Literacy, Representation, and Hybridization as Modes of Resistance Against American Colonialism: Case Studies of Kateri Tekakwitha, Gotebo, and Zitkala-Sa

Abstract

The three case studies used in this essay follow the lives of Saint Kateri Tekakwitha (1656-1680), an Algonquin raised in the Mohawk nation who converted to Catholicism during the era of the Jesuit missionaries; Gotebo (1847-1927), a Kiowa artist who lived through the Pre-Reservation Era, the Reservation Era, and the Post-Reservation Era; and Zitkála-Šá (1876-1938), a Sioux Dakota author who experienced and survived the Residential School system and published literature and poetry about her search to return to her people. These individual case studies show on an individual and national level that Native Americans both changed and were changed by their interaction with American colonialism through their lifetimes through literacy, conversion to Christianity, and refusal to let go of kinship bonds that make these three good examples to study.