The Power of Writing: Literacy and the Colonization of Southeastern Indians

Claudio Saunt

Historians have long debated the degree to which American Indians were awed by alphabetic writing, but well after it had lost its power to amaze and astonish, writing disrupted American Indian communities and shaped cultural encounters in the Atlantic world. Oral communication, and especially storytelling, diffused tensions within Indian groups and helped them maintain cohesive identities. Because their colonial neighbors privileged writing over speech, however, Indians began devaluing spoken words. At the same time, some Native Americans appropriated writing to secure their leadership. Among the Creek Indians of the Deep South, writing undermined the loose alliance that defined these people and ultimately facilitated the consolidation of political power.

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