Blog Comments for First Four Readings: Limerick, Turner et al, DeLay, and Johnson

My comments to others' blog posts can be found here, here and here. My comment on Beth Garcia's blog post for Legacy of Conquest is here.

The Most Famous Gunfight in History Gets a Lot More Interesting

Wyatt Earp. Doc Holliday. We know who they were without remembering where or how we learned it. Americans have been steeped in the story of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral through popular storytelling, books, and films, just as we have embraced and thrilled to the escapades of Wild Bill Hickok, Billy the Kid, and Annie-Get-Your-Gun. My favorite was the Discovery Channel’s Unsolved History episode that purported not only to reenact the most famous gun battle in American history, but to reexamine it using modern forensic techniques (“Shoot-Out at the O.K. Corral”, aired October 9, 2002). The story of the Earps’ showdown with the Clantons and McLaurys has been explored extensively, first through witness and contemporary accounts, later through historians’ reviews of the hours leading up to the event.

This is what makes Steven Lubet’s Murder in Tombstone: The Forgotten Trial of Wyatt Earp (Yale University Press: New Haven and London. 2004. Pp. 253.) so refreshing. Lubet, a law professor at Northwestern University, diverges from the usual approach: he focuses on what happened in the minutes, days and months after the smoke cleared. Television shows and movies have lulled us into assuming that law and order were given mere lip service in the 19^th century American west, that cultural heroes like the Earps were given the benefit of the doubt and everyone went home to supper. Lubet disabuses us of this notion, demonstrating exactly how the legal system did work in this instance and, by extension, in other similar instances across the west.

While Lubet’s title is rather misleading – the “trial” was actually a hearing to establish whether sufficient evidence existed to pursue a trial, and the hearing was not just about Wyatt, since the prosecution also held Virgil and Morgan Earp, and Doc Holliday, equally responsible – his substance fascinates. He brings to the fore the players most important to the proceedings: the attorneys, the judge, and the evidence presented by witnesses. Lubet introduces us to Judge Wells Spicer, allowing us to appreciate how his history as a newspaperman and lawyer, particularly his key role in Utah’s Mountain Meadows Massacre, would be of tantamount importance in his approach to the hearing. Lubet shines as he lays out the presumed strategies of defense attorney Tom Fitch as he navigates the realities of 19^th century legal proceedings: we see how Fitch used his knowledge of Spicer to minutely inform his courtroom tactics, we see the weaknesses and mistakes of the prosecutorial team, and we understand the differences between modern trial techniques and those prevalent in 1881.

Lubet’s style is easily readable and entertaining, though some historians will wince at his frequent musings. He does not hesitate to speculate about what key individuals may have been thinking (for example, Chapter 11: “Decision” is full of presumptions about what Judge Spicer may have been trying to do with the wording of his decision and, indeed, the decision itself). However, if we release him from the historian’s standard and instead allow him to function as the lawyer he is, considering the possible motives and outcomes of every action as he dissects the hearing transcripts and related contemporaneous records surrounding the event, we are rewarded with an entirely new perspective on what happened that day in Tombstone. It is a trip worth taking.

Brian DeLay Blog Comment

This week's blog response comment is posted here.

Mexico Can't Answer Indian Violence

Brian DeLay’s War of a Thousand Deserts: Indian Raids and the U.S.-Mexican War (Yale University: New Haven and London. 2008. Pp. xxi, 473) fascinates me in ways very similar to the work of Anne F. Hyde, Kathleen DuVal and Daniel K. Richter. Each of these historians has taken a topic we thought we knew – Indian-European relations in the North American west in the 18^th and 19^th centuries – and turned it on its ear by offering a thorough reexamination from a perspective not hitherto explored, thus adding invaluably to our more accurate understanding of the complicated relationships between the peoples of the west. Native peoples were as varied and unique in their cultures and interactions as the Spanish, French, Mexican, British and American peoples were in theirs, if not more so, and these historians do not allow us to neglect or ignore those differences. Thank goodness.

Like DuVal, Hyde and Richter, DeLay upends our perspective. He effectively argues that the plains Indians’ raids and violence in Mexico directly contributed to the weakening of Mexico, emboldening the U.S. to embark upon, and win, the U.S.-Mexican War, resulting in Mexico’s significant loss of territory to the U.S. and, ultimately, American success in relegating those raiding Indian people to impoverished reservations. It is the law of unintended consequences writ large.

In a manner reminiscent of Patricia Nelson Limerick, DeLay focuses on place over process, honing in on the northern Mexican states where the bulk of Indian raids occurred in the 1830s and 1840s. He carefully examines the intricate trade relationships that each state independently developed and maintained with different native peoples, the relationships those peoples had with each other and the bonds of fictive kinship that were regularly established, and the many challenges that northern Mexican states faced as the result of Mexican federalism and inadequate response from Mexico City. DeLay shows us the ill-fated hands these small Mexican communities were dealt, the often understandable solutions they developed, and the unforeseen consequences that often resulted in making the Mexicans’ plights worse instead of better.

A recurrent theme in DeLay’s narrative is the utter lack of concern or attention of the Mexican central government for the violence and destruction regularly visited upon its northernmost citizens. I cannot help but contrast Mexico’s inept, virtually non-existent management of its frontier with that of the U.S. Mexico’s northern states repeatedly sought the help and support of their central government, which could not be bothered to care until the situation had so deteriorated that Indian raids reached states as far south as San Luis Potosi and Zacatecas. Yet, even then, the Mexican government was ineffectual, lacking funds and the cohesion of its northern states, which were not always interested in, and could not be compelled to cooperate with, the central government’s strategic efforts to engage in diplomacy with the raiders. Western U.S. states and settlers had their own difficult times with the natives, but the American government was considerably more attentive to its frontiers than Mexico City, devoting resources and military support as it could to the region.

Response to Beth Garcia's "A Tale of the Great American West".

Response to Beth Garcia's "A Tale of the Great American West".

Well, perhaps not a response so much as an add-on. I concur with Ms. Garcia's assessments. Her statement about the "coercive tactics and deceptive measures that Anglos consistently employed" in their dealings with Indians returned me to a thought I have been evolving over the past week. Conquest was not a new thing. Peoples have been conquering other peoples for millennia. Over those millennia, were the conquered always bad people who deserved what they got? Probably not. Conquest and its ugliness is not a phenomenon that sprung up in the 19th Century. It is a fact of human history. Perhaps our problem with it is that it does not jibe with how we Americans prefer to see ourselves. That may be so, but we should be careful about discussing the role of conquest in the American West -- indeed in America, period, since we also conquered Native Americans in the East -- as though it were unique. Conquest is not unique. It might be more interesting to examine how American conquest in the West differed from American conquest in the East, or even from Roman conquest of, well...insert conquered nation here.

Allowing More Folks to Come to the Party

In several readings, the idea of a single “American” westward movement experience has been repeatedly shot down. The average American is most familiar with the Anglo-centric experience, the much-romanticized process of Manifest Destiny being fulfilled that we learned in high school social studies classes. Yet as historians have pointed out for 20 years or more, this version ignores the very different experiences of Native Americans, Mexicans, the French, the Chinese and Japanese, Mormons, and others who do not fit in the standard mold. How much more interesting and nuanced western history becomes once we begin to broaden our scope and incorporate these others!

The challenge with such incorporation, of course, is that it challenges the American creation myth of the west as a place open to all who want a chance to make something of themselves based purely on their own hard work and effort. It correlates nicely with the idea of the American Dream: if one just works hard enough, one can succeed in America. Yet allowing others to have a legitimate western experience of their own that does not mirror the Turnerian model means that the benevolent, strong, inclusive image that we Americans like to nurture of ourselves becomes endangered. The brave pioneer is transformed into a paternalistic, greedy land-grabber with no respect for a nearby tribe’s legally recognized ownership of a parcel of land. The enterprising miners in California reveal their vicious anti-Asian racism. Missionaries intent on spreading God’s word to the Indians might instead be viewed as intolerant invaders.

I am a simple girl, so I ask a simple question: so what? Is it not true that American settlers frequently helped themselves to Indian land simply because they thought they deserved it more? Is it not true that Asian immigrants were regular targets of racism and violence well into the 20^th century? Is it not true that missionaries sometimes employed less than kindly tactics to coerce Indians to the Christian faith? Is it really better to embrace an image of ourselves as Americans that we know to be false than to admit that, during a period of intensive national growth and expansion, our forebears often did not behave nobly? I see no utility in propagating this myth. What does it accomplish? Nothing but self-delusion, it seems to me.

As I contemplate this question of allowing others agency, my mind turns to my own people. The Apelts immigrated to Kerr County, Texas, from Germany in the second half of the 19^th century; this region of central Texas remains substantially German today. As historians investigate the Mexican experience of the west, I find myself asking, well, what was the German-immigrant experience? What about central Texas attracted so many German settlers? Once they arrived, what was their experience like? In what ways did they shape and influence their adopted communities? How were they received by non-Germans in the area? Were they all as entrepreneurial as my family, creating a commodity no one knew was needed? 

These are the questions percolating in my consciousness just now. As we continue delving into the rich experiences of the many peoples who chose to give it a go in the west, we will gain a far greater richness of understanding than we will lose in the demythologization of our own false self-image.

Taking Aim at the Sometimes Not-So-Obvious Myths of the West

I am a native Texan, born into a strong, proud ranching family on one side and an entrepreneurial bunch of 19^th Century-immigrant Germans on the other. Hard work, self-sufficiency and a feeling that the U.S. government is always looking to take more than it should are religion in my family and remain topics of conversation at holidays. We could be Patricia Nelson Limerick’s poster children for the Westerners who have “woven a net of denial” around their carefully nurtured sense of independence, self-reliance and anti-governmentalism. (96)

It therefore speaks highly of Limerick that I found The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West (W.W. Norton & Company: New York, London. 1987. Pp. 396) engaging and frequently convincing. Popular culture often reflects the history of American westward expansion one of two ways, sometimes in the same breath: 1) a glorious fulfilling of Manifest Destiny, making something out of unused, wasted resources, and 2) a decimation of Native Americans and the purity of western wilderness. Limerick turns both approaches upside down by changing the nature of the perspective from which we view Americans’ entry into the West.

Limerick’s goal is to redefine how historians view the West and approach its history. Dismissing Frederick Turner Jackson’s idea of “frontier” as the thing that defined Americanism, Limerick offers a new definition of “frontier”: “Western history has been an ongoing competition for legitimacy—for the right to claim for oneself and sometimes for one’s group the status of legitimate beneficiary of Western resources. This intersection of ethnic diversity with property allocation unifies Western history.” (20, 27) Susan Armitage observes in “’The Legacy of Conquest’, by Patricia Nelson Limerick: A Panel of Appraisal” (Donald Worster et al, Western Historical Quarterly, Vol. 20, No. 3 (August 1989), pp. 303-322), that Limerick renegotiates Western history into a discussion of place rather than process, expanding the possibilities for discussion.

This focus on place serves Limerick well, allowing her first to refute Turner’s idea that, in the final years of the 19^th Century, the frontier was gone and that chapter of American history had concluded. She argues that Western history did not end in the 1890s; the nature of “frontier” may have changed, but it did not die. Western history continued into the 20^th Century, and indeed continues today. The Dust Bowl, the impact of the New Deal on the West, the challenges of agriculture in an arid climate and the federal subsidizing of farmers, all were encountered (or the groundwork was laid) during the 1800s, continued well into the 1900s, and would be disconnected from Western history in Turner’s thesis. This detachment, Limerick argues, would be inaccurate, omitting much from Western history.

Limerick examines an extensive set of topics as she crafts her argument: intentions, the questions of freedom and conquest, racial and ethnic equality, labor rights, religious intolerance, the role of government, and land management are just a few. While she holds a specific viewpoint, Limerick attempts to present the various perspectives fairly. Often she succeeds; just as often her own opinions creep in, skewing the objectivity of her narrative. I was admittedly sensitive to her treatment of Western farmers and ranchers. She effectively demonstrated how seemingly independent, anti-government-minded Westerners in fact relied heavily on government subsidies and services in a variety of ways. Yet while she convinced me, I also recognized tones of judgment, derision and even condescension toward Westerners in her narrative, tones that were disappointing and unnecessary to her argument. (Brian Balogh’s assertions regarding the power of “invisible” government programs and reach in A Government Out of Sight: The Mystery of National Authority in Nineteenth-Century America (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, New York. 2009. Pp. xi, 414) often came to mind as Limerick berated Westerners’ reliance on federal programs while demonizing government support.)

A Legacy of Conquest provides an insightful, fresh insight on Western history, and is easily recognizable as a game-changer for the field. Limerick achieved her goal of resetting the conversation for the future of Western history, and it will be enjoyable to explore the results of that reset. I will not, however, mention her work at the table next Thanksgiving.