In this paper I uncover two versions of Oakes Smith's novel The Bald Eagle, published as a Dime Novel in the later 1860s, which reveal crucial shifts in the characterization of the Ramapaugh tribe from its earliest publication in 1848, where "Indians" are at best marginal--almost "local color" figures, to the final version, where Bald Eagle is the central figure.

Most of all this paper reveals the results of materialist analysis. On the plane of representation, my discussion of the novel demonstrates Oakes Smith's career-long habit of revising the narratives of dominant white patriarchy to include those marginalized by that power and to critique its false claims to legitimacy. At a more material level, however, this paper is about gestures to perdurable physical evidence Oakes Smith witnessed on her visit to the Ramapaugh valley bordering New York and New Jersey in 1847, which I found on my walks in those woods some years ago, and from which social anthropologists and Native peoples are basing claims for Ramapaugh political recognition. Among those fighting against this recovery and this recognition are land developers and real estate moguls including the current President of the United States, Donald Trump.