"Closing the Circle": Native American Writings in Colonial New England, a Documentary Nexus between Acculturation and Cultural Preservation

Handwritten documents as well as printed books and tracts in the indigenous languages of New England's Native Americans in the colonial era enable linguistic scholars to "reclaim" traditional Native speech, "closing the circle" for many Native Americans and providing a solid foundation for group cohesion and cultural identity. In addition, writings by Native Americans and Native voices inherent in documents penned by Euro-American colonials are essential to understanding the details and dynamics of acculturation. A key focus of this article is the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project, which relies heavily on linguistic analysis of historical documents scattered throughout repositories in New England. Endangered languages, cultural diversity, and the multifaceted perspectives preserved in archival repositories have much to teach us.