Willa Cather once wrote, “There was nothing but land: not a country at all, but the material out of which countries are made.” She was echoing the myth of the American West: the Anglo-European version of American history. In previous posts, I have reflected on the extremely difficult conditions in which Americans explored, settled, and created new lives for themselves . I admire their tenacity and their resilience, their ability to cope with the myriad of problems that I, living in a suburban New England town, find hard to imagine (despite having read some of the journals and letters of those traveling west).
We stopped at many, many national monuments, national and state historic sites, and historic markers along our way. Most focused exclusively on White Americans and Europeans, who were trying to make a new life for themselves in the American West. They rarely mention the Native Americans and Indian nations these white pioneers encountered along their way, unless it was a battle or involved some sort of violence on the part of the indigenous people living there.
When we stopped at the Buffalo Bill Cody Museum of the American West in Cody, Wyoming, for example, we saw the old reels of the Buffalo Bills Wild West Show. The show featured reenactments of savage Indians attacking wagon trains, only to get saved by the US Army. (and Buffalo Bill Cody). The show also featured Chief Sitting Bull, who traveled with the show for a few years, and reenacted the Battle of the Little Big Horn. The show played in numerous cities in the US. For millions of Americans, this was the history of the American West. My neighbor, who has been actively involved in the creation of the Museum of the Medal of Honor, told me several soldiers involved in the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890 were awarded the medal.
The exhibit at the National Historic Trails Interpretive Center in Casper, WY was one of the first that I saw to provide a more balanced treatment of that history. For example, one display juxtaposed an account from a tribal elder talking about the land-hungry and violent settlers who trespassed on tribal lands with a newspaper account of violent Indian attacks against the pioneers. The exhibit also points out that most deaths were caused by disease and that most violence was violence between whites rather than between whites and the Indian tribes. In fact, there are only 342 documented cases of pioneer deaths caused by Indian attack.
For most Americans, the history of the settlement of the American West is one of civilization overcoming barbarism. The historian Richard White has challenged the traditional narrative of White conquest. He argues that it needs to be inverted in order to understand the complex history of the region, including the significant role of indigenous resistance, cultural, adaptation, and the fact that white settlers often relied on and were deeply impacted by the existing Native American populations.
I am glad that the newer exhibits at these national monuments have begun to provide a more balanced view of the history of the settling of the American West.
Thanks for tuning in.
Margaret
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