Jessie Redmon Fauset (1882-1961) also viewed art as a means for political or propagandist ends. In her personal life, as in her art, Fauset strove to depict the middle class values of which she saw as the way to freedom and equality for her race. In one very revealing episode in which her personal inclination conflicted with social propriety, Fauset chose to stay within the boundaries of society set for her. On a trip to Africa, Fauset had visited alone the section of Algiers named the Kasbah. She returned the next day with two companions, only to be warned by a Frenchwoman that the "quarters are too dangerous to visit without an escort" (Wall 34). Notwithstanding the fact that she had been there alone already and now had two companions, Fauset adheres to the proper conduct the Frenchwoman informs her of.

Fauset had earned degrees from Cornell University and the University of Pennsylvania, and had worked as a high school teacher for fourteen years before becoming involved in the Renaissance (Wall 35). During the years she spent as literary editor of The Crisis, from 1919 to 1926, she was also the "most prominent black woman writer" (Wall 36). Fauset published "poems, reportage, reviews, short stories, and translations" in addition to her four novels (Wall 36).

Being strictly conservative, Fauset "adapted the conventions of the sentimental novel to her own purposes," which were to "explore the impact of racism and sexism on black Americans’ lives and represent the means by which black Americans overcame these oppressions and got on with the business of living" (Wall 66). However, the black Americans Fauset fictionalizes are middle-class, like herself, and firmly adhering to the values of the dominant society. The novels she wrote, There is Confusion (1924), Plum Bun (1929), The Chinaberry Tree (1931), and Comedy: American Style (1933), are social critiques of African American middle class life, and a condemnation of the racism and sexism that constrains African Americans. Wall asserts the basic theme of Fauset’s novels is "propriety for the New Negro woman was virtually a racial obligation" (80).

Fauset, in her art as well as her demeanor, attempts to dispel the stereotype of African American women as exotic, overtly sexual beings. In creating the image of the proper middle class African American woman, Fauset had to suppress her sexuality, and to conduct herself within the boundaries of social propriety. To Fauset, this was not a bad thing; she believed that her behavior, and the like behavior of other African Americans, would uplift her race from injustice and prejudice. In her preface to her third novel Plum Bun, Fauset describes her literary philosophy:

I have depicted something of the home life of the colored American who is not being pressed too hard by the Furies of Prejudices, Ignorance, and Economic Injustice…. And behold he is not so vastly different from any other Americans (Sato 67).

Her novels depict that, given the freedom to educate their minds without enduring prejudices or economic hindrances, all African Americans can achieve just as well as any other American. In other words, that African Americans do not possess any inborn, or inherent characteristics that distinguish them from whites; it is all a matter of social and economic boundaries that differentiates the African American race.

Bibliography

Sato, Hiroko. "Under the Harlem Shadow: A Study of Jessie Fauset and Nella Larsen." The Harlem Renaissance Remembered. Ed. Arna Bontemps. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1972. 63-89.

Wall, Cheryl A. Women of the Harlem Renaissance. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1995.

Mary Arnold holds a B.A. in literature and history. She is an author on http://www.Writing.Com/ which is a site for Creative Writers.

Her writing portfolio may be found at http://www.Writing.com/authors/ja77521.

Claude McKay (1890-1948) was born in Jamaica to "relatively prosperous peasants" (Hathaway 489). In his youth he "studied classical and British literary figures and philosophers as well as science and theology" (Hathaway 489). McKay’s earliest poetry was written in traditional English forms, but later he was encouraged by his mentor Walter Jekyll to write "dialect poetry rooted in the island’s folk culture" (Hathaway 489). His first two volumes of poetry, Songs of Jamaica (1912) and Constab Ballads (1912), are primarily written in dialect. McKay immigrated to the United States in the fall of 1912, and after studying agriculture at Tuskegee Institute and Kansas State College, he moved to New York City in 1914 (Hathaway 490).

In New York, McKay became "increasingly involved with political and literary radicals" (Hathaway 490). His third volume of poetry, Spring in New Hampshire (1920), reflects his changing political stance; his previous use of dialect is gone, and the poems are divided between commentary of race relations in America and nostalgic images of life in Jamaica (Hathaway 490). Dissatisfied with American leftist efforts to combat racism, McKay escaped to the Soviet Union in 1922 and spent six months traveling throughout the country, attending Communist symposiums and lecturing on art and politics (Hathaway 490). While in Russia, McKay "republished a series of articles he had written for the Soviet press" under the title Negroes in America (1923), which delivers a "Marxist interpretation of the history of African Americans" (Hathaway 490).

In 1928, when McKay was recuperating from illness in France, he published his first novel, Home to Harlem, which is his most widely read work. Even though the novel describes the lower class culture of Harlem, rather than middle class values, Home to Harlem is inherently propagandistic. The central theme of the novel is the internal conflict undergone by an educated, intelligent African American (Stoff 133). Ray, through his friendship with Jack, the ‘natural, instinctive man’, realizes he has "been robbed by his ‘white’ education of the ability to act freely and impulsively" (Stoff 133).

According to Stoff’s interpretation of McKay’s work, "only the instinctive primitive can survive happily in white civilization, its dehumanizing tendencies are irrelevant to his innately free existence" (Stoff 134). While McKay’s politics and philosophy are at odds with most of the Renaissance elders, he still uses his art for propaganda purposes, in this case to condemn the African American intellectuals who have traded their own culture for the middle class values of white America. In his last novel Banana Bottom (1933), McKay offers a Jamaican heroine whom is adopted by white missionaries (Stoff 142). Unlike Ray, Bita Plant, "who rejects the civilized value system but not her intellect, can move easily from one world to another without impairing either instinct or intellect" (Stoff 142).

Like the characters in his novels, McKay himself was "forever seeking fulfillment of his desires to escape color-consciousness and recapture lost innocence" (Stoff 146). McKay, in his later life, stated that "As a child, I was never interested in different kinds of races or tribes. People were just people to me" (Stoff 128). It was in America that he became aware of his race consciousness through bigotry and discrimination. McKay, for the rest of his life, strove to transcend racial boundaries, but ultimately failed. Many other Renaissance writers, such as Jessie Fauset, would also explore racial boundaries.

Bibliography

Hathaway, Heather. "Claude McKay." The Oxford Companion to African American Literature. Eds. William L. Andrews, Frances Smith Foster, and Trudier Harris. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. 489-90.

Stoff, Michael B. "Claude McKay and the Cult of Primitivism." The Harlem Renaissance Remembered. Ed. Arna Bontemps. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1972. 126-146.

Mary Arnold holds a B.A. in literature and history. She is an author on http://www.Writing.Com/ which is a site for Writers.

Like her contemporary Jessie Redmon Fauset, Nella Larsen also fictionalized middle class society; however in Larsen’s works, there are undercurrents that imply middle class values are not always ‘good.’ Nella Larsen’s only two novels, Quicksand (1928) and Passing (1929) were ‘novels of passing’ but unlike their predecessors, these two novels are "more complex and ambitious" (Davis 560). In these works, Larsen "explores the relationships between appearance and reality, deception and unmasking, manipulation and imaginative management, aggression and self-defense" (Davis 561). Perhaps Larsen is able to delve deeper into the consciousness of people torn between two worlds because she herself had experienced living in both the ‘white’ world and the ‘black’ world.

Larsen’s mother was an emigrant from Denmark, and her father was from the Virgin Islands. During her early childhood, she lived in a "white working-class neighborhood of Chicago," and attended an elementary school which consisted mainly of the "children of German and Scandinavian immigrants" (Wall 91). However, Wall reports that Larsen suffered "alienation" in her home life, and was "ostracized at school and in the neighborhood" (Wall 91).

In her teen years, Larsen attended Wendell Phillips High School, and later "enrolled in the high school department of Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee" which put Larsen among middle class African Americans (Wall 92). But Larsen left Fisk after only one year, apparently "she was no more at home in an all-black community than she had been in a white one" (Wall 92). After leaving Fisk in 1908, until she enrolled at New York’s Lincoln Hospital Training School for Nurses in 1912, there exists no evidence of her life in the intervening four years (Wall 92). Larsen says that she spent some time in Denmark attending the University of Copenhagen, but Wall asserts that "in fact, Larsen did not leave the United States" (Wall 92). Wall further states that what Larsen did in that period of her life "remains a mystery," that Larsen "went to great lengths to conceal" (Wall 92).

After graduating from nursing school in 1915, Larsen accepted a position as an "assistant superintendent of nurses at Tuskegee Institute" (Wall 92). While working at Tuskegee, Larsen discovered that "along with their academic and vocational training, students were also schooled in subservience and docility" (Wall 92). Larsen left Tuskegee after one year. She returned to New York, where she quickly became discontented with nursing and obtained a position as an assistant with the New York Public Library; this move put her in contact with the New Negro intelligentsia (Wall 92).

Larsen’s personal life, like her characters, exhibits a continuous quest to establish an identity for herself. But Larsen, if she ever did succeed in her quest for a sense of self, adroitly concealed it from her contemporaries and from the rest of the world. This concealment of her self is described by Wall in an interview with a reporter:

The interview concentrated on more personal concerns. The "unforgivable sin" was being bored, so [Larsen] selected only amusing and natural people, not too intellectual. She would never "pass," because "with my economic status it’s better to be a Negro. So many things are excused them. The chained and downtrodden Negro is a picture that came out of the Civil War." And while she claimed to be "not quite sure what she wanted to be spiritually," she knew she "want[ed] things – beautiful and rich things." (Wall 120).

Wall describes many more instances of Larsen’s flippancy in public, detailing the "considerable lengths" that Larsen utilized to "project a frivolous image" (Wall 120). The reasons for Larsen’s deceptive image is unclear, but Wall surmises that "behind its mask, one supposes, [Larsen] felt safe" (Wall 120). This "masquerade of femininity" is a major theme in Larsen’s novels, as also is transgressing social, racial, and gendered boundaries. The themes Larsen employs mark her as a Romantic novelist.

Bibliography

Davis, Thadious M. "Nella Larsen." The Oxford Companion to African American Literature. Eds. William L. Andrews, Frances Smith Foster, and Trudier Harris. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. 427-28.

Wall, Cheryl A. Women of the Harlem Renaissance. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1995.

Mary Arnold holds a B.A. in literature and history. Sh is an author on http://www.Writing.Com/ which is a site for Creative Writers.

Her writing portfolio may be found at http://www.Writing.com/authors/ja77521.

Although in these articles, I focused on just a few elements of the Harlem Renaissance that I learned from my research, there is so much more to be discovered about this intense, vibrant period in American history. As I stated in my introduction, I knew very little about the Harlem Renaissance before beginning this quest, and there is much that I learned that was not included in these articles, e.g. the historical and social context that led to the Harlem Renaissance (increased number of lynchings and race riots, tightening of restrictions placed on blacks, the psychological effects of World War I on African Americans, etc.). Besides the people mentioned in these articles, I learned quite a bit about many other participants in the Harlem Renaissance who contributed greatly to the movement.

Because of the limits of these articles, I had to neglect many of the people, white and black, who supported the Harlem artists, with encouragement, subsidies, or living expenses. But these patrons, such as Charlotte Mason, played an important role in the Harlem Renaissance also and should not be buried in obscurity anymore than the artists. I have endeavored to give others an overview of the Harlem Renaissance in hopes to pique their interest as mine was. It is up to us to keep these artists from sinking into oblivion again as many of them did at one time.

Let us not fail them.

It is an old platitude that the more one learns, the less one knows. This is undoubtedly true. I have learned quite a bit about the Harlem Renaissance, but through this research, I see that there is so much more that I do not know about it. This is not an end to my quest; I am now even more intrigued with this period of literary history. The artists that I have discussed are the ones that most interested me; therefore I plan to continue this discovery of the Harlem Renaissance by beginning with studying the works of those eight artists. I am particularly drawn to Zora Neale Hurston, so her novels and essays will be the first that I explore. I am also especially interested in Langston Hughes’ and Wallace Thurman’s works, but I hope to examine many others also, particularly Jessie Fauset, Nella Larsen, James Weldon Johnson, and Jean Toomer.

The primary issue that my research has interested me most is the theme of ‘passing’ and transgressing boundaries. This concept is not limited to people transgressing racial barriers, but could also be applied to social, economic, and gendered boundaries. Thus the issue takes on a broader context, one worth exploring in more detail. Why do people attempt to oppose boundaries, and what are the consequences if they do?

Mary Arnold holds a B.A. in literature and history. She is an author on http://www.Writing.Com/ which is a site for Writers.

Her writing portfolio may be viewed at http://www.Writing.com/authors/ja77521

In Wallace Thurman’s short life and short artistic career, one can discern tragic circumstances even more devastating than those of Hurston. Thurman (1902–1934) was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, and attended the University of California (Ferguson 729). He tried to create a literary movement in California like the one in Harlem through his establishment of Outlet, a "magazine similar to those being published" in Harlem (Ferguson 729). After the journal’s failure within six months, Thurman moved to Harlem in 1925, where he continued his artistic career in various forms: novelist, editor, poet, playwright, and literary critic (Ferguson 729).

Thurman’s dream was to "become editor of a financially secure magazine" (Henderson 150). He worked at several magazines in New York before becoming involved with Hughes, Hurston, and others to launch the journal Fire!! (1926), which was to stand in opposition to the mainly political and propagandist magazines being published currently: The Crisis, Opportunity, and The Messenger. Fire!! folded after one issue, leaving Thurman with a thousand dollar debt it took him four years to pay back (Ferguson 730). Thurman started another magazine in 1928, Harlem, A Forum of Negro Life; this journal had a longer life than Fire!! but it failed also (Ferguson 730).

Thurman then turned his talents to writing novels. His first novel, The Blacker the Berry (1929), contains "a variety of controversial themes including homosexuality, intraracial prejudice, abortion, and ethnic conflict between African Americans and Caribbean Americans" (Ferguson 730). His second novel, Infants of the Spring (1932), is a satiric evaluation of the Harlem Renaissance and the "judgment rendered is harsh and unsparing" (Ferguson 730). A third novel, written in collaboration with Abraham L. Furman, The Interne (1932) is "an expose of unethical behavior at City Hospital on Welfare Island (now Roosevelt Island)" (Ferguson 730). Ironically, City Hospital would be where Thurman would spend the last six months of his life just two years later.

Despite his literary successes and his being considered "spokesman for the younger group of black Renaissance writers," Thurman was prone to bouts of depression and "self-hatred" (Henderson 167). Thurman’s "erotic, bohemian" lifestyle (as he described it) and excessive alcohol consumption wreaked havoc on his none too healthy body (Henderson 147). He died on December 22, 1934 at the age of 32. Thurman’s friend, Arna Bontemps, described Thurman as: "He was like a flame which burned so intensely, it could not last for long, but quickly consumed itself" (Henderson 147).

Bontemps’ description of Thurman could just as easily be seen as a description of the Harlem Renaissance itself. While African American literature and art existed before the Renaissance and continued after the Renaissance, during this period of time the nation’s attention was riveted on those several streets in New York City. Whether this attention by the white community was good or bad is a complex issue. Many white people were genuinely interested in the folk and modern culture of African Americans, but it is also true that many of them were only thrill-seekers. But however that may be, the legacy of the Harlem Renaissance still continues to intrigue modern America. It is an important part of our history and culture, both black and white. Many of the issues and themes explored by the Harlem writers, (a search for identity, crossing boundaries, desire and loss, repression and rebellion, nostalgia, etc) are inherent in all cultures, and thus is something everyone can identify with. In the end, the Harlem Renaissance succeeded in transcending racial barriers.

Bibilography

Ferguson, SallyAnn H. "Wallace Thurman." The Oxford Companion to African American Literature. Eds. William L. Andrews, Frances Smith Foster, and Trudier Harris. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. 729-30.

Henderson, Mae Gwendolyn. "Portrait of Wallace Thurman." The Harlem Renaissance Remembered. Ed. Arna Bontemps. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1972. 147-170.

Mary Arnold holds a B.A. in literature and history. She is an author on http://www.Writing.Com/ which is a site for Creative Writers.

Her writing portfolio may be viewed at http://www.Writing.com/authors/ja77521

Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960) grew up in Eatonville, Florida, the "first incorporated black community in America" (Wall 376). Perhaps her isolation from white racism and discrimination during her childhood and her mother’s encouragement to "jump at da sun" contributed to her strong sense of self and her audacity in crossing racial, social, and gendered boundaries (Wall 376). Indeed, in exploring Hurston’s life and experiences, it is difficult to believe that Hurston herself discerned any boundaries attempting to be foisted on her. Hurston describes her literary aesthetics as:

In her four novels, Jonah’s Gourd Vine (1934), Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), Moses, Man of the Mountain (1939), and Seraph on the Suwanee (1948); in her two works of ethnography, Mules and Men (1935) and Tell My Horse (1938); a memoir, Dust Tracks on a Road (1942); and "more than fifty published short stories, essays, and plays" Hurston worked to recreate "the sense of drama and will to adorn" that she found in the language of African Americans (Wall).

But Hurston did not limit herself to dramatizing Negro life; she also dramatized herself. Her contemporaries believed Hurston to be ten years younger than what she was. Her ability to pass off her age exhibits her extraordinary skill in ‘acting.’ She had the ability to pass back and forth between high and low culture, black or white. I do not mean to imply that she could ‘pass’ for white, or that she did so. I mean that she could adapt herself to the manners of high society, middle class society, or working class society with no apparent difficulty. Wall describes many instances of Hurston’s crossing boundaries, too many to narrate here. But the anecdotes of Hurston’s personal life clearly show she is unafraid, and what is more, she is unabashed to "go where no [woman] has gone before" {Wall}

Tragically for Hurston, once the Negro was ‘out of vogue’, she experienced, as did most of her fellow artists, a swift decline in fortune. Although Hurston continued to write until her death, she largely went unpublished. She ended her life where she began: in domestic service. At the time of her death in 1960, none of her works were in print; likewise with Jessie Fauset and Nella Larsen (Wall 204). The only person of the Harlem Renaissance who "truly enjoyed a lengthy career" was Langston Hughes (Wintz 230).

Bibliography

Wall, Cheryl A. Women of the Harlem Renaissance. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1995.

Wintz, Cary D. Black Culture and the Harlem Renaissance. Houston: Rice University Press, 1988.

Mary Arnold holds a B.A. in literature and history. She is an author on http://www.Writing.Com/ which is a site for Creative Writing.

Her writing portfolio may be viewed at http://www.Writing.com/authors/ja77521

In his only novel on African Americans, Jean Toomer also found beauty in the "vernacular culture" among the people in Sparta, Georgia, where Toomer spent two months working as an interim principal at the Sparta Agricultural and Industrial Institute in 1921 (Byrd 733). Nathan Pinchback Toomer (1894–1967) changed his name to Jean after his move to Greenwich Village and reading Romain Rolland’s Jean Christophe (1904), in an effort to "solidify his emerging identity as a writer" (Byrd 733).

Toomer’s experimental novel, Cane (1923), is described as "a record of his discovery of his southern heritage, an homage to a folk culture that he believed was evanescent, and an exploration of the forces that he believed were the foundation for the spiritual fragmentation of his generation" (Byrd 733). Although Toomer continued writing after the publication of Cane until the time of his death, he did not have any other works of fiction published during his lifetime (Byrd 733).

After coming under the influence Georgei I. Gurdjieff, a Russian mystic and psychologist, Toomer never returned to depicting African American life (Byrd 733). This change in subject matter could be attributed to Toomer’s efforts to "transcend" the "narrow divisions of race" (Byrd 734). Due to his desire for transcendence of racial boundaries, Toomer’s later writings do not employ any racial themes; also this desire led Toomer to disassociate himself from Cane, the "work that has earned him a central place in the African American literary tradition" (Byrd 734).

Despite Toomer’s later rejection of racial themes, many of the Harlem writers were considerably influenced by Cane, such as Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston. Hurston, the most prolific black woman writer in her lifetime, is the most extraordinary, intriguing, but ultimately tragic, participant in the Harlem Renaissance.

Bibliography

Byrd, Rudolph P. "Jean Toomer." The Oxford Companion to African American Literature. Eds. William L. Andrews, Frances Smith Foster, and Trudier Harris. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. 733-734.

Mary Arnold holds a B.A. in literature and history. She is an author on Writing.Com which is located at http://www.Writing.Com/ and is accessible by anyone.

Her writing portfolio may be viewed at http://www.Writing.com/authors/ja77521

Langston Hughes (1902–1967) was a true Renaissance man, being a poet, novelist, essayist, playwright, autobiographer, and writer of children’s books (Rampersad 368). He was born in Joplin, Missouri, and spent most of his childhood in Lawrence, Kansas, but also lived in Illinois, Ohio, and Mexico (Rampersad 368). Hughes’ earliest influence was his maternal grandmother, Mary Langston, who intrigued the young Hughes with stories of her first husband who died at Harper’s Ferry and her second husband, Hughes’ grandfather, who was also a "militant abolitionist" (Rampersad 368). His literary influences include Walt Whitman, Carl Sandburg, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and Claude McKay (Rampersad 368). From his familial and literary influences, Hughes derived a love for personal expression, free verse, black dialect, and racial pride.

Hughes’ first two volumes of poetry, The Weary Blues (1926) and Fine Clothes to the Jew (1927) exhibit Hughes’ experimentation with fusing "jazz and blues with traditional verse" (Rampersad 369). While these volumes were "received reasonably well by the white press," the black community generally condemned the poems as presenting "racial defects before the public" (Taylor 93). But Hughes was not one to let his peers’ critical judgment hinder his artistic freedom. In his 1926 essay, "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain," Hughes attempts to prove that one can exhibit racial pride and still maintain artistic integrity:

We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, it doesn’t matter. We know that we are beautiful. And ugly too. The tom-tom cries and the tom-tom laughs. If colored people are pleased we are glad. If they are not their displeasure doesn’t matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, as strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain, free within ourselves. (Wintz 153)

Like Claude McKay before him, Hughes rejects the view that African Americans must accept the middle-class values of the dominant society to become unfettered by societal boundaries. Hughes looks at the streets of Harlem, not with the eye of middle class society, but with the eye of the poet. Thus, he does not focus on the poverty and crime-stricken atmosphere that is shameful to the black intelligentsia. Hughes sees beauty all around him: in the music, the speech patterns, the dances, the nightclubs, and the platonic friendships and sexual relationships that exist in Harlem. And he glories in it. Hughes sees nothing to be ashamed of in personal feelings of love, sex, and desire (like Walt Whitman). While Hughes’ later poetry took on aspects of political and racial protest, his earliest poems place him undeniably in the Romantic tradition.

Bibliography

Rampersad, Arnold. "Langston Hughes." The Oxford Companion to African American Literature. Eds. William L. Andrews, Frances Smith Foster, and Trudier Harris. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. 368-70.

Wintz, Cary D. Black Culture and the Harlem Renaissance. Houston: Rice University Press, 1988.

Mary Arnold holds a B.A. in literature and history. She is an author on http://www.Writing.Com/ which is a site for Fiction Writing.

Her writing portfolio may be viewed at http://www.Writing.com/authors/ja77521

One of the major controversies in the acquisition and development of America as an independent nation was the dilemma concerning the people who were already here. As a Christian people, it would have been sinful for our founders to just ‘take’ the land from other peoples. Therefore, the settlers and the succeeding generations began romanticizing the Indians, depicting them as either noble children of nature in need of civilization and Christianity or as ferocious, demonic savages in need of extermination. Neither view exhibited the reality of the Native Americans. From the earliest American writings, this image of the Indian, either as inherently noble or inherently evil, has persisted in our culture to the present.

In Columbus’ letter regarding his first voyage to the Americas, he describes a virtual Garden of Eden. While he does not describe the natives he encounters in great detail, it is safe to assume that he did not find them to be menacing or ferocious savages based on the content of his letter. Columbus states that he "sent two men inland to learn if there were a king or great cities" and that the men traveled for three days and "found an infinity of small hamlets and people without number" (Norton 26). Surely Columbus would not have sent two men among the Indians if he had any indication that the Indians would not be peaceful and welcoming.

However in his letter to Ferdinand and Isabella, Columbus’ view of the natives has changed. In pleading his plight to his sovereigns, Columbus says he is in "daily expectation of death" and "encompassed about by a million savages, full of cruelty" (Norton 28). These contrary and romanticized depictions of the Native Americans would be picked up and even expanded on by later American writers.

William Bradford carried on peaceful and friendly relations with the Indians that lived where they set up Plymouth Plantation. The Pilgrims made a treaty with the chief Massasoit which continued "24 years" (Norton 86). Additionally, Bradford transfers romantic qualities to Squanto, an Indian who had been captured and taken to England. Bradford says of Squanto that there are "scarce any left alive besides himself" which instigates the "vanishing Indian" myth that Cooper later uses for his narrative (Norton 87). Bradford also idealizes Squanto by referring to him as a "special instrument sent of God for [the Pilgrims] good" (Norton 87).

The writings of John Smith further emphasize the ambiguous feelings of the Europeans towards the Indians. When he and his men were in danger of starving to death, Smith describes how God "changed the hearts of the savages" so as to provide food for the Europeans (Norton 45). The indication here is clear: that the Indians are ’savage’ by nature but all that is needed to make them good people is Christianity.

When Smith is later taken hostage by Powhatan and his tribe, he narrates how he was "kindly feasted and well used" (Norton 49). But despite this, Smith remains fearful of the Indians, no matter how much he tries to make himself sound bold and unafraid. The fact that he is afraid of the Indians and their personal nature is seen through Smith’s description of the Indians in language and imagery that is horrifying. He depicts them as "devils," "fiends," having a "hellish voice" and entertaining him with "strange and fearful conjurations" (Norton 50). Smith is definitely romanticizing the Indians by making them seem as if they are demons from Hell.

These three romantic idealizations of the Indian (noble warrior, bloodthirsty savage, and vanishing Indian) converge in James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans. As the title suggests, the tribe of the Mohicans has been so very diminished that only two remain, Chingachgook and his son Uncas. This exhibits the "vanishing Indian" mythology.

The tribes of Indians that are the central focus in Cooper’s narrative are the Mohicans (Delawares) and the Iroquois (Mohawks). These tribes are depicted in the characters of Chingachgook and Uncas (Mohicans), and Magua, who even though was born a Huron, has became a member of the Iroquois federation. According to Cooper, both of these tribes are vanishing due to the "inroads of civilization" (Cooper 6). Chingachgook tells Hawkeye when his son Uncas dies "there will no longer be any of the blood of the Sagamores" because Uncas is the last of the pure blood Mohicans (Cooper33).

As for the Six Nations of the Iroquois, Cooper tells the reader in a footnote that:

There are remnants of all these people still living on lands secured to them by the state; but they are daily disappearing, either by deaths or by removals to scenes more congenial to their habits. In a short time there will be no remains of these extraordinary people, in those regions in which they dwelt for centuries. (Cooper 20)

Thus does Cooper romanticize the idea of the "vanishing Indian myth."

In his introduction to the first edition of his novel, Cooper describes the "native warriors of America" in the following manner:

In war, he is daring, boastful, cunning, ruthless, self-denying, and self-devoted; in peace, just, generous, hospitable, revengeful, superstitious, modest, and commonly chaste. (Cooper 5)

This type of description of Indians denies their individuality in human emotions and characteristics. As such, it romanticizes them by assigning them inviolable personality traits. Of the narrative’s three main Indian characters, Chingachgook and Uncas are idealized as the "noble warriors" and Magua is romanticized as the "bloodthirsty savage." None of these characters are presented in a realistic, humanistic fashion. They are spoken of in language that portrays them as highly exalted or irretrievably degraded.

In his first appearance in the novel, Chingachgook is seen seated on a log, engaged in a debate with Hawkeye. Chingachgook uses "calm and expressive gestures" and the posture of his body to "heighten" the effect of his "earnest language" (Cooper 29). He has reached middle age, but has no "symptoms of decay" that would suggest a lessening of "his manhood" (Cooper 29). Furthermore, even though Chingachgook is habitually suspicious, he is "not only without guile" but is possessed of "sturdy honesty" (Cooper 30). These physical and mental traits provide us with the classic image of the strong and stoic Indian warrior, one who is brave and fearless when necessary but kind and calm also. Chingachgook’s son Uncas is idealized even more than his father is.

Uncas is "fearless", "dignified," "noble," "proud," "determined," "brave," and "constant" (Cooper 53). Even Alice, who is fearful of all Indians, says of Uncas that she "could sleep in peace with such a fearless and generous looking youth for her sentinel" (Cooper 53). And Duncan allows that Uncas is a "rare and brilliant instance of those natural qualities" existing in Indians (Cooper 53). This portrayal of Uncas suggests that he is not like others of his tribe or race; that he is somehow exalted above the rest. Cooper plays up this exaltation of Uncas by revealing that he is descended from a noble chief (implying that Uncas’ blood is ‘royal’) later in the novel when Uncas is about to be burned at the stake (Cooper 309).

When Uncas is sentenced to death, his friends react in various ways: Duncan struggles to get free, Hawkeye anxiously looks around for a way to escape, and Cora throws herself at Tamenund’s feet to plead for mercy for Uncas (Cooper 309). Only Uncas remains calm and serene. He watches the preparations for the fire with a "steady eye" and does not resist when the other Indians come to seize him (Cooper 309). One gets the impression that if Uncas had not been spared by the discovery of his tortoise tattoo, he would have went to his death calmly without saying one word to save himself. This is a highly idealized portrait of a person, not so would we expect someone to act in this particular circumstance no matter how brave the person was.

At the opposite side of human nature, Cooper romanticizes the character of Magua as intrinsically evil and depraved. Other than being brave and fearless, Magua has no qualities that would be considered good as possessing. Magua is described as having the "characteristic stoicism" of his race, but his countenance exhibits a "sullen fierceness" (Cooper 17). Further Magua’s expression is "cunning," "savage," "repulsive," and having an eye "which [glistens] like a fiery star" (Cooper 18). Alice is afraid of Magua, based on his physical appearance, and refers to him as a "spectre" inhabiting the woods (Cooper 20). Cora tends to give Magua the benefit of the doubt, even though she first looks upon him with "pity, admiration, and horror" (Cooper 19). Even Duncan, who says he knows Magua well and trusts him, tells Alice not to show any distrust or fear to Magua, or she may "invite the danger [she] appears to apprehend" (Cooper 21). This admonition to Alice displays Duncan’s tendency to equate Magua with some species of wild animal, which will attack when sensing fear.

The idealization of Indians in Last of the Mohicans exhibits the period’s ambivalence towards the first inhabitants of the Americas. The colonists tended to either romanticize them as children of God or nature, or as savage, brutal heathens. This attitude towards the Indians began with Columbus and, in some degree, still exists today.

Sources

Norton Anthology of American Literature

The Last of the Mohicans

Mary Arnold holds a B.A. in literature and history. She is an author on http://www.Writing.Com/ which is a site for Creative Writers.

Her writing portfolio may be viewed at http://www.Writing.com/authors/ja77521

In 1995, 17 antique Siamese maps were discovered in the Grand Palace. Ironically, the people who found these rare old maps weren’t even looking for them. On a search for old court textiles for an exhibition, officials stumbled upon some cotton sheets with elaborate markings in a cupboard in the Princess Abhantri Paja Mansion, royal residence of a daughter of King Rama V.

The cotton sheets turned out to be antique Siamese maps. The discovery of these maps started a quest for their origin and purpose that was to last almost 10 years. The officials presented the maps to the Crown Princess who tasked Santanee Phasuk, a geography teacher at Chitralada School to embark on this mission.

In 1997, Santanee went on a royally sponsored doctorate in cartography to research on these maps at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.

Together with Professor Philip Scott, Head of the Geography Department in the same university, Dr Santanee researched and analyzed the old maps, which covered Burma, Thailand Indochina and China.

Characteristics of the old maps

The old maps are hand drawn and hand painted on large cotton sheets with names written in Thai script. The maps consist of topography maps with the terrain features painstakingly marked, coastal maps and even a chart of a battle plan!

Muang Tawai (Tavoy, Myanmar) is the largest map on display, at 4 x 5 m showing the western border province of Kanchanaburi, River Kwai and Three Pagoda Pass, the traditional invasion routes of Burma into old Siam. The area was the scene of frequent battles during the Siamese-Burmese Wars in the reign of King Rama I.

Saiburi (Alor Setar, Kedah) is the only display that’s not an actual map but a detailed chart of a battle plan to capture a coastal fort in what is now Peninsula Malaysia. It was the battle plan of the Siamese expeditionary force to put down a Muslim revolt in southern provinces.

The chart denotes details of enemy cannon and forces, deployment of Siamese ships and forces, the attack plan, including the assault and scaling parties for the walls. The chart even records the outcome of the battle and casualties. The name of rebel leader on the chart matched that of a rebel leader during the reign of King Rama III.

Khemen Nai Ni (Cambodia) covers famous Angkor Wat and Tonle Sap, the lake that drains and fills during the dry and rainy seasons. The positions of Angkor Wat and other temples and Tonle Sap with all its tributaries are clearly marked in detail.

The area covers the Cambodian provinces of Battambang and Siem Reap over which several wars were fought. These territories were in dispute right up till the 1940s.

Of the five antique Siamese maps, Muang Jin (China) is the most fascinating. The 2×4 m piece covers the entire coastline from Thailand to southern China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, all the way to Japan and Korea, including the northern tip of Luzon, Philippines. The coastline has been accurately mapped with details of all the coastal inlets.

Muang Kwantung (Guangzhou, China) is a city map of old Canton, showing the Pearl River delta, location of factories and buildings in the city.

Purpose of antique Siamese maps

The topography maps on border areas with Burma and Cambodia, traditional foes, were obviously for military purposes, the military routes and terrain features mapped by military commanders during campaigns to assert territorial claims or suzerainty.

Trade with China, the major trading partner then, required navigation charts mapped by ship captains and surveyors hugging the coast to China on a 30 –40 day round trip.

Accuracy of old maps - direction, distance and location

Military routes and distances were generally accurate as these were physically traversed. Locations of terrain features, mountains, jungles and rivers were also accurate.

The scale of these antique Siamese maps was compared with modern maps; the directional error was 1 degree, quite a mapping feat given the technology of those days.

Period of antique Siamese maps

The period of these maps was determined by a through detailed analysis of the hand-written Thai script, the consonants, vowels, tone marks used then and the writing styles.

The use of obsolete consonants, the cursive writing style and predominance of the first two tonal sounds in the Thai language indicate that the period of these old maps during the reigns of the first three Chakri kings i.e. around the late 18th the early 19th centuries.

This rare collection of antique Siamese maps is remarkable as there are very few maps of these areas before the early 19th century. The collection is kept in the personal library of the Crown Princess.

On special occasions they are put on public display. A public exhibition of antique Siamese maps was held at the Jim Thompson House from February - March 2006 when five of the 17 maps were displayed.

Antique Siamese maps are some of the old treasures in Tour Bangkok Legacies, a historical travel site on renowned places preserved for posterity, the momentous events surrounding these places and the legendary figures who left these legacies in the landscape of Bangkok. The author Eric Lim, a free-lance writer, lives in Bangkok Thailand.