The preponderance of evidence shows that the setting of Louise Erdrich's Tracks, as well as its chronological sequels Love Medicine, The Beet Queen, and The Bingo Palace strongly resembles the Turtle Mountain Reservation in the north central part of the state and Erdrich’s hometown of Wahpeton, in the southeast on the Minnesota border. Nonetheless, much has been made of the similarity of the fate of the Ojibwe characters in Tracks with the historical outrage perpetrated against the White Earth Anishinaabeg from the signing of the Dawes Act in 1887 to the nadir of Native American wellbeing in the early 1920s. In 1988, the same year Tracks was published, Erdrich co-wrote with her then-husband Michael Dorris an expose of this travesty that was published in The New York Times Magazine, which added to speculation that the politicized novel was a thinly veiled account of White Earth.
Lost in the rush to place Tracks in Minnesota, however, was the fact that the historical Turtle Mountain Ojibwe in North Dakota experienced just as egregious a theft of timber-rich tribal land, both prior and subsequent to the Dawes Act, and in some ways served as the textbook example for the fraud committed at White Earth.
Table of Contents
1. Abuses and Allotments: The setting of Louise Erdrich’s Tracks and its importance
Objectives and Themes
The primary objective of this paper is to challenge the prevalent misidentification of the setting in Louise Erdrich's novel Tracks. By analyzing historical records regarding the Dawes Act, land allotment policies, and the specific geographic and cultural markers present in the text, the author argues that the novel is set on the Turtle Mountain Reservation in North Dakota, rather than the commonly cited White Earth Reservation in Minnesota.
- Historical context of the General Allotment (Dawes) Act of 1887.
- The systemic dispossession and fraud committed against the Turtle Mountain Ojibwe.
- Geographic evidence within Tracks linking the narrative to North Dakota.
- The author's personal connection to the Turtle Mountain region and her literary intent.
- Political implications of misplacing the novel's setting in Minnesota.
Excerpt from the Book
Abuses and Allotments: The setting of Louise Erdrich’s Tracks and its importance
The story of Native American history since contact with Europeans has been one of land and the diametrically opposed conception of it held by both groups: the former saw it as a setting that supplied sustenance and belonged to everyone within a tribal range, while the latter conceived of it as a commodity that could be owned, parceled, and sold by individuals. Though they lacked the insatiable greed of their colonizers, the importance of land was keenly felt by those who had lived on it for generations. In Louise Erdrich’s Tracks, the character Nanapush states the dilemma thusly: “Land is the only thing that lasts life to life. Money burns like tinder, flows off like water. And as for government promises, the wind is steadier” (T 33). Over the course of centuries, the colonizers’ sustained assault against indigenous people resulted in, “the Native cultures (being) disposed, nearly wiped out by 1900 (Lincoln 7). Having seized most of the continent, the colonizers were not content to merely confine what was left of the decimated first inhabitants on reservations and leave them to live as best they could using traditional means. Instead, the dominant power structure wanted to ‘assimilate’ the indigenous population by dividing what was left of native land and parceling it out in individual acreages. Tracks is, “in part an autopsy of this process, whereby place becomes property,” and thus is deeply and inherently political (Larson 1).
Summary of Chapters
Abuses and Allotments: The setting of Louise Erdrich’s Tracks and its importance: This chapter establishes the historical background of Native American land dispossession and argues that Tracks is a political narrative rooted in the specific experiences of the Turtle Mountain Ojibwe in North Dakota, countering critical tendencies to associate it with White Earth, Minnesota.
Keywords
Louise Erdrich, Tracks, Turtle Mountain Reservation, White Earth Reservation, Dawes Act, Land Allotment, Native American History, Ojibwe, North Dakota, Colonialism, Assimilation, Historical Fiction, Land Tenure, Sovereignty, Nanapush
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the central focus of this academic paper?
The paper primarily examines the setting of Louise Erdrich’s novel Tracks, aiming to correct the common scholarly misconception that the story takes place on the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota.
What are the main thematic fields explored?
The analysis covers the history of federal Indian policies, the consequences of the 1887 Dawes Act, the mechanism of land dispossession, and the importance of geographic and historical accuracy in interpreting indigenous literature.
What is the primary research question?
The central question is: Where is the historical setting of Tracks actually located, and why does this distinction matter for a true understanding of the historical trauma depicted in the novel?
Which methodology is employed in the study?
The author uses a historical and literary analysis approach, comparing textual evidence from Tracks with historical records, government acts, and secondary criticism to validate the North Dakota setting.
What is the core subject of the main text?
The main text details the systemic fraud and land theft experienced by the Turtle Mountain Ojibwe, drawing parallels between their historical reality and the experiences of the fictional characters in Erdrich's work.
Which keywords best characterize this work?
Key terms include Louise Erdrich, Turtle Mountain Reservation, Dawes Act, Native American history, land allotment, and Ojibwe.
How does the author connect the novel to Erdrich's personal history?
The author highlights Erdrich’s own biographical background, including her parents' work at Indian schools and her grandfather’s leadership in the Turtle Mountain tribe, to underscore the connection between her fiction and the North Dakota landscape.
Why does the author argue that misplacing the setting is politically significant?
The author suggests that placing the novel in "progressive" Minnesota diverts critical attention away from the ongoing political and racial issues prevalent in the Dakotas.
What role does the character Nanapush play in the analysis?
Nanapush serves as a focal point for the novel's commentary on government bureaucracy, land loss, and the survival of traditional culture in the face of colonial encroachment.
How does the paper differentiate the Turtle Mountain experience from White Earth?
While acknowledging that the fraud at White Earth is well-documented, the author argues that the Turtle Mountain band suffered equally egregious, yet often ignored, thefts of their land through similar legal maneuvers and racist pseudo-science.
- Citar trabajo
- Mark Schauer (Autor), 2011, Abuses and Allotments. The setting of Louise Erdrich’s "Tracks" and its importance, Múnich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/230263
