Editor's Introduction: Translation and Alternative Forms of Literacy

Olaudah Equiano, Native Americans, and the Civilizing Mission, Emily Donaldson Field carefully explicates the way Olaudah Equiano uses his literacy practices in The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself (1 789) to intervene in typical pictorial and literary representations of the relationship between African Americans, Native Americans, and EuroAmericans such as that presented in Benjamin West's painting, Penn's Treaty with the Indians ( 1 771-1 772), the cover image for this issue; in this image the conquering merchants appear to engage in a bloodless conquest of the docile or savage Native Americans through language, translation, and trade. [...] the radical stylistics of texts such as Monkey Hunting and Lucy break with western forms and aesthetic practices while also refusing to fix linguistic meaning.