To Marry an Indian

June 1, 2005
It might as well be a brief epistolary novel, this sad story told in letters of a star-cross'd early 19th-century affair between Harriet Gold, a young Connecticut white woman, and Elias Boudinot, a visiting Cherokee Indian. With different degrees of racism, both families stoutly opposed the union (Harriet's brother even burned her in effigy in protestation) but gradually and grudgingly came to accept it. Elias became a journalist, the editor of the first Native American newspaper, and a conscientious spokesman for Cherokee acculturation. He was assassinated in 1839, three years after Harriet's death at age 31, leaving behind their six children. The introduction accounts for almost one quarter of the book, and it's a good thing, too, as this allows editor Strauth Gaul (English, Texas Christian Univ.) to place the letters the couple exchanged and sent to family members in their complex historical context. Full of interesting information about middle-class American life in the 1820s and 1830s, the introduction includes such details as how married New England couples shared space on single sheets of writing paper. Because this slight volume is at once a lesson in American history, sociology, and psychology, it is highly recommended for all libraries. -Charles C. Nash, Cottey Coll., Nevada, MO

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