Indians' Rights Work
Child's first novel, the historical romance Hobomok: A Tale of Early Times, was published anonymously under the gender-neutral pseudonym "an American." The plot centers on the interracial marriage between a white woman and a Native American man, with whom she bore a son. The heroine later remarries, reintegrating herself and her child into Puritan society. The issue of miscegenation caused a scandal in the literary community and the book was not a critical success.
During the 1860s, Child wrote pamphlets on Indian rights. The most prominent, An Appeal for the Indians (1868), called upon government officials, as well as religious leaders, to bring justice to American Indians. Her presentation sparked Peter Cooper's interest in Indian issues, and led to the founding of the US Board of Indian Commissioners and the subsequent Peace Policy in the administration of Ulysses S. Grant.
Child died in Wayland, Massachusetts, aged 78, on October 20, 1880, at her home at 91 Old Sudbury Road. She was buried at North Cemetery in Wayland.
Read more about this topic: Lydia Maria Child
Famous quotes containing the words rights and/or work:
“The freedom to share one’s insights and judgments verbally or in writing is, just like the freedom to think, a holy and inalienable right of humanity that, as a universal human right, is above all the rights of princes.”
—Carl Friedrich Bahrdt (1740–1792)
“All in all, the creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act. This becomes even more obvious when posterity gives its final verdict and sometimes rehabilitates forgotten artists.”
—Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968)