Inclusion and Exclusion of the Indian in the Early American Archive

Abstract

Resurgence of interest in theories of sovereignty reflect both the availability of theoretical models capable of handling the paradoxes of inclusion and exclusion and historical sensitivity to the ways in which sovereignty develops in tandem with experiences of intercultural contact and conflict. The essay argues that one striking historical example of the interrelation of concepts of sovereignty, inclusion and exclusion, and cultural contact, lies in early American attempts to process the Native American »other.« Using a widely influential speech recorded by Thomas Jefferson, the essay proposes first a literary interpretation of the text’s power, and then suggests the way in which the theoretical argument about sovereignty delineated by Agamben (1998) can help elucidate the »anomaly« of Indian sovereignty in the American archive. A final section proposes that sovereignty, as developed in this intercultural context, promotes confusion between social and psychic systems, for which reason Luhmann’s systems theory may fruitfully be supplemented by the psychoanalytic theory of Lacan as interpreted by Zizek (1991).