| The Tree That Bends: Discourse, Power, and the Survival of Maskoki People First Edition, Edition Contributor(s): Wickman, Patricia Riles (Author) |
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ISBN: 0817309667 ISBN-13: 9780817309664 Publisher: University Alabama Press OUR PRICE: $37.95 Product Type: Paperback Published: March 1999 Annotation: In this compelling and controversial volume, Patricia Riles Wickman rejects the myth that erases Native Americans from Florida through the agency of Spaniards and diseases. She also refutes the accompanying assumption that the area was an empty frontier at the time of American expansion. Through research in archives on both sides of the Atlantic and extensive oral history work with the Seminoles in Florida and Oklahoma, Wickman makes a convincing case against the perpetuation of this oversimplistic myth by presenting the Native American perspective. In her investigation into the ethnohistory of cultural transformation, Wickman shatters current theories about the origins of the Native Americans encountered by the Spaniards and uses mission records and other early documents for support. She describes the genesis of those Native American groups known today as the Creeks, Miccosukees, and Seminoles -- or collectively as Maskoki -- and traces their common Mississippian cultural heritage through time, affirming the Native American claims to continuous habitation of the Southeast and particularly of La Florida. Wickman also describes in detail the dynamics of the cultural conflicts arising between the Native Americans and the early Spanish explorers before the 18th century. This is an important cross-disciplinary work in which Wickman reveals the multicultural origins of Native Americans of Florida and the Southeast and explains how these peoples possessed the flexibility to survive the trauma of initial and continued contact. Their world was capable of incorporating new concepts and demands without being destroyed, and their descendants not only survive but also succeed as a discreteculture as a result. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - History | Native American - Social Science | Anthropology - Cultural & Social - History | United States - State & Local - General |
| Dewey: 975.900 |
| LCCN: 98-58025 |
| Physical Information: 0.92" H x 6.1" W x 9.2" (1.10 lbs) 316 pages |
| Themes: - Cultural Region - Southeast U.S. - Cultural Region - South - Ethnic Orientation - Native American |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Patricia Riles Wickman offers a new paradigm for the interpretation of southeastern Native American and Spanish colonial history and a new way to view the development of the United States. In her compelling and controversial arguments, Wickman rejects the myths that erase Native Americans from Florida through the agency of Spaniards and diseases and make the area an empty frontier awaiting American expansion. Through research on both sides of the Atlantic and extensive oral history interviews among the Seminoles of Florida and Oklahoma, Wickman shatters current theories about the origins of the people encountered by the Spaniards and presents, for the first time ever, the Native American perspective. She describes the genesis of the groups known today as Creek, Seminole, and Miccosukee--the Maskoki peoples--and traces their common Mississippian heritage, affirming their claims to continuous habitation of the Southeast and Florida. Her work exposes the rhetoric of conquest and replaces it with the rhetoric of survival. An important cross-disciplinary work, The Tree That Bends reveals the flexibility of the Maskoki people and the sociocultural mechanisms that allowed them to survive the pressures introduced at contact. Their world was capable of incorporating the New without destroying the Old, and their descendants not only survive today but also succeed as a discrete culture as a result. |