Nineteenth-Century Native American Writers, Representativity, and Political Form

This review of Mark Rifkin’s 2021 Speaking for the People: Native Writing and the Question of Political Form shows how Rifkin engages contemporary debates within Native American and indigenous studies, including debates about recognition and gender. Rifkin does so in part by examining how nineteenth-century Native American authors defined and represented peoplehood as both they and those they wanted to represent responded to changes in law, policy, and popular perception. The review includes summaries of Rifkin’s chapters on Elias Boudinot, William Apess, Sarah Winnemucca, and Zitkala-Ša.