![]() ![]() Thomas, whose name comes from the Chippewa word for "muskrat," was so named because of his hardworking ethic, and the novel manages to show the inter-relation between Native American traditions and their fight to retain both their rights and identity in the face of government action. Patrick is Erdrich's inspiration for her novel's protagonist, Thomas Wazhushk, the eponymous night watchman. Watkins who was attempting to renege on agreements that had already been made with the Chippewa. Erdrich's grandfather, Patrick Gourneau, was a first-generation Turtle Mountain Reservation Chippewa Indian and was born on the reservation in North Dakota he spearheaded the organized fight against what became known as the termination bill, promoted by Utah Senator and Mormon Arthur V. Louise Erdrich's novel The Night Watchman is not just close to her heart because she wrote it it tells the story of her Native American ancestors who, in the early 1950s, fought against a congressional bill that, in an Orwellian turn of phrase, would "emancipate" Indians from their Indian-ness by ending all federal services and relocating them from their lands. ![]()
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