Native American Representations: First Encounters, Distorted Images, and Literary Appropriations

From Columbus's journal jottings about "Indios" to the image of Sacagawea on the dollar coin, from the marauding Indians portrayed in the traditional western to the appearance of Native Americans in Dances with Wolves, from cigar box caricatures to the Crazy Horse monument rising near Mt. Rushmore, Native Americans have been represented-and misrepresented-over the past five centuries. What such depictions mean-what they say, and what they do, historically, culturally, and ideologically-is t...