Understanding the Historical Roots of Current Colonialism in Indigenous Literature - Research Paper Example

Thus, native authors and poets take a certain glee in delving into the darkest corners of the English language, and connecting many innocuous terms to the horrors inflicted on indigenous peoples by English speaking colonists. Indigenous authors and poets show great ability at deconstructing the English language, thus cleverly using the colonizing language to spread decolonizing ideas, and to keep the history of the language that was used to bar natives from inhabiting their own world alive. Carter Revard, an indigenous poet from the Osage tribe has a long history of writing poetry about the origins and fate of indigenous people in North America, especially in their conflict with the dominant white society that colonized their land (Revard 13).

He also demonstrates the freeness of language discussed earlier to great effect. His poem “Hidden Verbs,” for instance, cleverly tears down the language used to anesthetize the stealing of native land, and delights in its ability to truly break apart the English language. . These were lands that were held by “Creeks / and Semionles” (12-13), then forcefully taken by the United States government. But the government, Revard notes, would not assign these to black slaves, so they simply left them unassigned – giving them the ability to steal them from black slaves later if need be.

Thus the word “unassigned” is not simply an adjective, describing a type of land, as it initially sounds, Revard argues, but in fact a powerful verb – the United states government says “we UNASSIGN these lands to Black or Indians / We now ASSIGN them to Americans / so long as they are WHITE.” He turns what is the least active thing in the world – an adjective, a mere descriptor, into a violent act, an active attempt to rob one people for the benefit of another. This playing with language does several things simultaneously.

Firstly, it serves to deconstruct the colonizing language that Revard is forced to use to communicate to his audience. Rather than being powerful or hegemonic, Revard shows that the English language is fragile, and can be twisted and broken, use to benefit the very people that it was so often turned against. Furthermore, he uses it to undermine the very project that the colonizing government so often attempts to undertake – the erasing of history. He uses it to keep memory alive, to remind people why settlement patterns in America look the way they do now – because the United States government forcefully took land from a people who had lived there for generations.

One of the most interesting things about contemporary native literature is its relationship to the English language. On the one hand, the English language is the language of the colonizers, the language that was so often forced on people in