Mistaking Wilderness: Shakespeare Viewed from Turtle Island

What is Shakespeare and his legacy to the Indigenous peoples of North America? Given the increasing attention to the impact of settler colonialism among the Indigenous peoples of the United States and Canada, two majority Anglophone nations, where Shakespeare remains prominent in education and the performing arts, how are we to understand his relevance or lack thereof for these seemingly incommensurable social worlds? Diversity, equity, and inclusion projects have seen a rush to include Indigenous people in the larger conversations about Shakespeare studies in an unprecedented manner. This chapter examines this phenomenon along with the implicit insistence on the universal relevance of Shakespeare from some of his cultural advocates. It considers the culturally bound notion of such concepts as ‘the wilderness,’ so central to the colonizing discourse of the Americas, as well as recent discussions of the putative beginnings of the Anthropocene and its relationship to early modern Europe and Indigenous America. Finally, it addresses the limits of Shakespeare’s relevance for Indigenous peoples.