Born for the Shade

Book excerpt: This volume examines the ways in which attempts to define and delimit American nationhood effected imaginative and documentary conceptualizations of the Native American population. Far-reaching in its scope, both in terms of the period covered - roughly the period from the Declaration of Independence to the closing of the frontier - and in terms of the variety and kinds of documents examined, this study calls attention to the cultural and generic restraints that prevented visual and literary artists, as well as statesmen and community leaders, from adopting any position toward Native Americans other than a prejudicial one.