Programs
Seminar in American Literary History
RESCHEDULED, Tuesday, November 21, 2000
All in the Family:
Catharine Maria Sedgwick's Indian "Connexions"
and
the Writing of Hope Leslie
Karen Woods Weierman
AAS-NEH Fellow and Worcester State College
RESCHEDULED, Tuesday, November 21, 2000, at 4:30 p.m.
Elmarion Room, Goddard-Daniels House
190 Salisbury Street, Worcester, Massachusetts
PRÉCIS: Critics have long established the captivity of Sedgwick's distant
relative Eunice Williams as an important source for the plot of Hope
Leslie. After being captured by Indians in 1704 at the age of seven,
Eunice adopted Indian culture and married a Kahnawake Mohawk, a Catholic
Indian from the Montreal area. But Indian-white marriages were more than
just a part of Sedgwick family legend: in 1826, a cousin shocked New
England by her marriage to a Cherokee Indian. This scandal influenced
Sedgwick's 1827 novel Hope Leslie and its portrayal of an Indian-white
marriage. In her fiction and in her family life, the notion of an
interracial family captured Catharine Sedgwick's romantic imagination,
even as her novel removed Indians from New England and as she observed the
efforts of the state of Georgia to push the Cherokees west.
Refreshments will be provided during the discussion of the paper.
Afterwards, a supper, with wine, will be served in the dining room of the
Goddard-Daniels House at $14.00 per person. The entrée will be grilled
filet of salmon. If you would prefer a vegetarian entrée, please indicate
below. If you wish to stay for supper, please send your check in that
amount to arrive at AAS by Friday, November 17. The Society regrets that
it is unable to make refunds for dinner after that date.
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