Episodes in the Rhetoric of Government-Indian Relations

by Janice Schuetz

Overview

Scholarly considerations of the relationship between the United States government and Native Americans have largely ignored the rhetoric utilized by both in the course of their ongoing conflicts. This fascinating new study concentrates on the persuasive and public strategies of both government and Indian leaders, focusing on the written and oral records of several key episodes in American history. This approach, which author Janice Schuetz calls rhetorical ancestry reveals the ways in which government and Indian spokespersons have constituted and defined issues; created, prolonged, and managed conflict; and silenced and empowered each other's voices.

Chronicling the emergence of government and Indian leaders who were forced to deal with conflicts in new ways, each chapter makes use of historical evidence to draw inferences about the rhetorical features of the discourse and its effects. Both verbal and nonverbal rhetoric—including treaties, letters, oral histories, speeches, ritual performances, media reports, biographical narratives, protests and demonstrations, political hearings, and legal proceedings—are represented here, illuminating a legacy that evolved in the personal and political language of its participants.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780275976132
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	05/30/2002
Pages:	339
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.81(d)

About the Author

JANICE SCHUETZ is a Professor of Communication at the University of New Mexico. She is the author of The Logic of Women on Trial and more than 60 articles and book chapters, and co-author of Communication and Litigation, The O.J. Simpson Trials, and Perspectives on Argumentation.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Dramatistic Analysis and the Puget Sound War, 1854-1858
Rhetorical Genres and the Sioux Uprising, 1862
Political Spectacles and the Sand Creek Massacre, 1864-1865
Colonial Discourse and the Navajo Internment, 1846-1868
Identity Transformation and the Jourbaneys of Fanny Kelly and Chief Red Cloud, 1864-1870
Rituals of Redress and Zuni Witch Cases, 1880-1900
Resistance, Advocacy, and the Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho, 1868-1961
Legislative Movements and the Returban of Blue Lake, 1922-1970
Ethnography and Puget Sound Indian Fishing Rights, 1973-1974
Lamentation and Agitation at Wounded Knee, 1890 and 1973
Indian Alcohol Abuse, Narrative Reasoning, and the Gordon House Case, 1992-2000
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

In order to provide a rhetorical ancestry to the history of relations between the government and Indians, Schuetz (communications, U. of New Mexico) investigates several political and legal episodes of such relations. She begins with the trial of Chief Leschi in 1858, and ends with the vehicular homicide case of Gordon House during the 1990s. She focuses not on the facts and constructed narrative of a typical history, but on the rhetorical discourse that the two sides used to resolve the conflicts. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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