Introduction: Anger, Sentimentality, and American Indians

On a February night in 1836, hundreds flocked to the National Theater in Washington, DC, to see George Curtis’s Pocahontas, or The Settlers of Virginia, A National Drama. An advertisement in the Globe earlier that day had promised that the performance would include an impressive display of Indian rituals: “[the Indians] have most liberally offered their services, and will this evening appear and perform their real INDIAN WAR DANCE, exhibiting Hate, Triumph, Revenge, etc., &c., and go through the CEREMONY OF SCALPING.”¹ The newspaper noted that Cherokee leader John Ross would appear on stage with nine Indian chiefs. Both this