‘Little White Savages’: The Anglo-Indigeneity of Settler Colonial Childhoods in Fictional English-Language Captivity Narratives and Their Circulation and Readership within the Transatlantic Book and Periodical Trade, 1880-1920

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Description of Research Project

“‘Little White Savages’: The Anglo-Indigeneity of Settler Colonial Childhoods in Fictional English-Language Captivity Narratives and Their Circulation and Readership within the Transatlantic Book and Periodical Trade, 1880-1920” explores fictional captivity narratives featuring children whose settings are in the northeastern United States, the Maritimes, Ontario (or Upper Canada/Canada West), and Quebec (or Lower Canada/Canada East). Although Puritan non-fictional narratives about the captivity of Anglo-white settlers (adults and children) by Indigenous nations served as origin stories in American culture, they have prompted meagre discussion among critics of Canadian literature and culture despite many of those captives being “carried to Canada.” Between 1880 and 1920, authors and publishers clearly found inspiration in captivity narratives, publishing works of historical fiction (books and short stories) that featured child captives, with young readers seen as a potential audience. Youth also authored captivity narratives, mimicking the genre’s fixation on the malleability of the white child and the perceived threats of indigenization to racial and cultural purity.

My goal is to discover how the construction of indigenized white settler childhoods contributed to discourses about Indigeneity, whiteness, colonization, culture, education, citizenship and belonging, attentive to the ways in which these constructions were disseminated to and later recirculated by young settler and Indigenous readers and authors as colonizing tools. The project objectives include: surveying examples of the genre circulating in the four regions during the 40-year period; analysing the textual and visual content of this corpus; and developing an effective method for applying book historical and archival research methods to the genre by engaging in a case study of three specific works. This project will be the first to explore how constructions and reconstructions of Anglo white settler and Indigenous childhoods made meaning – culturally, socially, materially, and trans-nationally – across the transatlantic region.

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Undergraduate Student Responsibilities

Searching online databases, reference works, library catalogues, and bibliographies for examples of captivity narratives for young readers published between 1880-1920 in Canada, Great Britain and the United States and set in the northeastern United States, the Maritimes, Ontario (or Upper Canada/Canada West), and Quebec (or Lower Canada/Canada East); data management and training on Zotero and Tropy; examining books and periodicals in physical collections in the GTA and in online collections; social media coordination

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Qualifications Required

Strong research skills and interests in childhood studies, children’s literature, and/ or book history; aptitude for social media coordination and digital skills; experience using Zotero and/ or Tropy; strong verbal and written communication skills; time management and organizational skills