Abstract:

This essay analyzes how William Apess's Indian Nullification (1835) articulates a form of belonging that emphasizes inclusivity and communality (affiliative belonging) against settler colonialism's insistence that belonging is anchored in possession and property (proprietary belonging). It draws on recent critical appraisals of Indigenous kinship and community that emphasize the commingling of Native and white practices, but it centers tangible environmental markers—specifically the cutting and carting away of wood as presented in Apess's text—as the loci for a more general argument over how people should live with each other. I draw much from Apess's depiction of the Mashpee Meeting-house, a religious structure made of wood whose retrieval by the Mashpee concurrently pushes to establish their conception of communal belonging with nature and with each other. The Mashpee form of belonging is also incarnate in two other ways in Indian Nullification: in Apess's discussion of his adoption into the Mashpee tribe and in the very structure of the book. By contrasting how the Mashpee treat the management of wood and wooden creations with settler colonial impositions, Apess conceptualizes how Indigenous peoples could create communities and express an alternative idea of belonging in the antebellum United States.

摘要：

本文分析了威廉·阿佩斯的《印第安人废除》（Indian Nullification，1835）如何阐明一种强调包容性和公共性（亲和归属感）的归属感形式，反对定居者殖民主义坚持认为归属感植根于占有和财产（专有归属感）。它借鉴了最近对土著亲属关系和社区的批判性评估，强调土著和白人习俗的混合，但它以有形的环境标记为中心——特别是 Apess 文本中呈现的砍伐和运走木材的方式——作为更普遍的论点的基础关于人们应该如何相处。我从阿佩斯对马什皮礼拜堂的描述中汲取了很多东西，这是一座由木头制成的宗教建筑，马什皮人对它的修复同时推动了他们建立与自然和彼此之间的公共归属感。马什皮的归属感在​​《印第安人无效化》中还以另外两种方式体现：在阿佩斯关于他被马什皮部落收养的讨论中以及在本书的结构中。通过将马什皮人如何对待木材和木制制品的管理与殖民者的殖民强加进行对比，Apess 概念化了原住民如何创建社区并表达内战前美国的另一种归属感。