GONE TO CROATAN
Origins of North American Dropout Culture
Edited by Ron Sakolsky &
James Koehnline
"America" was founded as a land of dropouts. Almost at once it began
to produce its own crop of dissidents - visionaries,
utopians, Maroons (escaped slaves), white and black "Indians," sailors
and buccaneers, tax rebels, angry women, crank reformers, "triracial isolate"
communities ¾ all on the lam from Babylon,
from control. Their self-liberation was carried out under the sign of Wild(er)ness
and its guardians, the "Natives." Having disappeared from "History," they
have ever since been ignored by the Consensus and its guardians, the academics.
Now here they are again, coming back at you, claiming to have been the
real "America" all along. They speak from the past, through the mediumship
of radical historians, and in the present, in their own voice.
Gone To Croatan is one of the most fascinating history
books you will ever read. It contains 25 articles on the hidden history
of North America, by such writers as Peter Lamborn Wilson, James Koehnline,
Neal Keating, Thom Metzger, and other radicals.
From the Preface by Ron Sakolsky: "...while this is a book about
the origins of 'drop-out' culture in North America, it is not simply about
escapism. When the Roanoke settlers, who were of European descent, said
to hell with Sir Walter Raleigh and the plutocrats and ran off to join
the Croatan Indians, they were not merely 'going native.' In essence, they
were challenging the newly constructed boundaries between wilderness and
civilization, and, in so doing, were rocking the freshly laid colonial
foundations of North America.
"This is no mean feat. If we can question the division of our world
into the categories of 'civilization' and 'barbarism,' then we have begun
to question all forms of hierarchy. So, in spite of any false pretenses
to solidity, the foundations of colonialism have been shaky ever since
the original journey to Croatan, and the ensuing cultural conflicts have
not ceased. Subsequently, many others have seized the opportunity (either
freely or in need) to send out new fractal tremors which in turn have caused
the seemingly monolithic edifice of North American 'civilization' to quake.
"...By rejecting pseudoppositional remedies because they are rooted
in the miserablist pragmatism of 'the lesser of two evils,' this book charts
a different course. Instead of chronicling the results of such a deadening
'realism,' the authors within seek to celebrate the spark of transgression
by examining some compelling examples of those who have 'dropped out' of
the striated grid of dominant Euro-American society, whether by original
acts of refusal, by fanciful choice or by dire necessity. Though not without
their flaws, the protagonists emerge as flesh and blood rebels.
"...We think of this volume, then, as encompassing a series of illumi-nating
and inspirational communiqués from the autonomous zones of our insurgent
imagination as it has unfolded historically. In standard histories of North
America indigenous peoples (much like the forces of nature) make a brief
initial appearance only to be cut down by the inevitable 'march of progress,'
and people of color are either absent or viewed primarily as nagging problems
in need of solution. We instead, like avenging Ishmaelites, pointedly conjure
up the eugenicist's nightmare; not only in the body of the book but by
ending our story with the very people targeted for 'removal' being the
prime actors in turning history on its head and imagining a transcendent
future. In stepping out of the shadows of consensus history, our immediate
reflexive reaction may be to blink in wonder at the blinding light; but
so much the better to then be dazzled by the splendor revealed."
1993, 6 x 9, 382 pp, illustrated, soft cover.
GONE TO CROATAN: $12.00
(ORDER NUMBER 94236)
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