Today, I Stood Where Slaves Were Sold

Today, I had a new experience. Today, I stood on the steps where slaves were sold. I recently discovered that slave auctions were frequently held on the steps of the Old Courthouse in downtown St. Louis. I decided I wanted to go stand on those steps- to stand where the slaves stood when they were being sold as property. Sold as livestock. Today I did, and I felt ill.

My dad and I went up to St. Louis today to watch the Reds and Cardinals play. Part of the Old Courthouse is clearly visible from Busch Stadium, so it was an easy detour to make. I told my dad I wanted to go stand on the steps. I didn't tell him why. We first walked to the Arch, then up the street to the Old Courthouse. I felt a knot grow in the pit of my stomach, as I imagined slaves, wrists and ankles bound, being led from a boat on the Mississippi, up the hill to be sold on the courthouse steps.

We crossed the street to the building, and I looked up the marble steps. I ran up the steps, almost to the top, and turned around. My dad was looking at the building from the sidewalk. I told him to come up next to me. As he turned around to face the arch, I started pointing things out to him.

     "You can see the Arch, and right beyond that, is the river. You can see Illinois from here." Dad looked, "Oh, yeah. That's cool."
     "Missouri was a slave state, and Illinois was free."
     "Right."
     "They used to sell slaves here. Right on these steps. This is where they'd hold the auctions." Dad reacted as though I had just told him his steak was actually pig intestines. One moment admiring the view and the Arch, and the next, sickened.
     "Oh, yuck," he said, as he always does when he unexpectedly hears something unexpected and unpleasant. Then he was silent.
     "They used to sell them right here. Where they could see a free state. Right there. They're literally looking at freedom as they're being sold." More silence.

We both stood there for a few minutes, letting it sink in that we were actually standing in the very place where enslaved individuals were torn apart from their families. All the while, looking at freedom, in sight, but out of reach.

I grew up in Ohio. We didn't have slaves there. Slavery was outlawed by the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, in the territory that would become Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, and part of Wisconsin. The closest I came to slavery as a kid was the stories of the Underground Railroad that were so prevalent in my hometown of Cincinnati. But those stories were heroic and energizing. The first time I knowingly stood where slaves lived and worked was on my trip to Mount Vernon at the age of 15.

This was different.

As a scholar of African America, and even more specifically, as a scholar of American slavery, I often feel sickened by the reality of slavery in our nation's history. I read account after account of rape, beatings, separation from families, slave auctions, among other things, and I feel sick. I actually get angry when I read the pro-slavery arguments. I wonder how this kind of atrocity could possibly be justified. I know the stories, I've read the statistics, and I'm well aware of the long-lasting impact of slavery. But that's academic.

I know what slave auctions looked like. It was not uncommon for a prospective buyer to check over a potential slave just as he would a horse or steer he wanted to buy. Buyers would open the slave's mouth and check their teeth, remove or brush aside articles of clothing and touch the slave in indecent places to check for strength and health. In some cases, slaves would be made to sing and dance on the spot during an auction. Slave auctions were dehumanizing for the individuals enslaved in every possible way. And I stood in the exact spot where that happened. As I looked at the trees on the Illinois side of the river, I was overwhelmed with grief over what had occurred over and over again in that very spot.

This isn't something I can easily process and fully grasp. It's not likely something I'll be able to recall without emotion for a good while. Nor should it be. Those few minutes were by far the most important of my day. They were also by far the most unpleasant. It's days like today that I remember why I'm studying African American history, when there are less tragic and more fun areas of history I could specialize in. I do it because there's a need. Because a great injustice has been done; one that cannot be undone or fixed or recovered from in 150 years. Something has happened which continues to impact our society and lives today. Unless we understand it, discuss it, and deal with it, we can't move forward, we can't heal, and we can't even really learn to love each other.

Today, I was reminded that what I study is important, and more than that, it is relevant. It isn't fun. Interesting? Absolutely. And sure, there's some fun involved, especially when I get to study the music of African America. But in general, reading about slavery, segregation, lynchings, and rapings is not pleasant. But because it is relevant- and will continue to be so for a very long time- I keep doing it. I want to do some good and make a difference. So, to everyone who doesn't understand why I, as a white person, study African American history, that is why. Because in so doing, I can do a lot of necessary good. It takes people of all races, cultures, genders, etc., working together, to effect change. Working to make things better should not be a "white effort" or a "black effort." It should be an American effort. A human effort. I am an American, and a human, and I am taking part. 

Week Twelve: Slavery and the Confederacy

I think in most cases, people would describe my sense of justice as "over-developed." This can make life hard for a social historian who specializes in the study of a people who have been traditionally and harshly oppressed for more or less the entire duration of American history, with the possible exception of the last few decades. And even then, it depends on who you talk to and where they live. This week, we were assigned a single article, "Presenting Slavery: The Perils of Telling America's Racial Story," by James Oliver Horton. Dr. Horton is a historian I have admired since first reading his book, In Hope of Liberty: Culture, Community and Protest Among Northern Free Blacks, 1700-1860.

Before I go on, I will state a warning. My intent is not to be offensive here, but given the strong emotions which still exist in relation to the Civil War, Confederacy, and slavery, I'm not sure I will be able to avoid that altogether. Those who have strong positive feelings towards the Old South and Confederacy, read at your own risk. In some places, I will be blunt.

This article deals with some of the tough issues involved in the less-than-savory parts of American history. How exactly does a public historian, or a school teacher, present the issue of slavery to the public? Horton discusses the utter dearth of knowledge the average American has about slavery, and how much of our knowledge, even today, comes from Uncle Tom's Cabin and Gone With the Wind. This is highly problematic. The average American doesn't know that slavery in the US began in 1619. The average American doesn't know slavery was a bone of contention among our Founding Fathers. In fact, according to Horton, far too many school children think American slavery wasn't abolished until the 20th century.

Horton addresses this because he raises a question: How can we discuss slavery intelligently as a nation without being educated about the issue? And that is indeed, an excellent question. Many people know so little about slavery that they do not recognize we are only just now as a nation beginning to really be able to move beyond some of the problems left behind by the "peculiar institution." And I do mean, just beginning. But that's another post for another day.

Of course, how can we discuss slavery intelligently, and even present it accurately, when so many Americans are trying to forget it ever happened, marginalize it, or throw blame on others to take the focus off of the Old South? While I commend the state of Mississippi for finally doing the right thing and ratifying the 13th Amendment, why in heaven's name did it take so long? Slavery was abolished 148 years ago. Why did they just ratify the amendment in 2013? It would be easy to say that after a certain period of time, the amendment got pushed to the back burner. And maybe that is the case in the last two decades or so, though before the late 80s or early 90s, I'd have trouble believing that argument. Mississippi was the most volatile state during the civil rights era. It took them a long time to calm down. I'm not hating on Mississippi here. I have wonderful friends from that state. I am, however, pointing out that we live in a nation which has a state that just now ratified the amendment which bans slavery. But there's more.

Horton writes about a few Civil War reenactment groups which decided to acknowledge slavery. He says, "Larry Beane, past commander of the J.E.B. Stuart Camp #1506 of the Sons of Confederate Veterans in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania attacked Gilmore's reference to slavery as 'a slap in the faces of the Confederate soldiers, their grandchildren, and the State of Virginia as a whole.' Other Internet correspondents expressed similar sentiments." My question is this: What about the slaves, the slaves' grandchildren, and African Americans as a whole? Is not the refusal to acknowledge slavery, apologize, or otherwise honestly address it not a slap in the face to them? Why are we concerned more for the legacy of Confederate soldiers, who chose to fight for a  slave-holding country than we are for those who had no basic decision-making rights at all? I'm actually asking that question. If someone has an answer that does NOT include a comment about how there were a few black Confederate soldiers, or about how the North didn't really like African Americans either, or about how the North treated immigrant workers like slaves, please, tell me what it is.

Regarding the same issue- including an acknowledgment or condemnation of slavery with a celebration of the Confederacy- Horton talks about another statement from a Southerner. Horton quoted Tommy J. Baer on the issue: "It's like Germany having a World War II- I would even call it Nazi- history month but [saying] We're going to include the suffering of the Jews. It doesn't pass the common-sense test." The point here is that Germany simply wouldn't have a Nazi history month. Most Germans want to forget that everything from about 1913-1945 in German history ever happened. They are quick to condemn what happened during that era, especially once Nazism came on the scene. Aside from the fact that Baer used a very bad metaphor (as I'll concede the Confederacy was not as bad as Nazi Germany, but only using a scale of degrees here), he is again forgetting the other side of this issue. I would argue that it doesn't pass the common sense test to have a month or any observance that celebrates the Confederacy and not include a recognition and condemnation of slavery. Again, think of all the descendants of  slavery we still have in this nation. The consequences we are still bearing from that institution in our country. How does it possibly make sense to not acknowledge it?

When lecturing in US105 about the slave issue, I told my students about how lawmakers in this country spent years at a time just completely ignoring slavery in the decades leading up to the war. I told them it was like sweeping the dirt under the rug: you do it long enough, and you're going to trip over it eventually. That's exactly what happened then. That's exactly what happened during the civil rights era after nearly another 100 years of Jim Crow segregation. Why in heaven's name would we then insist on continuing to ignore it? Things are not fixed. Slavery does not reside firmly in the past. It has relevance today. Why then can we not discuss it honestly? What has to happen next?

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying as a historian that we should do away with any and all rememberance of the Confederacy. My personal opinions often differ from my historian opinions, but right now, I'm speaking as a historian. I understand the desire of people to talk about their heritage and remember it. To remember great-great grandfathers who died tragically in a failed revolution. I get that. But how is it okay to do so without being honest about what all that entailed? I'm not sitting here as a Northerner saying the North never did anything abominable. I'm also not saying the North didn't hold slaves or wasn't economically involved in slavery. I'm simply saying, when celebrating something many people (and I would argue most) associate with slavery, such as the Confederacy, why can we not also be honest, and acknowledge the bad along with the good?

I say this over and over. We should care about what happened in history, not about focusing only on the good, or finding evidence to prove what we want to have happened in history. If we are going to focus on a portion of history which holds a lot of bad "memories" for a certain group of people, it absolutely fails not only the "common sense" test, but also, if I can channel my inner Mr. Rogers, fails the "good neighbor" test. If we are going to talk about history at all, we absolutely must take the bad right along with the good. We can not cut-and-paste to appease our own delicate sensibilities.  Presenting history is challenging, to be sure, and each of us has to decide if we're willing to do what it takes to do it accurately and respectfully. As for me, in the words of Barney Stinson, "Challenge accepted!"

Reds Hall of Fame Website Review

The following review concerns the information from the Cincinnati Reds website. Visit the Reds history page here.

The Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame portion of the Cincinnati Reds website contains not only information about the hall of fame, but also an impressive section on Reds history. The web page qualifies as an electronic exhibit, and targets the general public, specifically fans of the Cincinnati Reds.

Because the site exists more to satiate the curiosity of non-historians than to serve as an actual academic source, the site authors are not likely to be concerned about keeping up with the latest historical scholarship or analysis. Even so, the authors should still be concerned with keeping accurate and important information on the site, and for the most part, they succeed. While perhaps the page design of Reds history portion of the site is slightly more outdated than the rest of the site, it is not terribly so.

Perhaps the single most informative portion of this history section is a timeline chronicling the team’s history, beginning with its emergence as the first all-professional baseball team in 1869, through the 2012 season. In addition to the timeline, the site contains impressive and easy-to-find information concerning the evolution of the team’s uniforms, logos, and ballparks. I was pleasantly surprised to find the opening day lineups listed, dating back to 1900, as well as an all-time roster which included not only players with such legendary careers as Pete Rose,  Ted Kluszewski, and Barry Larkin, but also those with less-than-legendary careers, such as Chris Sabo and Pete Rose, Jr. What is particularly impressive about this roster is that site visitors can click on the names and be redirected to a page about that player, including date and place of birth, position, Major League debut, and all of their player statistics, for every team for which they played.

I do have one significant criticism. While the site does contain a roster with the names of all former managers, including the years each one managed and their win-loss record while with the Reds, there is important information lacking in this section.  As a baseball fan myself, I have had many conversations and debates with other fans about managers, past and present. When arguing with someone about whether or not Dusty Baker is a worse manager than Bob Boone, it would be helpful to be able to go to the Reds history page, find a list of Reds managers, including their win-loss totals, both throughout their entire managerial careers, and while with the Reds ball club. Such information as post season appearances, post season wins and losses, any notable managing achievements or records, along with reason for dismissal or resignation would also be useful. Perhaps less important but still helpful would be a link to a roster containing the names of players for each year the manager worked for the Reds.

Aside from that single criticism, the Reds history section of Reds.com is quite comprehensive and impressive. It includes much valuable information, as well as photos and video footage. As an academic historian and Reds fan, I see this website as a valuable resource for anyone researching Reds history. 

Week Eleven: Colonial Williamsburg and Spaghetti Squash

This week's readings completed the book we began last week, The New History in and Old Museum: Creating the Past at Colonial Williamsburg, by Richard Handler and Eric Gable. Of course, the book is filled with interesting information and thoughts to consider, but one thing particularly stuck out to me in the last half of the book.

Chapter seven is entitled, "The Front Line: Smile Free or Die." While that almost sounds like the title of  a psychological thriller movie, by the second page of the chapter, I was thinking back to some of our previous readings, and rather fascinated by the challenge presented. Colonial Williamsburg employees were told that the worst thing they could do was be rude to a customer. That would result in immediate dismissal. While on the surface, that sounds reasonable, Handler and Gable went on to say that Colonial Williamsburg's VP stated the reason for this as being that the museum is "an intellectually open environment: people can say or think whatever they want about history, as long as they remain polite in their dealings with visitors." (pp. 170, 171). Again, this didn't sound too bad until I read on, about the frontline guide's interpretation: "...from that fact, she concluded not that Colonial Williamsburg is a domain of intellectual freedom, but that it is a big entertainment center and not an educational institution." (p.171).

This got me thinking. While Colonial Williamsburg is presented as a museum, and a place of accurate historical education, it does also have to make money. While it would be nice to be able to have such a place only be concerned with the accuracy of information and nothing else, the reality is, this is such a large operation that private funding alone is simply not going to cut it. Colonial Williamsburg has to draw enough people willing to pay the steep admission prices to compete with places such as Disney World, Six Flags, and Paramount's resorts, among other popular vacation destinations. Of course, we talked about a similar issue weeks ago in regards to the "Disney's America" theme park, and many of us focused on the danger of "Disnefying" history. But what about Colonial Williamsburg? Are providing good historical presentation and good entertainment mutually exclusive? Or can they both be accomplished? Are there ways to reconcile the two without totally damaging the integrity of the history being presented?

I'm genuinely asking those questions- I don't know the answer off the top of my head. As an academic historian, I tend to want to say the only right course of action here is to stick with "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." But then, if we do that absolutely, what do we sacrifice? Do we then end up with a defunct Colonial Williamsburg? Does the existence of a Colonial Williamsburg that gets as close as possible to the absolute truth without sacrificing tourist traffic still present enough of the real picture to justify any changes it has to make here and there, or any intentional oversights or minimalizations of certain issues?

Maybe, maybe not. One of the difficulties for public- and academic- historians is knowing where the "happy medium" lies. This actually makes me think of my recent food experiences, as I've become pretty much a health food nut in the last few months. At some point when I'm cooking for other people, I have to find the balance of just how many "healthier" substitutions I can make before my guest is going to be disgusted by my substitutions of honey for sugar and coconut cream for heavy whipping cream, and spaghetti squash for actual spaghetti. I think Colonial Williamsburg, among other public history sites, is more or less chronically in the same place. At what point do they need to add in a little sugar or spaghetti to appeal to enough people to keep the museum viable? Does adding a little historical sugar completely negate the accuracy of everything else?

Again, I don't know. And I'm not even sure the above analogy made sense (I'm hungry, can't you tell?). But if I keep trying to get people to eat my super duper healthy paleo substitutions for everything, they're eventually not going to want to eat my food at all (and it has nothing to do with my cooking skills...let's just get that straight!). From a business perspective, Colonial Williamsburg needs to do more or less the same thing. Just how that measures up in terms of historical integrity, I'm not sure. But it's certainly something interesting to consider.

Week Ten: Road Apples and the Other Half

My time is limited this week, so my post will be short. For our reading, we were assigned what amounts to the first half of The New History in an Old Museum: Creating the Past at Colonial Williamsburg, by Richard Handler and Eric Gable. Of course, as a historian of American slavery, Colonial Williamsburg is very interesting to me, given the journey they have been on over the last couple decades, trying to reflect changes brought by the emergence of social history. As I was reading the first chapter of this book, a new question hit me: why social history? I mean, my interest in Williamsburg has always been more along the lines of how they implement social history, but this time, I started to wonder why social history is so important anyway.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a social historian to the core. I wasn't actually wondering if social history was important, more like how. Not that I didn't know, but sometimes we tend to overlook things we think are too basic or obvious, thereby missing some of the important details.

Early on, Colonial Williamsburg was a fairly sterile, clean environment, praising the lives and work of Williamsburg's elite. By the 1970s, Americans had grown bored with the sanitized version of history which overlooked the bad, praising too highly the good- or at least, what leaders and historians at the time wanted Americans to think of as good. Beginning in the 60s, people wanted to learn about the history of the working class, ordinary people. They wanted to see history's whole picture- not just the "important" parts.

In the case of Williamsburg, just over half of the population were African American slaves, giving its elite an unusually high standard of living. Showing the social history of Colonial Williamsburg would mean showing some pretty unsavory elements of American history. It would mean presenting the great leaders of that town, and the American Revolution, as being flawed. Showing "the other half" would mean bursting the bubble for many Americans. But then again, I come to the same question: why? Why show slaves in Williamsburg? Why have live animals and horses leaving their droppings, or "road apples" for everyone to see and smell? Why not just focus on the good? Why do things have to be real?

As I thought about it, I came up with an answer that at least makes sense to me. If we don't show the past as it really was, if we sanitize it, if we take out the bad, then the good of the present doesn't mean as much. Additionally, it marginalizes the struggles others have gone through, the things people have had to overcome to get to where they are. It also takes away a lot of our ability to accurately understand the present- both the good and the bad of the present. Social history- both at Colonial Williamsburg and elsewhere- allows us to study, analyze, and understand history as a whole. Without social history, we're only looking at part of the picture- a part that lacks a lot of the struggle and stark reality- good and bad- of the past and the present.

Week Nine: Rabbit Holes and the Civil War

I was arguing with someone online a few months ago who insisted that all of the human rights reform movements between the 1830s and 1920s or so were against the Bible; that God never told us to defend our own rights, but rather to turn the other cheek, submit to authorities, and yield our rights to do what we want. This struck me as particularly interesting, since he was defending the South in the Civil War (of course, arguing that the abolition movement entirely went against Scripture). I thought about it for a moment, and in crafting my reply, remarked aloud to my friend Christi that with few (if any) exceptions, civil wars are merely failed revolutions, in which either the country splits into two or more separate sovereign states, or remains intact, with a new government taking over. Regardless, if the rebelling side succeeds, we usually remember the war as a revolution, otherwise it is a civil war. Which then launched a conversation between Christi and me trying to figure out why the Civil War, as a failed revolution, was okay, in which the Southern states were rebelling and fighting for the right to govern themselves (whether rightly or wrongly, it really doesn't matter here), but an abolition movement led largely by whites trying to free the enslaved African Americans, or a women's rights movement (very much supported by a number of men as well) to work to pass new legislation.

I have come to the conclusion that the American Civil War is a maddening rabbit hole. I remember my first glimpse into said hole- I was 16, away at a music camp for 3 weeks, with a roommate from Louisiana, Mandi. I seriously had no idea until then some people actually argued the Confederates were right. The next several years, I met more and more people who thought the same way Mandi did. Not long after returning home from meeting Mandi, my Baptist church in Cincinnati even had an actual debate about the Civil War. I was a little taken aback that people from my church actually sided with the South. So I started to study the Civil War. I became more aware of Civil War reenactments, of old Southern balls, with men in Confederate uniforms, and women in their big 1860s ball gowns, etc. The older I got, and the more I argued, the further I slipped down the rabbit hole. The further I slipped down the rabbit hole, the more people I discovered who are also stuck in said rabbit hole. I am currently further down the rabbit hole than ever. The frustrating thing is, I have yet to find a way out. I keep getting sucked into long arguments about the Civil War, in which no one's mind gets changed, and we end up where we started, only having lost several hours of our lives and raised our blood pressures in the process. No matter how many times I resolve to quit arguing about the Civil War, I always break that promise. When it comes to swearing off these arguments, my resolve is about as strong as Marshall Erickson's whenever he tries to make a resolution about...anything. I'm not like this regarding any other war. In fact, bring up literally any other war (my friend John on occasion has tried to bring up the War of 1812...he's Canadian), I'll make an argument, spend maybe 5 minutes defending it, and then shrug my shoulders and say you either have a decent point that I'll have to consider, or I'll just decide I'm right and move on (kidding...kinda).

So what's with the fascination with the Civil War? Actually, it could better be called an obsession. If it was just me, that'd be one thing, and I'd shrug it off, like I shrug off my obsession with fuzzy things or Peeps. But it's not just me! It's a freakishly large portion of the American population, including residents from states that weren't even involved...like Alaska...people whose ancestors hadn't even gotten here yet, and as my friend James informs me, even some Canadians. Yes, apparently Canadians have American Civil War reenactments too...including Canadians who never had ancestors in the US. I know, bizarre. But then, is it really any stranger than the fact that so many Americans are obsessed with a war that ended 148 years ago, and even our very oldest citizens are a few generations removed from the war? It's fascinating to me that someone could walk in to a crowded room in most parts of the US and scream "AMERICA SHOULD HAVE LOST THE REVOLUTION!" and most people would stare, blink a couple times, and then go back to whatever they were doing. But send someone into a crowded room to shout, "THE CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA SHOULD HAVE WON!" or, "GOD BLESS ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND THE UNION ARMY!" and almost guaranteed, chaos will ensue, and people who may have just been speaking with each other in a friendly manner will end up in an instant heated argument (kinda like the whole predestination/free will debate- ironically, I discovered that was a "thing" when I met Mandi too...). So why is it that very few people care if someone says we should still be British subjects, but almost everyone is up in arms over any such statement about the Civil War?

One of this week's readings comes from the first two chapters of Tony Horowitz's book, Confederates in the Attic. I've always meant to read this book, and now I'm going to have to- the first two chapters are pretty awesome, though I only really have time to talk about the first here. Horowitz begins chapter 1 with a very apt quote from Gertrude Stein: "There never will be anything more interesting in America than that Civil War. Never." I think she may be correct.

Horowitz begins by talking about his great-grandfather, who didn't arrive in America until the 1880s, but was always obsessed with the Civil War, passing down that obsession to his children, grand children, and great-grandchildren. A few pages in, Horowitz queries, "Why did this war still obsess so many Americans 130 years after Appomattox? I returned to Poppa Isaac's book. What did that war have to do with him, or with me?" At this point, I looked up from my reading and said, "Yes, why IS this still such an obsession?" As many people have seen on my Facebook wall from time to time, I occasionally opine that not only has the Civil War not yet ended, but it also NEVER WILL. Historian Kathleen has to be more responsible and give more academic answers than that over-simplified rant, but private citizen Kathleen absolutely believes that.

The book continues as Horowitz details his experience meeting a hardcore Confederate reenactor, and the time he spent with this guy and his other reenactor friends. It's amazing just how hardcore these men were. Every single detail had to be correct. They cared nothing about physical injury, as long as it happened authentically. Many even tried to lose as much weight as possible, trying to achieve a weight of 135lbs or less, and acquiring the underfed, gaunt Confederate soldier look. I'm sorry, but as a 29 year old female, I canNOT help but wonder how many of these men had wives or girlfriends at home. I'm trying to come up with any circumstance under which I would find a guy over 5'7" or 5'8" and weighing 135lbs to actually be attractive, and I'm not getting anything. How hardcore must these women be to be okay with this? Or all they mostly confirmed bachelors who care more about reliving a war than female companionship? I did actually laugh out loud  when I read the conversation in which one reenactor lamented that his girlfriend broke up with him because she was tired of trying to compete with a 130 year old event. Can't say I blame her. Actually, I'd probably give her a good fist bump if I met her. But as per usual, I digress.

I found the end of the first chapter to be somewhat disturbing. Horowitz recalls the a conversation with several of the hardcores. They talked about how their repeated reenacting experiences, in very unpleasant conditions helped them understand how easy their lives were, and one said he would not be upset to get ticks and lice: "If that happened, I'd feel like we'd elevated things to another level. It would suck, but at least I'd know what it was like to scratch my head all day long." To me, this comes too close to the medieval ideas of self-abasement and punishment. Extreme suffering as a kind of penance. In this case, what a read seemed to border on a psychologically unhealthy obsession with understanding fully- by actually feeling- what Civil War soldiers went through. But here's my question: for what? Is there a purpose other than just understanding? And if so, what is it? To take it a step further, though my argumentation does not approach the commitment level of the hardcores, reading this does make me ask what the purpose of such arguments are.

Why am I still arguing about a war that ended 148 years ago? Why is anyone?

 
I have a mixture of good and bad answers to those questions, and I'm really not sure there's one right answer, or even just a dozen right answers. But something about the American Civil War makes it one of the most unique and, frankly strange, obsessions in existence. For all of us afflicted with this obsession, it wouldn't hurt to return to these questions occasionally for perspective. Though maybe it's really just another mental illness, and in 100 years, it'll be right there alongside paranoia and delusional behavior. Hmmm...

Week Eight: Hollywood and History

This week's readings centered around the film Black Robe, so as would be expected, we were required to also watch the movie. For my more conservative readers, I would say watch at your own risk, the movie does have an R rating, and it ain't the dialogue that got it said rating.

As a history geek, I have long been irritated by inaccurate portrayals of history in film. In many cases, Hollywood likes to sacrifice the real for the sensational, or edit things to prove the producer's agenda. For example, you know the scene in The Patriot in which the villagers are locked inside their church and burned by the British? I'll never forget the reactions of various professors decrying that as a sensational Hollywood lie. Of course then there's Song of the South which is a horrid perversion of a slave's life in the South. Pearl Harbor, Titanic, and many other movies have glaring historical errors in them.

The movie Black Robe is about a Jesuit missionary who embarks on a journey and has dealings with various First Nations tribes in Canada, including the Algonquins, Mohawks, and Huron. It is true that the portrayal of these people groups is less than flattering. It is also true that to someone who knows absolutely nothing about any of these tribes (and very little about Native Americans and First Nations in general), it has an air of authenticity. However, according to one article I read in response "And They Did It Like Dogs In the Dirt...An Indigenist Analysis of Black Robe" by Ward Churchill, the content was actually less than accurate. For one thing, the movie had Algonquians speaking a Cree dialect. I mean, not that I'd know the difference, but seriously, people? I wouldn't make a movie and have a Mexican speaking Castillian Spanish, nor would I make a movie and have a Ukranian speak Russian. If you're going to go to the trouble of having a large portion of a movie's dialogue be in a foreign language, why not make sure it's the correct one? Sorry, I just don't get that.

Churchill decries the film critics who claim to know anything about history at all, claiming it to be "historically sound," etc., and I'll agree, this is a problem. Film critics should comment on the film as a film, not as a representation of history. But aside from that, Churchill criticizes the filmmakers for quite obviously misrepresenting the various tribes, especially the Mohawks, showing them to be far more bloodthirsty or sexually deviant than they actually were. According to Churchill, the details were so thoroughly researched (sets, costumes, etc.) that it would be impossible to do so much research and not be aware that the child captured by the Mohawks would have simply been raised as a Mohawk, rather than killed in front of the child's family. Churchill accused the filmmakers of having an agenda to show these tribes as being savage- as if in an effort to justify white domination over the indigenous peoples of the United States and Canada. I'll have to agree with him (assuming his facts are correct), that if so many minute details were correct, the filmmakers must have known what they were doing, and to intentionally villainize these people is wrong.

However. In his article, "In Defense of Black Robe: A Reply to Ward Churchill, Kristoff Haavik disagrees with Churchill, in spite of claiming to be an avid admirer of Churchill's work. Haavik actually states that Black Robe was an accurate portrayal of Native Americans.  After having read both articles, I have to say I'm more inclined to agree with Haavik, as he points out a few discrepancies between the film and Chruchill's retelling of it. Haavik states that Churchill has "something of a point" in his claims about the Mohawks killing their child prisoner, saying it would be more likely for the child to be adopted into the tribe, but killing children as portrayed in the movie was not unheard of for Mohawks- just far less common than adoption. Haavik's article goes on for several pages about native culture and Churchill's points.

It is not terribly uncommon for historians to disagree on things such as this. However, this dispute does raise a valid question: Can films be used as legitimate ways to teach history?

My answer to this question is a cautious "yes." One of the history professors at Ouachita (where I did my undergrad), Dr. Motl, used films in three of the four classes I had with him: Modern Germany, Modern America, and American Women's History. We watched Schindler's List, and then discussed it. He was careful to point out the few things here and there that were sensational add-ins on the part of Steven Speilburg, but that was easy to do, and on the whole, the film was incredibly useful in our class. It brought the horrors we were studying to life. I also remember watching the film Thirteen Days, about the Cuban Missile Crisis. In this case, the film was almost entirely accurate (yes, sometimes Hollywood actually resists the urge to change history!), and I learned so much more about the Cuban Missile Crisis than I would have EVER learned otherwise. After watching the movie, I more fully understood everything that was at stake during that time, and how fantastic a job the Kennedy administration did in dealing with it. But I think the most significant movie (for me) that I watched in Dr. Motl's classes was the HBO film Iron Jawed Angels. Again, Dr. Motl did explain a few things that were sensationalized, the fact that the senator's wife was a fictitious character added to the story, etc., but the movie overall was an accurate portrayal of what women in America went through to gain the right to vote. It also showed Woodrow Wilson in a less-than-heroic light (which, in the case of women's suffrage is totally accurate!). I will never forget the force-feeding scene with Alice Paul in the prison, during her hunger strike. She wanted to starve to death to make a point, and of course, as was said in the film by the men opposing the suffragettes, "We can't have any martyrs on our hands."

Seeing those things on film helps people understand significance and sometimes context better. If we see it playing out in front of our eyes, we're much more likely to connect than if we hear a professor say it, or read it on a page in our text books. Dr. Motl set a great example for me as an aspiring college professor, in knowing exactly how to use films to teach in a way he couldn't do by just talking about something (sorry, Dr. Motl, but even Darth Vader has limitations!). Those are lessons and films I will never forget. In my own classroom, with my students, I even used film clips to help drive home certain points. I did show the force-feeding scene from Iron Jawed Angels, and I had half my class come up to me and ask for the title of the film so they could go watch the whole thing. I showed 70 minutes of The Help to show my students the kinds of things African Americans dealt with during the Jim Crow era, and to show them a good portrayal of African American agency at the same time. They responded to those things way better than they would have responded to me rattling off the facts during yet another lecture.

Sure. As teachers, we have to be careful to use films appropriately. Sure. There are teachers who use films as cop-outs, not knowing anything about a specific event or topic (sometimes including whether the film is accurate). But used correctly and with caution, films can be fabulous tools for teaching about history. We simply have to use our own professional integrity in choosing well what we use, and how.