Real history often is, by definition, pioneer history. I mean, we don't usually remember runners-up or second place finishers. For whatever reason, the American spirit seems to be linked to the pioneer spirit. These books tell the stories of pioneers.
Everybody of a certain age knows the name Daniel Boone from their childhood; he's one of the American pioneers who has been mythologized. Even before his death, his name was known far and wide, and stories were told of him as a trailblazer, literally leading the first white settlers into what is now Kentucky, and Indian fighter. He's been the subject of plays, books, and tv shows. Authors Bob Drury and Tom Clavin's recently published Blood and Treasure endeavors to tell the full story of the man behind the legend. It's a page-turner for sure; Boone's life may have been even more thrilling than portrayed in popular culture. I learned a lot about Boone, and I learned even more about the Native Americans of that region and the politics within their tribes and amongst the tribes, very complicated from the beginning but when you throw in the French, British, and Americans, everything becomes even more complicated. And Daniel Boone was in the middle of all of this. I recommend this book.
Unlike Daniel Boone, most Americans have probably never heard of Eliza Lucas, the woman credited with making indigo a viable cash crop on South Carolina plantations in the 18th century. The Indigo Girl is a work of historical fiction that is based on a lot of historical research, including Lucas' own letters. In 1739, Lucas' father leaves his family in search of military glory for himself, leaving 16-year old Eliza in charge of running three South Carolina plantations. While her mother works hard to get her married to a man who will save the family fortune, Lucas has no desire to marry. She throws herself headfirst into the problems of the plantation, and she decides to grow indigo (used for making indigo dye), a valuable cash crop that had not been successfully grown in the colonies. After many setbacks and several years, she succeeds, and indigo becomes a valuable cash crop on the South Carolina and Georgia coast. ( A lot of people don't realize that cotton didn't become a hugely successful cash crop until after 1800 and the invention of the cotton gin. Rice, indigo, and tobacco were the most important southern crops.)
Eugene Bullard was the son of a formerly enslaved man and an indigenous Creek woman born into a life of sharecropping in southwest Georgia in 1895. Very few avenues were open to him, and most of his contemporaries found themselves trapped in the endless cycle of sharecropping life in Jim Crow Georgia. Bullard would ever be satisfied in that life, however. He left home at age 11, eventually making his way to Europe where he became a boxer and a stage performer. Settling in Paris, he continued as a boxer and worked in various nightclubs. Then World War I broke out, and Bullard enlisted in the French Foreign Legion. One thing led to another, and he soon found himself in pilot training, and he became the first black American military pilot in history, but he flew for the French army, not the American. After the war, he resumed the Parisian nightclub life, managing clubs at the height of the jazz age. It's a great story.
Most recently, I've finished Murder at the Mission. It's the story of the first white American missionaries in the Oregon territory, Marcus and Narcissa Whitman. The Whitmans built a mission and lived among the Cayuse Indians for a few years before they were killed. Their killing became a martyrdom in American history, particularly in the history of the Pacific Northwest. Murder is an excellent account of the Whitmans' lives and deaths, but that's not really the author's main purpose. The book's subject is really the power of myth-making in American history, the story of how the Whitmans' lives and deaths were manipulated by others in order to further their own personal and professional lives and fortunes. It's an excellent study of how history can be be manufactured and manipulated, with the effects lasting for generations.
No comments:
Post a Comment