News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
"The past is not dead. It's not even past."
- William Faulkner
We have seen the truth of Faulkner's aphorism demonstrated starkly of late. From battles over the display of the Confederate flag to efforts to supplant Eurocentric commemorations of history with ones that recognize the plight and contributions of indigenous peoples, the past continues to be powerfully present in our contemporary cultural debates.
History and heritage rub up against personal identity. When people perceive a threat to their sense of identity, they may become fearful and defensive. Debates over events long past become weighted with contemporary significance - and fraught with anger.
For those who advocate for replacing "Columbus Day" with "Indigenous Peoples Day," such a move is an important symbolic way to acknowledge the high price paid by the original inhabitants of the continent for the brutal advent of Western civilization. For others, such a move is an implicit rejection of Western civilization itself.
Triumphalist, patriotic history once taught us that bold men chased riches in land, furs, minerals, timber - and the pure prestige of planting the flag in a "howling wilderness." In doing so, they created a land of liberty and justice for all. Nowadays, we see things differently. Today, we don't like to think much about the way the world we live in was made, about the graves our homes are built upon. America was born in sin - the sins of African slavery, and of genocide of the native population - and that's an uncomfortable reality to acknowledge.
It's also a reality we are called upon to acknowledge while looking backwards through a lens of comfort and security and a kind of virtuous piety and self-regard. Conquest has never been pretty. Western civilization is not uniquely "guilty" - except of being exceptionally good at it.
It is right to acknowledge the cost of conquest, both in human terms and in terms of environmental degradation. The cost was high. Whole peoples disappeared, ravaged by war and even more by disease. And bold men with rifles shot whole species to the brink - and past the brink - of extinction.
Yet to regret this epic burst of exploration and conquest, and condemn the men who pushed it forward, is the rankest kind of hypocrisy. Might as well condemn tectonic plates for shifting.
It's true that the "wilderness" wasn't empty. Native peoples thrived there, with a fierce love for their homeland every bit as potent as the land lust that drove the European interlopers. It's also true that those native peoples had displaced others.
In the words of historian T.R. Fehernbach:
"The Mexica admitted to Cortés that they had come into the Valley of Mexico without lands, but that they had seized the lands of others with shield and arrow. They understood when Cortés told them that he had come with shield and spear to take their lands and give them to others...
"Had every American told the Plains Indians what many already knew, that because the white men had come the tribes' days were numbered, and that as conquerors they demanded the Indians' lands, the warrior societies could have understood this perfectly ..." (Comanche: The Destruction of a People).
So, what to do with this history that is never past?
"Columbus Day" was created as a federal holiday in 1937 - a nod to Italian-American political interests. We could, and perhaps should, replace it with another "day." But is that really the most effective way to come to grips with the history?
To do that, we must truly understand it, in all its complex, contradictory and messy humanity. Then, perhaps, we can productively debate its meaning, acknowledge wrong and celebrate success, as we move into an uncharted future.
Our nation, born in sin and strife, did -often in spite of itself - create a beacon of freedom and h
ope for the world. It's up to us - all of us - to keep that beacon burning.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
Reader Comments(0)