Paternalism to Partnership: The Administration of Indian Affairs, 1786–2021

Paternalism to Partnership provides a biographical sketch of each head of Indian affairs between 1786 and 2021 in context with each commissioner’s political philosophy. These administrators have been responsible for enforcing an Indian policy as directed by the president and/or the Congress but also influenced by their own political and social philosophy. From 1786-1848, authority was delegated to a superintendent of Indian affairs, a superintendent of the Indian trading houses, a superintendent of the Office of Indian Trade, a chief clerk, and a commissioner of Indian affairs, all of whom reported to the secretary of War. Since 1849, the commissioner of Indian affairs, and after 1977, the assistant secretary for Indian affairs have reported to the secretary of the Interior. Today, the BIA is administered by the assistant secretary for Indian affairs—all of whom have been Native Americans. Previous studies focused on the commissioners, completely overlooking the superintendents that preceded them and the colonial and early American antecedents. David DeJong’s documentary edition is the first to provide an understanding of the political philosophy of each head of the Indian bureau through the emphasis of policy.

A Road Course in Early American Literature: Travel and Teaching from Aztlán to Amherst by Thomas Hallock (A Book Review)

Nathaniel R. Racine's review of A Road Course in Early American Literature: Travel and Teaching from Aztlán to Amherst by Thomas Hallock.

The Interpretation Of Chinese Empress Dowager Cixi's Image In The Portraits Of American Artists

The Chinese themes in Early American art have long been obscured under the veil of Japonisme, Aesthetic movement, boundary-pushing modernism and more significantly because of the political circumstances - decline of China as an empire and complicated Chinese-American interconnections. One of the favoured theme of American academism at the period of the late 19th- early 20th centuries were genre scenes, street scenes, portrait d’intérieur , portraits, still life works related to China and Chinatowns. Nonetheless, the American press through the imagery created by illustrators and caricaturists was largely involved in interpretations of Western encounters with Chinese culture from the highlighted negative light, either being deeply affected by anti-Chinese flows or fuelling those xenophobic moods. Consequently, a few American artists featured Chinese people and Chinese settings from the perspective of admiration of their “otherness”. Only two American artists- Katherine A. Carl and Hubert Vos, succeeded to pave their career path to the Chinese court, enriching American arts of the early 1900s with the unprecedented depictions of high rank Chinese and the scandalously renowned empress Dowager Cixi (1835-1908) in the positive light of fascination. A number of publications have viewed and examined those portraits from the angle of "political self-fashioning”, but our research is another academic attempt to place those oil paintings in the context of China-related subject matter and its extension in the rising American art of the previous century, stressing their artistic value, function and their relations to the intended audiences.