Cherokee Sister: The Collected Writings of Catharine Brown, 1818-1823 (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780803240759)

Catharine Brown (1800?-1823) became Brainerd Mission School's first Cherokee convert to Christianity, a missionary teacher, and the first Native American woman whose own writings saw extensive publication in her lifetime. After her death from tuberculosis at age twenty-three, the missionary organization that had educated and later employed Brown commissioned a posthumous biography, Memoir of Catharine Brown, which enjoyed widespread contemporary popularity and praise.

In the following decade, her writings, along with those of other educated Cherokees, became highly politicized and were used in debates about the removal of the Cherokees and other tribes to Indian Territory. Although she was once viewed by literary critics as a docile and dominated victim of missionaries who represented the tragic fate of Indians who abandoned their identities, Brown is now being reconsidered as a figure of enduring Cherokee revitalization, survival, adaptability, and leadership.
In Cherokee Sister Theresa Strouth Gaul collects all of Brown's writings, consisting of letters and a diary, some appearing in print for the first time, as well as Brown's biography and a drama and poems about her. This edition of Brown's collected works and related materials firmly establishes her place in early nineteenth-century culture and her influence on American perceptions of Native Americans.


Author: Catharine Brown
ISBN-10: 0803240759
ISBN-13: 9780803240759
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
Language: English
Published: 01/01/2014
Pages: 312
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.95lbs
Size: 8.90h x 6.00w x 0.90d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 08/01/2014