American Indian Culture and Research Journal

In Osage writer Carter Revard’s short story, “Report to the Nation: Claiming Europe,” the narrator claims much of England, France, Spain, Italy, and Greece for the Osage Nation: “I waved an arm as I was passing over the Garonne, in Bordeaux, so we now have the area of Aquitaine as I understand,” writes Revard. After asserting his claim, the narrator questions whether or not the French actually understood that their country therefore belonged to the Osage Nation. But, he continues, the people “were friendly and they fed [the Native conquistador] well, accepting in return some pretty paper and some metal discs with which they seemed very pleased.” After commencing with surface playfulness, Revard implies an underlying seriousness in his response to Europe and the colonization of North America by the Spanish, French, and British. When he talks of the Osage people actually settling in Europe, he echoes the words of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century European colonists in the New World: “It would at first be a hard and semi-savage life, and there would be much danger from the Europeans who in many cases would not understand our motives; as a chosen people, setting up standards, we would probably have to suppress some opposition. . . . We will, however, as the superior race, prevail in the end.” In a sense, then, Revard as a Native conquistador leads the way into Europe. He is followed by Gerald Vizenor (Heirs of Columbus, 1991), James Welch (The Heartsong of Charging Elk, 2000), Leslie Marmon Silko (Gardens in the Dunes, 1999), and Louise Erdrich (The Master Butcher’s Singing Club, 2002). All four well-known authors send their characters to Europe, compelling the former colonial powers to deal with this insurgence of Native writers and characters. Although there are significant differences among the works by these Native writers, they all share an important similarity: the return to Europe, to a place where each of the authors, if not always the characters, has an ancestral history.