Sarah Orne Jewett discovered her vocation after attending worship at the Wisconsin Oneida mission in 1872. Her fictionalized account, “Tame Indians” (1875), reveals how liberation from racial stereotypes prompted her to aspire to become a regionalist writer, which helped her fulfill her desire to advocate for diversity by portraying marginalized people as neighbors and fellow Americans.

Many contemporary scholars accept that, until near the end of her career, Sarah Orne Jewett participated in the American construction of the superiority of whiteness by affirming almost universal nineteenth-century essentialist beliefs about racial hierarchy. This essay tests that interpretation by examining her fictional representations of African Americans.