1995

Crestani, Eliana. "James Nelson Barker's Pocahontas: The Theatre and the Indian Question." Nineteenth Century Theatre 23.1-2 (1995): 5-32. Crestani examines the Indian Princess as the "first attempt in American dramaturgy to deal with the vast question of what was to be perceived as an appropriate relationship between Euro-Americans and Native Americans." The play has "various and conflicting ways" of thinking about this, expressing the same "contradictory political behavior" of the Jefferson government on the issue. Barker sends "double-messages" regarding the relationship with indigenous peoples. Passive English characters highlight how the natives "willingly dissolved" into white culture. The recognition of white superiority means the natives accept the necessity of assimilation and "spontaneously accept the process of their civilization." Indian Princess is "one of the first products in American culture to work toward acceptance and therefore the legitimation of such political processes as removal and displacement of native peoples."