In 1663, the Puritan missionary John Eliot, with the help of a
Nipmuck convert whom the English called James Printer, produced the
first Bible printed in North America. It was printed not in English
but in Algonquian, making it one of the first books printed in a
Native language. In this ambitious and multidisciplinary work,
Phillip Round examines the relationship between Native Americans
and printed books over a two-hundred-year period, uncovering the
individual, communal, regional, and political contexts for Native
peoples' use of the printed word. From the northeastern woodlands
to the Great Plains, Round argues, alphabetic literacy and printed
books mattered greatly in the emergent, transitional cultural
formations of indigenous nations threatened by European
imperialism.
Removable Type showcases the varied ways that Native peoples
produced and utilized printed texts over time, approaching them as
both opportunity and threat. Surveying this rich history, Round
addresses such issues as the role of white missionaries and
Christian texts in the dissemination of print culture in Indian
Country, the establishment of "national" publishing houses by
tribes, the production and consumption of bilingual texts, the
importance of copyright in establishing Native intellectual
sovereignty (and the sometimes corrosive effects of reprinting
thereon), and the significance of illustrations.