Indigenous Peoples in the American Imagination: Representations of Native Peoples in Mary Rowlandson’s The Sovereignty and Goodness of God and Cynthia Kadohata’s Weedflower

1. Inaccurate Representations
of Indigenous People
By: Maddie Hopkins
9 April 2018

2. Literature
• Mary Rowlandson’s The
Sovereignty and Goodness of
God
• Cynthia Kadohata’s
Weedflower

3. Main Ideas
• Mary Rowlandson is scared and wishes for death when she is first
captured by the indigenous people because she views them as
savages, but through time, she comes to realize that there are
similarities between the natives and the settlers.
• During the beginning of WWII, the American government places
people of Japanese descent into internment camps out of fear.
• Once people look past the stereotypes they are told in their lives,
they are able to truly asses one another despite racial or cultural
differences

4. Misrepresentation of Early Native Americans
• “Prominent scientists exaggerate the
violence of Native Americans, whom
European invaders ravaged.”
• Check out “Thanksgiving and the Myth of
Native American ‘Savages’”
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-
check/thanksgiving-and-the-myth-of-native-
american-savages/
• Indigenous Americans were more civilized
than history leads us to believe:
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-
o6qcF2FyaM

5. The Sovereignty and
Goodness of God
• In the beginning of the
captivity narrative,
Rowlandson uses harsh,
demeaning words to
describe the Indigenous
Americans such as:
• “murderous wretches”
• “bloody heathen”
• “ravenous beasts”
• “barbarous creatures”
• “inhumane creatures”
• Etc.

6. The Sovereignty and Goodness of God
• “The first week of my being among them, I hardly eat any thing;
the second week, I found my stomach grow very faint for want of
something; and yet it was very hard to get down their filthy trash;
but the third week, though I could think how formerly my stomach
would turn against this or that, and I could starve and die before I
could eat such things, yet they were sweet and savory to my
taste.”
• Here we see that Mary is adapting to her new surroundings despite how
“uncivilized” and foreign to her they are. She puts aside her beliefs in an
attempt to survive.

7. The Sovereignty and Goodness of God
• "Sometimes I met with favour, and sometimes with nothing but
frowns.”
• Throughout Mary Rowlandson’s time with the Indigenous Americans, she
begins to see that there are good and bad people among them just as there
is with the colonists and other “civilized” people. Some natives give her
food or helpe her when she falls while others laugh at her pain, beat her,
and taunt her with stories of her dead family members. Through
interactions with both types of people, Mary is able to let go of some of her
racial prejudices and is no longer surprised by acts of kindness or acts of
violence.

8. Japanese Internment
• A quick history of the Japanese-American
internment camps:
• https://www.history.com/topics/world-
war-ii/japanese-american-relocation

9. U.S. Representation
of Japanese People
• The fears and misconceptions associated
with people of Japanese descent were
amplified by the anti-Japanese
propaganda put out by the United states
during WWII which portrayed a racist and
stereotypical representation of the
Japanese.
• https://artifactsjournal.missouri.edu
/2012/03/wwii-propaganda-the-
influence-of-racism/
• Even children’s shows used their media
platform to create fear of the ”enemy”
and further perpetuate these stereotypes.
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
BlUld1yXKRo

10. Japanese Internment in
Weedflower
• In Weedflower, Sumiko is growing up in an
extremely difficult time filled with racial
prejudices and is trying to make sense of
American’s distorted views of her people.
• “Also, on the radio she’d heard a governor
from another state announce that if any
‘Japs’ living in California tried to come to his
state, they would soon be hanging from
trees,” (Cynthia 54).
• “One of the strangest things she heard was
when one American general said of the
Nikkei, ‘The very fact that no sabotage has
taken place to date is a disturbing and
confirming indication that such action will be
taken,’” (Cynthia 66-67).

11. Cultural Misconceptions
• In Weedflower, Sumiko meets a boy her age, who is Native
American, named Frank. At first, both Sumiko and Frank dislike
each other because of racial stereotypes perpetuated by the
American imagination. Once they get to know each they realize
how wrong they both were.

12. Stereotypes From Both Sides
Japanese Stereotypes
• “My brother said the Japs are all
farmers,” (Cynthia 121-122).
• “They’re wasteful,’ said the boy
chewing gum. ‘They throw food
out all the time!’”(Cynthia 122).
• “If they think you’re going to kill
them, they stick a sword in their
stomach before you can do it. I
read that,” (Cynthia 123).
Indigenous American Stereotypes
• “‘After they scalp us, they’ll cut off
our fingers and boil them,’ Sachi
added. Sumiko’s heart pounded in
her ears,” (Cynthia 121).
• “‘They live everywhere, silly.
They’re Indians. They hide at night.
If we don’t behave they’ll kidnap
your family when it gets dark. You’re
in special danger because you live at
the camp border.’ Then Sachi seemed
to tire of her own lies,” (Cynthia
124).

13. Throughout the works of Mary Rowlandson
and Cynthia Kadohata, we can see that
the American imagination incorrectly
represents native people due to the lack
of understanding of different cultures.