Sunday, June 26, 2005
The Old West
I dearly love the American West and it's history. In recent years, that history has been written and re-written. Everybody with an axe to grind is trying to use the history of the American West as their wetting stone. "The settling of the American West is the story of environmental exploitation." "The story of the California gold rush is the story of the oppression of Chinese immigrants" "The white man was genocidal towards the native American."
Such theses have made me loathe to read any recent histories -- I don't learn history, I just get a sermon. Thus it was with some trepidation that I clicked into this NYTimes piece. I was hoping for something that examined the "reality" of the west. Which this article as least started to do. It does point out that the gunfights and cattle rustling are just a small, but exciting part of the total picture.
But the sermon had to be made.
As with all periods of history, the period of the western expansion of America is a mixed bag. There is good and bad, admirable and loathesome. In the end the settling of the West is the story of American doing what they do best, and being the best they can be. Yeah, there is some ugly in their too, but there always is.
I am reminded of one of the last lines of the movie "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence."
Such theses have made me loathe to read any recent histories -- I don't learn history, I just get a sermon. Thus it was with some trepidation that I clicked into this NYTimes piece. I was hoping for something that examined the "reality" of the west. Which this article as least started to do. It does point out that the gunfights and cattle rustling are just a small, but exciting part of the total picture.
But the sermon had to be made.
The Indians saw that Washington's new interest in the Black Hills would be disastrous for them (a topic for a later column). Raiding was no longer costlier than trading for the settlers because they could now let troops do the raiding for them. Hobbes had expected war in the absence of government, but the West didn't really get wild until the feds arrived.So, apparently, the latest story of the west is that of an expansionist and imperialistic government taking and opressing the free lands.
As with all periods of history, the period of the western expansion of America is a mixed bag. There is good and bad, admirable and loathesome. In the end the settling of the West is the story of American doing what they do best, and being the best they can be. Yeah, there is some ugly in their too, but there always is.
I am reminded of one of the last lines of the movie "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence."
This is the west, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.I don't think that is about being less than truthful, that is about choosing to focus on the positive. It's about knowing the bad, but concentrating on the good. I really wish the latest batch of historians would learn that lesson.
