Commentary: Essay and Podcast
Members of the Munsee community had been displaced to present-day Kansas by the 1840s, but they well recalled their northeastern homelands and knew what befell their ancestors more than two centuries before. When they described their legacy of dispossession in a petition to the U.S. President in 1849, their "X-mark" signatures connoted illiteracy--but the history they recounted showed enduring and reliable knowledge.
Download entire essay as PDF
Andrew Newman discusses the Munsee petition in this episode of our podcast series, Listening to Hidden Literacies.