American Lazarus: Religion and the Rise of African-American and Native American Literatures Joanna Brooks OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS American Lazarus This page intentionally left blank � �  Religion and the Rise of African-American and Native American Literatures Joanna Brooks 1  3 Oxford New York Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi São Paulo Shanghai Taipei Tokyo Toronto Copyright ©  by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.  Madison Avenue, New York, New York  www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in Publication Data Brooks, Joanna, – American Lazarus : religion and the rise of African-American and native American literatures / Joanna Brooks. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN --- . American literature—African American authors— History and criticism. . Christianity and literature—United States— History—th century. . American literature—Revolutionary period, ‒— History and criticism. . American literature—Colonial period, ca. ‒— History and criticism. . American literature—Indian authors—History and criticism. . Indians of North America—Intellectual life—th century. . American literature— ‒—History and criticism. . Hymns, English—United States—History and criticism. . Christian literature, American—History and criticism. . African Americans—Intellectual life—th century. . African Americans in literature. . Occom, Samson, ‒. . Indians in literature. I. Title. PS.N B  .′—dc           Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Acknowledgments I am indebted to Michael Colacurcio, Richard Yarborough, and Karen Rowe at the University of California, Los Angeles, who nurtured this proj- ect through its formative stages and continue as generous and inspiring mentors. I also thank Paula Gunn Allen, Vincent Pecora, Kenneth Rein- hard, Samuel Weber, Muriel McClendon, and Greg Sarris for their influ- ence and Meredith Neuman, Mark Quigley, Kris Fresonke, Bill Handley, Maurice Lee, Jim Lee, Colette Brown, Karen Wallace, and my SAGE/ UAW brothers and sisters for their camaraderie at UCLA. At the Univer- sity of Texas at Austin, I have been sustained by a collegial community in- cluding Bill Scheick, Evan Carton, Shelley Fisher Fishkin, Ann Cvetko- vich, Phil Barrish, Sabrina Barton, Lisa Moore, Helena Woodard, Martin Kevorkian, Shirley Thompson, and Maria Franklin, all of whom I thank for their advice, encouragement, and feedback. Additional thanks to fel- low early Americanists Kristina Bross, Lisa Gordis, Jacquelyn Miller, Laura Rigal, John Saillant, David Shields, and Hilary Wyss. I am certainly thank- ful to Elissa Morris, Jeremy Lewis, and many others at Oxford University Press who believed in this book and brought it to life. My gratitude goes to the women of Feminist Home Evening at Brigham Young University (‒) and the broader community of Mor- mon feminist scholars for being good examples. I am also thankful for the city of Gallup, New Mexico, and for broader Dinetah, which fed me on fry- bread, turquoise, thunderstorms, and red rocks as I finished this book. Asale Angel-Ajani is my number-one junior faculty homegirl; Bryan Wa- terman is my number-one junior faculty homeboy. Love and gratitude to my parents James and Michele Brooks, my grandmother America Pearl Leonis, my late grandfather Frank J. Leonis, Jr., and my late grandmother Dorothy Brooks; this book belongs to you as much as it does to me. Love also to brothers and sisters Melissa, MaryBeth, John, Chris, Laurie, and Steve, and to Michael and Carole Kamper. Finally, deep love and devotion to my husband and best friend David Kamper, for loving Zion and loathing Babylon, and for being the kind of man who would gladly pull a handcart across the desert. This book was written with fellowship and grant support from the University of California, Los Angeles, the Charlotte W. Newcombe– Woodrow Wilson Foundation, and the University of Texas at Austin. I also thank staff members from the Rauner Special Collections Library at Dartmouth College, the Connecticut Historical Society, the State Library of Pennsylvania, the Boston Public Library, and the Inter-Library Loan department of the University of Texas at Austin. Earlier versions of chap- ters  and  appeared as “The Journal of John Marrant: Providence and Prophecy in the Eighteenth-Century Black Atlantic,” The North Star: A Journal of African American Religious History . (fall ): http://north- star.vassar.edu/, and “Prince Hall, Freemasonry, and Genealogy,” African- American Review . (summer ): ‒. vi Acknowledgments Contents Introduction,  : Race, Religion, and Regeneration,  : Samson Occom and the Poetics of Native Revival,  : John Marrant and the Lazarus Theology of the Early Black Atlantic,  : Prince Hall Freemasonry: Secrecy, Authority, and Culture,  : Black Identity and Yellow Fever in Philadelphia,  Conclusion: Lazarus Lives,  Appendix : Samson Occom’s Collection of Divine Hymns and Spiritual Songs (),  Appendix : Author-Unknown Hymns Original to Occom’s Collection,  Appendix : Original Hymns by Samson Occom,  Notes,  Bibliography,  Index,  This page intentionally left blank American Lazarus