by Jill Lepore
America’s most prominent actor saw himself as uniquely suited to inaugurate an “American national drama,” and many observers agreed. A critic for the Albion wrote of Forrest in 1848, “He has created a school in his art, strictly American, and he stands forth as the very embodiment, as it were, of the masses of American character”33 If national identity can indeed be embodied and even performed; if one’s political allegiances and cultural inheritances are expressed, in part, in one’s way of moving, talking, walking, and eating, then Edwin Forrest embodied Americanness. In the early decades of the newly minted nation, an age obsessed with a search for American identity, Forrest’s theatrical performances were, in a sense, at the vanguard of establishing what it was to be American. His expansive acting style was itself based on an explicit contrast with the more reserved style of English actors, a contrast that was obvious to everyone. To American eyes Forrest was forceful and passionate; to English eyes he was vulgar and bombastic. In England, Forrest was often poorly received (especially in the role of Metamora), and his English counterpart, Charles Macready, did not always fare well in the States. A rivalry soon developed between the two actors. During the 1840s Forrest, who grew more rancorous with age, came to believe that Macready was actually sabotaging his career.34 Yet it was Forrest who hissed from the balcony when Macready was onstage, disgusted at Macready’s effete acting style. When Macready came to New York in 1849, Forrest’s fans brought the two actors’ feud to a head by staging a protest outside the Astor Place Opera House, where Macready was performing. There, what began as protest ended as mayhem; at least 22 people were killed and 150 wounded in the infamous Astor Place Riot.35
The Astor Place Riot was undoubtedly a product of class antagonisms symbolized by the contrasting styles of Forrest (the hardy common man) and Macready (the delicate aristocrat). Within these class antagonisms, however, lay a broader concern with national identity, a concern with defining what it meant to be “American.” To his supporters, Forrest’s style represented all that was good about America, Macready’s all that was bad about England. As one of the Astor Place protesters later explained, “I was not hostile to Mr. Macready because he was an Englishman, but because he was full of his country’s prejudices from the top of his head to his feet.”36 If Macready’s body, from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet, was filled with Englishness, then Forrest’s was filled with Americanness. Yet, ironically, Forrest was most American when he played an Indian.37 Only by appropriating Indianness did Forrest most effectively distinguish himself from all that was English. Without its aboriginal heritage, America was only a more vulgar England, but with it, America was its own nation, with a unique culture and its own ancestral past.38
Critics called Edwin Forrest the “very embodiment … of the masses of American character” even as they called him, as Metamora, “the complete embodiment of our idea of King Phillip.” Forrest was at once “strictly American” and “wholly Indian.”39 “For the portraying of such personages, we say again Mr. F is peculiarly suited,” a critic for the New York Morning Herald insisted in 1837:
His hoarse voice, uncontrolled by art—his sullen features, his dogged walk, his athletic frame, and his admirable personations of the transitions of the mind from calmness to passion, are lofty and enviable qualifications for the attainment of excellence in this range of the drama.40
William Alger, a friend of Forrest as well as his earliest biographer, claimed that Forrest as an Indian
appeared the human lord of the dark wood and the rocky shore, and the natural ruler of their untutored tenants; the soul of the eloquent recital, the noble appeal, and the fiery harangue; the embodiment of a rude magnanimity, a deep domestic love, an unquivering courage and fortitude, an instinctive patriotism and sense of justice, and a relentess revenge.41
Forrest became “wholly Indian” by careful study of the sources in his library—Cooper, Irving, Revere, Church—and also by undergoing a profound physical transformation. He literally metamorphosed into Metamora. “Never did an actor more thoroughly identify and merge himself with his part than Forrest did in Metamora…. The carriage of his body, the inflections of his voice, his facial expressions, the very pose of his head and neck and shoulders, were new.”42 He took on not only the costuming but also the bearing and accents of an Indian (or, rather, of his idea of an Indian). “So accurate had been his observations that he caught the very manner of their breathing…. Everything that could be absorbed by one nature from another was absorbed and embodied and represented.”43 (Forrest himself apparently identified with Metamora on a more intimate level as well: in personal correspondence he referred to his mistress as “Nahmeokee.”)44
Forrest often attributed his success in the role of Metamora to time allegedly spent with a close friend, a Choctaw Indian named Push-ma-ta-ha. The two men shared a curiously physical and romantic if not sexual relationship. As William Alger himself admitted, “A genuine friendship grew up between this chief and Forrest, not without some touch of simple romance.” Forrest’s love for Push-ma-ta-ha was based on admiration (Push-ma-ta-ha was “a natural orator of a high order”) and on physical attraction. During the mid-1820s, when Forrest briefly lived with Push-ma-ta-ha, the two men are said to have been lying around a campfire, far from the Choctaw village, when “Forrest asked [Push-ma-ta-ha] to strip himself and walk to and fro before him between the moonlight and the firelight, that he might feast his eyes and his soul on so complete a physical type of what man should be. The young chief, without a word, cast aside his Choctaw garb and stepped forth with a dainty tread, a living statue of Apollo in glowing bronze.” (Alger claims Forrest later recalled, “My God, what a contrast he was to some fashionable men I have since seen, half made up of false teeth, false hair, padding, gloves, and spectacles!”)45
A trifle uncomfortable with Forrest’s longing for Push-ma-ta-ha’s body, Alger (biographer-cum-hagiographer) felt compelled to explain, “Like an artist, or like an antique Greek, Forrest had a keen delight in the naked form of man, feeling that the best image of God we have is nude humanity in its perfection, which our fashionable dresses so travesty and degrade.”46 But the “simple romance” between Forrest and Push-ma-ta-ha is, it would seem, far more complicated; at the very least, it speaks to the broader attraction the idealized Indian held for Americans in the first half of the nineteenth century. Forrest admired Push-ma-ta-ha for his primitiveness but also for his unfettered masculinity. The nakedness that, in the seventeenth century, signaled depravity and disorder now signaled virility and liberty. In the spirit of the writings of James Fenimore Cooper, Forrest saw Push-ma-ta-ha as a man uncompromised by the feminizing (European-derived) forces in American life—the constraints of living in a city, the dictates of (European) fashion, the etiquette of civilized society.47 In contemplating Philip’s life, Washington Irving had himself reflected on the opposition between the artifices of civilized man and the naturalness of the Indian, “free from the restraints and refinements of polished life.”48 Now, in the fine form of Push-ma-ta-ha’s body, Forrest and others like him saw a new way for Americans to define themselves, to forge a national identity by taking on the unique Americanness of America’s indigenous inhabitants. In performing Indianness, Forrest, in a sense, “imagined” himself into a new national identity; he performed “Americanness.”49 Forrest became Metamora in the same way he wished for Americans to become Indian, to take on their unique American inheritance, thereby distinguishing themselves from Europeans and European culture, and particularly from all that was English, to become American by becoming Indian.50 This was a far cry from what Increase Mather had had in mind when he had admonished, “Christians in this Land have become too like unto the Indians.”51
II
Metamora made money but it drew fire. Most often, reviewers objected to the play’s whitewashing (so to speak) of Philip. Writing in 1830, the critic for the American Quarterly Review proposed that perhaps Edwin Forrest’s fame gave the role of Metamora—and t
he character of Philip—a legitimacy it did not otherwise deserve:
Mr. Forrest, by virtue of some considerable reputation as an actor, carried this heavy play on his shoulders from one end of the Union to the other; and its performance is nightly witnessed by crowded theaters, applauding with strange enthusiasm the reckless cruelties of a bloody barbarian, who stabs his subjects like pigs, and delights the white men of the present day, by burning the villages of their forefathers, and involving women and children in one indiscriminate massacre. Let us hope, for the honour of humanity, that this applause is bestowed on Mr. Forrest, rather than the ferocious savage whom he impersonates.52
Similar alarm at the conflation of a fictionalized Philip with the historical Philip had greeted reviews of Yamoyden a decade earlier. In the North American Review, John Gordon Palfrey complained, “we doubt whether poetically, and we do not doubt whether historically speaking, it was best to represent the settlers as entirely in the wrong, and the Indians as wholly in the right.” Attempting to distinguish between artistic license and historical accuracy, Palfrey continued, “If the authors found that this representation of the conduct of the English settlers towards the native tribes answered best the purposes of their plan, they are chargeable with no transgression of poetical rules. But when they adhere to it in the notes, we are obliged to suppose that such was in reality their view of the subject.”53
Palfrey might compare Yamoyden’s text to its footnotes, but critics of Metamora found themselves considerably more confused about the real meaning of the play. Even the applause was ambiguous. The American Quarterly Review critic was uncertain whether audiences were cheering Forrest or “the ferocious savage whom he impersonates.” The risk of playing Indian to become American was playing Indian too convincingly. The more authentic Forrest’s Indian, the more worrisome the applause. If spectators were seduced by the tragedian’s seamless acting into believing that he really was an Indian, then they were applauding a “bloody barbarian.” If, on the other hand, they were keenly aware that he was only a stage Indian, albeit an engaging one, enthusiastic audiences were simply acknowledging Forrest’s quite considerable talents and joining in his appreciation for America’s Indian heritage. Either way, Forrest’s Indian authenticity was at the heart of the dilemma. William Alger claimed that “when [Forrest] came to impersonate Metamora it was the genuine Indian who was brought upon the stage, merely idealized a little in some of his moral features.”54 Other critics insisted rather more honestly that Forrest was only “the impersonation of the Indian of romance. The Indian in his true character never can find a representative among the whites. Disgust, rather than admiration, would ensue, but if the author made him successful, our prejudices would revolt at the scene.”55
One test of whether white audiences applauded Forrest’s impressive acting or Philip’s bloody barbarism is to be found in just such a revolt. When Forrest’s portrayal seemed, to some white audiences, too true, too authentic, disgust was indeed forthcoming. In Augusta, Georgia, in 1831, a full house turned tempestuous during the “council-scene” of Act Two when, after being interrogated by a colony officials regarding “Sassamond” ’s death, Metamora delivers perhaps the most belligerent speech of the play:
White man, beware! The mighty spirits of the Wampanoag race are hovering o’er our heads; they stretch out their shadowy arms to me and ask for vengeance; they shall have it. The wrath of the wronged Indian shall fall upon you like a cataract that dashes the uprooted oak down the mighty chasms. The war whoop shall start you from your dreams at night, and the red hatchet gleam in the blaze of your burning dwellings! From the east to the west, in the north and in the south shall cry of vengeance burst, till the lands you have stolen groan under your feet no more!
After delivering this speech, Metamora throws his hatchet into the stage, gives a war whoop, and disappears. The crowd in Augusta was not pleased. An actor in the audience recalled,
Evident dissatisfaction had begun to find expression long before the climax was reached, and as the chief rushed from the stage he was followed by loud yells and a perfect storm of hisses from the excited audience, who seemed in their fury to tear everything to pieces. Order was with difficulty restored, and the performance continued till the curtain fell upon the dying chief amid unqualified evidences of disapprobation.56
The following day a local judge declared,
Any actor who could utter such scathing language, and with such vehemence, must have the whole matter at heart. Why, his eyes shot fire and his breath was hot with the hissing of his ferocious declamation. I insist upon it, Forrest believed in that d—d Indian speech, and it is an insult to the whole community.57
No one showed up for the next night’s performance, and the play’s run in Augusta was eventually canceled.58
Evidently the people of Augusta had taken Forrest’s “d—d Indian speech” as a personal attack, a direct indictment of their own treatment of Indians. When Edwin Forrest shouted, “From the east to the west, in the north and in the south shall cry of vengeance burst, till the lands you have stolen groan under your feet no more!” Georgians ran riot. They, at least, were unwilling to applaud Forrest’s Philip, who was either too real or too insulting or both.
If Metamora insulted Georgians in 1831, does that mean the play was meant as an indictment of Indian removal? Not necessarily. To understand the Georgians’ reaction it may be wise to drop the curtain on Metamora for the moment and consider the broader debate over Indian removal and the places of other stories about Philip within it.
GEORGIA HAD much to gain by “removing” its Indians. Land. Lots of it. With Andrew Jackson’s support, Georgians hoped to drive the Cherokee Indians out of the state and to claim more than seven thousand square miles of tribal territory. But the Cherokees, one of the “Five Civilized Tribes,” had formed a powerful resistance movement and had unified their self-defined “nation” with a bicameral legislature, courts, and other trappings of bureaucracy and democracy. And, beginning in 1821, large numbers of Cherokees had learned to read and write when a leader named Sequoyah devised a syllabic writing system. Cherokee resistance to forced relocation was strong and strategic, and greatly aided by the tribe’s newspaper, the Cherokee Phoenix, printed in both English and the Cherokee syllabary.59 The cultural solidarity that resulted from widespread Cherokee literacy helped Cherokees bring their case against Georgia to the highest court in the United States. In 1831, just as Metamora came to Augusta, the state of Georgia was defending its case against the Cherokees in the halls of the U.S. Supreme Court in the landmark Cherokee Nation v. Georgia.
Many Americans, especially New Englanders, were sympathetic with the Cherokee protest, largely because of the Cherokees’ advanced state of “civilization,” measured by their democratic government and their high level of literacy. Cherokees seemed like white Americans. Most were settled farmers who adopted European dress and even the peculiarly American institution of slavery (about fifteen thousand Cherokees held about fifteen hundred Africans as chattel slaves). Because the Cherokees were so obviously “civilized,” Indian rights activists asked Americans to take the Cherokees to stand for all Indian peoples. Since “nearly the same principles are involved in the claims of all the Indian nations,” Jeremiah Evarts argued, “let the case of a single tribe or nation be considered.”60 In Evarts’ eyes, the Cherokee Nation was a best-case scenario. As Supreme Court chief justice John Marshall declared, “if courts were permitted to indulge their sympathies, a case better calculated to excite them can scarcely be imagined.”61
Such sympathy had surely been excited in Lydia Maria Child, an ardent advocate of Indian rights.62 Yet she chose to further that cause, in part, by writing a history of King Philip’s War, implying that if the colonists had no right to take lands from Wampanoags, the U.S. government had less right to do the same to the Cherokees. In an 1829 history of the war, Child explicitly attacked Puritan historian William Hubbard while applauding Washington Irving’s portrait of Philip
. She concluded that the “heroism of the Indians,” as demonstrated in King Philip’s War, showed that all that contemporary Indians required was a chance to become civilized.63 Sarah Savage took the same approach, writing a “Life of Philip” that, in heroizing Metacom, argued against Indian removal. “Be the friend of Indians,” she advised. “Our sympathy should result in active exertions to introduce Christianity, and the arts of civilized life; to secure to them a permanent local habitation, and in uniformly making their happiness, virtue and respectability, the subject of our deep and solicitous concern.”64
Reformers like Child and Savage urged that Indians be civilized, Christianized, and ultimately assimilated. They also opposed Indian removal (Savage wished instead to secure Indians a “local habitation”) on the theory that they would be better served by remaining nearer to whites. This attitude was common in liberal and especially in abolitionist circles, constituencies who generally opposed Indian removal in favor of assimilation—in favor, that is, of making Indians Americans.
Not all opponents of Indian removal who had occasion to discuss King Philip’s War, however, felt compelled to heroize Philip or to draw a simple analogy between the plight of seventeenth-century Wampanoags and nineteenth-century Cherokees. In 1835 Edward Everett, a Massachusetts legislator who led the fight against Indian removal in Congress, delivered a speech dedicating a monument to King Philip’s War. Everett swam against the tide of popular romantic sentiment when he defended the colonists’ conduct in the war, asking rhetorically, “Is the blame all on one side? Does reason require us to trace all the evils to the corruption of the civilized race; to suppose that no malignant feelings, no acts of barbarity, no outbreakings of savage race or savage fraud are to be laid to the account of the untutored child of nature?” In explaining his vindication of the colonists, Everett hit on the main contradiction in the romantic portrait of Philip: