The Representation and Celebration of Christian Colonization in The Female American Alexandra Bayer College

The Female American tells the story of a woman in her early twenties, called Eliza, who is abandoned on a deserted island to fend for herself. The novel follows her decisions and their repercussions as she does her best to survive the isolation, and possibly make her way back to England. This book may be interpreted in a variety of ways, but the majority of the textual evidence supports the idea that it celebrates Christian colonization of the Americas, rather than the claim that it provides an unusually positive depiction of a non-white woman left in a difficult situation. Eliza’s situation may have been less than ideal, but she had very little work to do in order to survive; rather, her time and intelligence were spent on methods she used in order to convert the Native Americans she encountered to her religion of Christianity. The celebration of Christian colonization of America is depicted through her total commitment to her religion and dismissal of all other religions; her reliance on her English lifestyle and culture; and her destruction of the Native Americans’ former ideals and religious icons.

Although Eliza was forced to survive on her own, she truly did not figure anything out herself that would help to make her life...