Native American Presence

Abstract

In this contribution to the Hawthorne in Context volume, Laura Mielke considers the appearance of Native American characters and cultures across Hawthorne’s tales and novels. In particular, she traces how his use of autochthonous legend, progression through social stages, warfare, captivity, conversion, and masquerade all point to the history of colonialism and the implementation of federal Indian removal policy at the highpoint of his writing career. Though Hawthorne expressed antipathy concerning the use of indigenous materials in contemporary literature, he simply could not write Native Americans out of historic or contemporary existence.