Gone to Croatan: Origins of North American Dropout Culture

383 Pages·1994·8.813 MB·English

by  James Koehnline (editor)

G one to Croatan
Origins of North American Dropout Culture
“G one to C roatan”
The first "drop-outs” from English colonization in North America left the "Lost
Colony” of Roanoke and went to join the natives at Croatan (also spelled Croatoan).
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Copyright ® l gg3 Autonomedia and Contributors
All rights reserved.
Front Cover Collage by James Koehnline.
Back Cover and Spine Painting by Amy Cordova.
Cover and Page Design by Jim Fleming.
Special thanks to Maria Isabel Ayala Odorle and Peter Lamborn Wilson.
Autonomedia
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Printed in the United States of America.
Contents
Acknowledgements 7
Preface, Ron Sakolsky 9
Dedication, Jim Koehnline 11
I. Homage To Hugo Prosper Leaming-Bey
1 “lines for the tribe ofben ishmael” i5
John Knoepfle
2 “The Ben Ishmael Tribe: Fugitive Nation of the Old Northwest” 19
Hugo Prosper Learning
3 “Lost Ancestors: An Introduction to Pooch Van Dunk” 61
Peter Lamborn Wilson
4 “Indian ^l:Ieritage” 67
Pooch Van Dunk
5 “Owning Difference” 73
Gail Tremblay
II. DISCOVERING OUR Ancestors:
The Hidden History of North AMERICA
6 “^Wounded Knee” 77
Meridel LeSueur
7 “Legend of the Great Dismal ^laroons” 79
James Koehnline
8 “Caliban's Masque: Spiritual Anarchy 95
and the ^Wild Man in Colonial America”
Peter Lamborn Wilson
9 “Cornelius Plockhoy and the Beginnings 119
of the American Communal Tradition”
Timothy Miller
10 “The ^\any—Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves and the Atlantic 129
Working Class in the Eighteenth Century”
Marcus Rediker and Peter Linebaugh
11 " ‘Anarchy' in the American Revolution” i61
David Porter
12 "Henry Tufts, Land Pirate” 181
Neal Keating
l3 "Keep Ifour Powder Dry: 201
Two Insurrections in Post—Revolutionary America”
Paul Z. Simons
l 4 “Transform and Rebel: 217
The Calico Indians and the Anti-Rent War"
Thom M.etzger
i5 “The Iroquois Influence on Wimen’s Rights” 225
Sally Roesch M^gner
16 "Gone to Prophetstown:
Rumor and History in the Story of Pan-Indian Resistance” 251
Rachel Buff
17 “The African-Seminole Indians" 263
Doug Sivad
18 “A New Nation in Their Hearts: 283
The Historical Evolution of the Metis People”
Richard Kees
19 “Return From Without: Louis Riel and Liminal Space” 3i5
Darren S. Mfershler-Henry
20 “Beneath the Tundra, the Permafrost 329
(A Few thoughts on Barrenness)”
Jordan Zinovich
III. Imagining Futures Past
21 “Trickster" 347
Joy Harjo
22 “1992 (Part l)” 3^9
Guillermo Gomez-Pena
23 “Manifest M.anners: The Long Gaze of Christopher Columhus” 351
Gerald Vizenor
2^ “The Dream of Injun Joe: A Page From The Alcatraz Seminars” 365
Jack Forbes
“The Downfall of Disease-Giver”
25 375
Carlos Cortez
Notes on Contributors 377
A
cknow ledgem ents
or their inspirational support and encouragement in the realiza­
tion of this project, we take this opportunity to duly acknowledge
the sharing of time, ideas, words, images, and embraces on the
part of: Larry Abrams, Rane Arroyo, Carolyn Ashbaugh, Gerard
Barbot, Ann Becher, Meda Chesney-Lind, Kevin Dann, Linda Grant
DePaux, Chris Dodge, Steve Effingham, Silvia Federici, William
Furry, Larry Giddings, John Gray wood, Grigsby Hubbard, Tuli
Kupferberg, Elaine Leeder, Rachel LeSueur, Steve Macek, Jason “Lev”
McQuinn, Hal Rammel, Joe Richey, Ruby Rohrlich, Roberta Rosen,
Franklin Rosemont, Sal Salerno, Neala Schleuning, Glenn Sheldon,
Alix Kates Shulman, Karen Starr, Fred Whitehead, and John Wright...
and the lost-found voices of William Ryan and Pooch Van Dunk.
Special thanks to Autonomedia’s publishing “wizardario” par
excellence Jim Fleming, and to Peter Lamborn Wilson for the original
idea for the book and his continously nurturing energy towards it.
Warm thanks to Miekel And, Liz Was, and Eric Hiltner of Dreamtime
Village for providing the unglatiated hypermedia setting for doing the
final “down to the wire” editorial work/play. And a final tip of the fez
to the ubiquitous Hakim Bey, wherever you are...
For their technical assistance in the publication process, we would
like to offer our appreciation to the Institute for Public Affairs at
Sangamon State University, to Karen Fifer for her last-minute efforts,
and most particularly to Brenda Suhling, without whose editorial
expertise this project would have been overwhelming.
The following poems, articles, or excerpts have been previously
published in whole or in part in periodicals and books. We gratefully
acknowledge permission to reprint from authors and publishers.
Carlos Cortez, “The Downfall of Disease-Giver” in Crystal-Gazing the
Amber Fluid and Other Wobbly Poems, Charles H. Kerr, 1990
(originally printed in the Industrial Worker).
Joy Harjo, “Trickster” in Mad Love and War, Weslayan University
Press, 1990.
7
John Knoepfle, “lines for the tribe of ben ishmael” in poems from the
sangamon, University of Illinois Press, 1985.
Hugo Prosper Learning, “The Ben Ishmael Tribe; Fugitive Nation of
the Old Northwest” in The Ethnic Frontier: Essays in the History
of Group Survival in Chicago and the Midwest, (ed. by Melvin G.
Holli), Eerdmans, 1977.
Meridel LeSueur, “Wounded Knee” in Word Is Movement, Cardinal
Press, 1987.
Thom Metzger, “Transform and Rebel: The Calico Indians and the
Anti-Rent War” in Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed (Summer,
1992). This piece was originally commissioned for Gone to
Croatan.
Marcus Rediker and Peter Linebaugh, “The Many-Headed Hydra:
Sailors, Slaves and the Atlantic Working Class in the Eighteenth
Century” in Journal of Historical Sociology, (Sept, 1990).
Sally Roesch Wagner, “The Iroquois Influence on Womens’ Rights” in
Akwekon Journal (Spring 1992).
William Van Dunk, “Indian Heritage,” Talking Wood (Winter, 1979).
Peter Lambom Wilson, “Caliban’s Masque: Spiritual Anarchy and the
Wild Man in Colonial America” in Gnosis #23, (Spring, 1992).
P
reface
HIS VOLUME IS AN EPISODIC ACCOUNT OF THE ANCES-
tral dance of our crossblood brothers and sisters across the
vagaboundaries of North America. By taking a liminal, rather
than only a marginal, perspective on its subjects, it seeks to open
doors whose very existence may have in some cases not previously
been apparent to historians. It does not claim to be a comprehensive
history, but it is a start in plotting the points on this particular cogni­
tive map.
Its subjects are the people who lived out their individual and col­
lective dreams in the tragicomedy of survival/resistance/disappear­
ance called North American history. The encounter of these dream
warriors with the historical context provides the drama. Some dreams
arose in the moment of the vision quest. Others were formulated in
advance by utopian visionaries. Some burst forth in the spontaneous
combustion of the uprising. Others were forged in protracted strug­
gles of resistance to oppression. Still others bear the mark of the trick­
ster or the festaludic embrace of Desire.
What links all of these imagined roads to freedom is that they all
can be traced to Croatan. Yet, while this is a hook about the origins of
“drop-out” culture in North America, it is not simply about escapism.
When the Roanoake settlers, who were of European descent, said to
hell with Sir Walter Raleigh and the plutocrats and ran off to join the
Croatan Indians, they were not merely “going native.” In essence,
they were challenging the newly constructed boundaries between
wilderness and civilization, and, in so doing, were rocking the freshly
laid colonial foundations of North America.
This is no mean feat. If we can question the division of our world
into the categories of “civilization” and “barbarism,” then we have
begun to question all forms of hierarchy. So, in spite of any false pre­
tenses to solidity, the foundations of colonialism have been shaky ever
since the original journey to Croatan, and the ensuing cultural con­
flicts have not ceased. Subsequently, many others have seized the
opportunity (either freely or in need) to send out new fractal tremors
which in turn have caused the seemingly monolithic edifice of North
American “civilization” to quake.
After all, “civilized” institutional hierarchies of class, race and
gender are mirrored in the psychosocial despair that defines the bor­
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