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Reading and Writing about a Sovereign Nation
12019-07-18T16:39:34+00:00Emma Sternberg9dd1d1d0edcde572d5819158147f717e072da3b912Wigginton Page 5plain2019-07-18T16:39:43+00:00Emma Sternberg9dd1d1d0edcde572d5819158147f717e072da3b9 One literacy that Coosaponakeesa reads and then writes with over the course of the memorials is what it means to be a sovereign nation with “natural rights” in the colonial Southeast’s dynamic trans-national space. In 1747, she notes that “her Ancesstors, Tho under the Appellation of Savages, or Barbarions, were a brave and free born people, who never owed Allegiance, to or Acknowledged the sovereignty of any Crowned Head whatever, but have always maintained their own Possessions and Independency, Against all Opposers by Warr, at the Expence of their Blood; as they Can shew by the many Troophies of Victory, and Relicts of their Enimies slain in Defence of their Natural Rights.” Similarly, the 1754 memorial insists on the Creek Nation’s eternal “Independency,” in both the portion attributed to her and the portion attributed to Creek micos, but almost certainly written by her in her role as their agent and translator. Finally, in 1755, she adds language that indicates the present Creek peoples are the “Successors (Collectively) and Natural born Heirs” to the Creeks of the past. In statements like these, Coosaponakeesa perceives British principles of sovereignty as permitting alliance with but not allegiance to another nation and Crown. Her Creek ancestors were and contemporaries are free and independent and “maintain their own Possessions,” a formulation that aligns citizenship with personal status and property rights; this citizenship was endowed by God, confirmed and protected through blood and sacrifice, and continuously passed on to each successive generation in an unbroken genealogy. All of this history is at the root of Creek “natural rights.” Moreover, because elsewhere she links her inheritance and authority to her Creek kin, she also links Creek sovereignty to women’s lineages. Her marriage to Bosomworth specifically and British legal principles generally covers and replaces neither her nor Creek rights. Coosaponakeesa reads British sovereignty and then writes a Creek version into these memorials. <insert second four column side by side excerpt comparison here; see “insert 2.docx”>
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12019-09-04T19:26:18+00:00Joelle Thomas0feb3b2b7a8befeee2c7d2d710d303ed96772141Commentary: Essay, PDF, PodcastJoelle Thomas30Commentary stream for Visions, Versions, and Deedsplain122019-10-11T19:55:21+00:00Joelle Thomas0feb3b2b7a8befeee2c7d2d710d303ed96772141