Archives Subject Guide: Indigenous Collections

Section written by Myron Groover, Archives and Rare Books Librarian.

McMaster possesses a modest collection of books (less than one hundred items in total) which pertain, in the broadest sense, to Indigenous peoples in North America, South America, and the Caribbean Islands. These are, by and large, painful reading by today’s standards; they are rife with misunderstandings, hostility, and overt factual errors — sometimes apparently honest, sometimes obviously deliberate. They do, however, provide an important testament to the intellectual lifeworld and experiences which conditioned their writing and printing. General categories these publications fall into include:

Philosophical works & scripture aimed at moral or religious education

Such books include religious works pertaining to supposed moral proclivities of Indigenous peoples or, especially, to the conversion of Indigenous peoples to Christian sects — generally Protestant, given our historical collecting focus. These include early printed works in Indigenous languages, including the sole work in our rare book collection purported to have any Indigenous authorship, the 1787 edition of Ne yakawea yondereanayendaghkwa oghseragwegouh… purportedly containing a translation of the Gospel of Matthew by Joseph Brant.

Political-historical works

Such books are often framed as historical essays purporting to directly recount narratives of European contact with Indigenous peoples, occasionally with speculation about pre-contact Indigenous societies. In such works, the author’s intent may not be strictly historiographical; they often serve as oblique or overt criticisms of various political or personal opponents. Benzoni’s Historia del Mondo Nuovo is an illustrative example of the genre. Other works in this vein may speculate about the “origins” of Indigenous peoples, an important component of attempts to fit Indigenous peoples into existing European worldviews. Johannes de Laet’s Notæ ad Dissertationem Hugo Grotii is an example. In some cases, the boundary between these works and the “travel and exploration narratives” described below is porous.

Travel and exploration narratives incorporating proto-ethnographic components

By far the largest category of works in this survey, such books often combine elements of geography, geology, natural history, and ethnography in attempting to “describe” lands and peoples recently encountered by European explorers or settlers. These range widely in accuracy and fidelity, depending on their authorship and intended audience. Some, such as John Long’s Voyages and Travels of an Indian Interpreter, may incorporate elements of Indigenous languages.

Allegorical or fictive works

Such works are primarily a testament to the place of geographically distant Indigenous peoples in the popular imagination of Europeans and include plays or other fictional works revolving around imagined Indigenous characters. Voltaire’s Le Huron and its successor works are examples.

In the overwhelming majority of these texts, Indigenous peoples are represented chiefly as subject matter; in almost no cases are Indigenous people readily evident in the authorship of the work. Please note that this survey is representative rather than exhaustive.