Germans and Indians: Fantasies, Encounters, Projections » (1st Edition)

Colin G. Calloway is chair of Native American studies at Dartmouth College. He is the author of New Worlds for All: Indians, Europeans, and the Remaking of Early America and The American Revolution in Indian Country: Crisis and Diversity in Native American Communities. Gerd Gemünden is a professor of German and comparative literature at Dartmouth College. He is the author of Framed Visions: Popular Culture, Americanization, and the Contemporary German and Austrian Imagination. The author of Colonial Fantasies: Conquest, Family, and Nation in Precolonial Germany, 1770–1870, Susanne Zantop was a professor of German and comparative literature at Dartmouth College.

For over three hundred years, the Indian peoples of North America have attracted the interest of diverse segments of German society—missionaries, writers, playwrights, anthropologists, filmmakers, hobbyists and enthusiasts, and even royalty. Today, German scholars continue to be drawn to Indians, as is the German public: tour groups from Germany frequent Plains reservations in the summer, and so-called Indianerclubs, where participants dress up in "authentic" Indian costume, are common. In this fascinating volume, scholars and writers illuminate the longstanding connection between Germans and the Indians.

From a range of disciplines and occupations, the contributors probe the historical and cultural roots of the interactions between Germans and Indians and examine how such encounters have been represented in different media over the centuries. Particularly important are reflections and insights by modern Native American writers on this relationship. Of special concern is why such a connection has endured. As the contributors make clear, the encounters between Germans and Indians were also imagined, sometimes as fantasy, sometimes as projection, both resonating deeply with the cultural sensibilities and changing historical circumstances of Germans over the years.

American Historical Review

“The volume’s contributions. . . . offer expert as well as non-expert readers rewarding insights and information. Especially refreshing are the close-up studies of colonial German immigrants and their relationship to other settlers and to Native American groups.”

—Harry Liebersohn, American Historial Review