Description: From the late nineteenth century through the 1920s, the U.S. government sought to control practices of music on reservations and in Indian boarding schools. At the same time, Native singers, dancers, and musicians created new opportunities through musical performance to resist and manipulate those same policy initiatives. Why did the practice of music generate fear among government officials and opportunity for Native peoples?
Brief description:
John W. Troutman is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Louisiana, Lafayette.
Review Quotes: For Troutman, music is more than sound; it is contested cultural terrain, the discursive product of a 'cacophony of voices' that 'encompasses not only singers, dancers, and musicians but audience members, ' including the policymakers who attempt to regulate performances...[W]hat Troutman offers is a way to reconceive U.S. politics. Despite being largely excluded from congress, the courts, or the media, Native Americans were and are a part of U.S. political discourse and fully capable of steering this discourse in their favor.--American Quarterly