John Rollin Ridge "The Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta"

.. Analyzing Tommy Orange's There There

Orange is using John Rollin Ridge as an example of the first Indian author whose work actually contradicted colonial conquest.

Orange alludes to Cherokee Author John Rollin Ridge and his book, "The Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta," because John Ridge's book feeds into the stereotypes that feeds Americans about Native American Indian Peoples. John Ridge brings his character to life during the California Gold Rush. He was the son of a successful Cherokee lawyer and landowner. John Ridge was also an Urban Indian and advocated "Cherokee assimilation to the dominate culture, politics, and economy of the United States" (Rowe 153).  

​"John Rollin Ridge's 1854 thriller, "The Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta" is an extraordinary example of how literary texts condense the contradictory political, social, legal, cultural, and  psychological effects of colonial conquest," says contemporary Author John Carlos Rowe from his novel Highway Robbery: ‘Indian Removal,’ the Mexican-American War, and American Identity in ‘The Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murieta.’ ​ (Rowe 149)

Contemporary Viewpoint on John Rollin Ridge from John Carlos Rowe's Book

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Work Cited
Rowe, John Carlos. “Highway Robbery: ‘Indian Removal,’ the Mexican-American War, and American Identity in ‘The Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murieta.’” NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction, vol. 31, no. 2, 1998, pp. 149–73. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1346196. Accessed 30 Nov. 2022.
Book cover from Amazon.com.

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