seeems like he wants Indians to be "like" the white man, but not the same. He still wants a separate nation. Of course, I can't speak for what he wanted/did not want, but from his text and now this story, I can say that I don't think Boudinot ever wanted assimilation, but it essentially came down to assimilate to survive in the end.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I do think that it does definitely reflect a lot of my perceived intentions of Boudinot's other writing that we read, I don't think he wrote "Poor Sarah" either. I thought his "Address to the White Man" was very strategic on his part in that he knew what his purpose was, he knew who his audience was, and knew how to word things and perhaps demean his own people a bit to get what he wanted. I think the judgment of this story in that time would be different for a white American versus an Indian. I think a white person would view "Poor Sarah" as a victim-poor and lowly but nevertheless a good Christian which is what their ideal. In this way, it would paint Indians in a more favorable or preferable light to whites, perhaps drawing more sympathy from them? Poor Sarah had a very unfortunate life and her constant pursuance of being a good Christian despite it not really improving her life seemed a little ridiculous to me. I think Indians would have seen this as well and took from the story that assimilation and adoption of white ideals to be a negative thing.
ReplyDeleteI think that the reason why Poor Sarah seems to be written by a woman is because almost the entire story is dialogue from Sarah herself. Of course it sounds like a woman, its a woman who is talking for about 75% of the time and the old woman is talking to a woman. I think that Boudinot published this story because he probably at the time felt like Sarah and wanted to show his people to not turn into that. 13 years is a long time, long enough for him to change his opinions on whether or not to trust white people.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with the part of your blog when you comment that the author sounds so much like a woman. Its funny because I had completely forgot that it "was" Boudinot who wrote this. Now that in class we discussed the fact that we still dont know if Boudinot even wrote this, I think its a pretty legitimate idea to believe that a woman possibly wrote this.
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