Refractive Identities: Cherokee X-marks in John Milton Oskison's The Singing Bird and A Texas Titan

Abstract

Tiana Rogers (1799-1838) is often identified in historical records as the Cherokee wife of American figure Sam Houston. Positioning her identity adjacent to Houston’s narrative subjugates her and reduces her complexity as a mixed-blooded Cherokee woman living during removal era. Despite these colonial framings, her recurring presence in archival and literary texts disrupts colonial power and advances a more robust agency for Cherokee women. In this thesis, I explore and analyze her historical representations in attempts to find her agentive power. I employ Scott Lyons’ theorization of the x-mark that “signifies power and a lack of power, agency and a lack of agency” (Lyons 2-3). Her continual materialization in archives, literature, and historical accounts continues to interrupt artificial representations of her identity, most profoundly in the works of Cherokee writer John Milton Oskison. Oskison—through creative choices in his representations of Rogers—does not merely reflect colonial understandings but refracts them to generate a directional shift in her identity. Ultimately, he reinterprets a historical understanding of Rogers that champions enduring agency beyond colonial strictures of control