Class notes
Required reading:
Declaration of Independence
Limerick, "Empire of Innocence"
Required viewing:
Growth and Empire, The Coming of Independence
Written assessment:
Quiz 1
Written assignment due:
web response paragraph
Web response prompt:
[Adapted from Bartholomae and Petrosky, Ways of Reading]
One of the readings for this week, the opening chapter of Limerick’s book The Legacy of Conquest (1987), offers a view of history as both an area of research, and something written, an account of past events. In it, Limerick offers criticism and advice, an account of the problems of constructing a history of the American West. As you reread, mark passages that define the problems and the possible solutions for historians.
Post a short (about 150 words) response to the reading on the course website, in which you briefly describe, in your own words, some of the problems and possible solutions that Limerick describes. It may be helpful to refer by page number to specific passages in the chapter. Your response should take into consideration the responses (if any) already posted by your classmates.
12 comments:
Mark Long
Oct. 7th 2008
The recurring theme that I see in Patricia Limerick’s essay is the explanation of Historian’s mistaken deceptions in History and how Historians are faced with difficulties discovering the true facts through the study of already tampered past events. Throughout this essay She identifies the problems and possible solutions and there by conclude, using a variety of sources, the lost, raw, and true History of America.
A significant problem the she covered was the motive of “White Americans” moving West with the intention of ruining the Natives lives (Page 427). She points out that criminality within the new settlers was not only unknown but not imagined by the Pioneers. In saying that, she explains why what happened, happened. She says, “personal interest in the acquisition of property coincided with national interest in the acquisition of territory, and those interests overlapped…” (Limerick, “Empire of Innocence”). Bluntly saying, the Indians got in the way of the pioneers mission to “extend the domain of Christian Civilization” in the western world and the solution, from both sides, was survival of the fittest.
Now that I read Patricia Limericks essay called Empire of Innocence, I have to say that I found it very interesting. She tries to explain the most recent mistakes in Western American history and looks at the problems from different points of view. One of the discussed subjects was the reason, why historians left out women from the Western history (page 427). Although there were many brave female missionaries like Narcissa Whitman, the women they did not want to mention were prostitutes. Even though the prostitution was essential to the town’s prosperity, their importance was downgraded. Firstly they helped respectable young women to avoid the fall and hold on to the role of pure creatures. Secondly they were deterrent subjects and the reason for young women to get married, so they wouldn’t end up at the farthest margin of society. That is why we should not hide the history, but enrich it.
Problem: “Historical understanding and writing”. (p. 417)
Americans were expending through west. Whitman, a white woman with her husband left home to rescue the Indians in Oregon. Their mission included transformation Indians from hunters and gatherers to farmers. Provide opportunity of salvation, development and civilization. They felt innocent with the good will to bring light to the “benighted ones”.
However, Cayuse Indians made parallels with typical occupation. Whitman was regarded as “intolerant invader”. Cayuses just defended their home lands, families, cultures and traditions. They were unable to understand Whitman’s good will and on the other hand Whitman couldn’t understand that they had their own civilization.
Finally they were murdered and history knows this murder as “a clear case of victimization”, but as Limerick notes: from a different points of view historical event have different explanations.
Solution: “One skill essential to the writing of Western American History is a capacity to deal with multiple points of view.” (p.419)
In my opinion Limerick basically deals with the major problem of every historical era and that is about the sources. According to her essay Limerick points out that the historians use more ‘serious’ sources such as written records than anthropologists (page 417). However, the history shouldn’t be looked at just from one side, because we wouldn’t get a whole picture what the era was like.
One of the main themes is as Mark mentioned the moving of White Americans to the West by taking the area of Indians. “One skill essential to the writing of Western American history is the capacity to deal with multiple points of view.” (Limerick, Empire of Innocence) That is the basic idea. She applies this on the problem of an ‘Innocent victim’ (page 418) and expands her theory, that Americans tend to justify their actions and violence used upon the Indians by giving religious reasons. They emphasize their own victims – women killed by Indians, but they don’t admit it was just a necessary consequence of their own actions. Suddenly according to Limerick one could be seen as a villain as well as a victim. “…American history appears to be composed of one, continuous fabric, a fabric in which the figure of the innocent victim is the dominant motif.” (Limerick, Empire of Innocence) Personally, I’d say this correspondent to many events in the American history and even in the present day we wouldn’t be looking for another innocent victim for a long time.
Finally, as a woman Limerick underlines the missing information about white women in the West. “Where in Western history did women fit?” (Limerick, Empire of Innocence) Would some information about the actual role of white women change the face of the history as much? Could it be the reason for leaving women out of the history?
the essay by Patricia Limerick can be seen as another ordinary history book that tells about the early settlement in Western United States, such as story of Narcissa Whitman (pg. 419-421) or Miners which took an advantage of Federal legislation to explore and even exploit natural resources in early Western United States settlement history. However, the main point that Patricia Limerick want to make is that many written history evidence provide the feeling that the white settlers are portraited as innocent people, whereas native Indians often were portraited as violent. Limerick says that in the perspective of Indians, the Western immigrants were invaders. It seems that the core problem that the history should not be biased and solution can be drawn by take both sides' positions (in this case, Western immigrants and Indians) into account that we, as history students, shouldn't take biased position when we dealing with history.
The problem with constructing a history of American West, as Limerick points out, is the fact that women were simply left out of it until the 1970’s. One type of a woman is Narcissa Whitman (421-422), a missionary who left New York and went to Oregon to rescue Indians. She was taking care of her family and adopted many mixed children, who otherwise would not be able to survive. Women like Narcissa or Amelia Stewart Knight (who was in the late stage of pregnancy, when walking through forest with her children) did not complain. They were strong women, who knew their role was to take care of children and keep the family together. Prostitutes are the other type of women involved in American history. Although there was hatred towards them, they were a vital part of every town’s economy. Socially, as Aneta pointed out, they helped wives to “hold on to the role of pure creatures set above human biological compulsions” (428) while providing an outlet for men. Women presented an important part of the American history and it is wrong to leave them out. Whether it was Narcissa Whitman or Julia Bulette they all helped to shape America past and present.
Patricia Limerick tries to look at and explain the Western history objectively. Not just from the usual point of view. As she says it is the “skill essential to the writing of Western American History” (p.419)
The dominant theme I see in Limericks essay is the need to see ourselves as the innocent ones, which is common to every human being as well as to every nation. Therefore the view of one’s own history might be inaccurate. One tendes to hightight those parts of history that don’t do much harm to one’s conscience and to leave out those that do.
Doubtlessly there were many injuries and hardships on both sides for example murdered missionary Narcissa Whitman on the site of white settlers. On the other hand The American Indians were forced to yield their territories and were devastated by white people’s diseases.
In the Essay “Empire of Innocence”, Patricia Nielson Limerick portrays the actual thoughts and points of view of the White Americans who moved to the West of the country in order to begin a new life. Contradictory to the fact that they are seen as invaders Native American’s land, they saw themselves as innocence victims of constant Indian’s offensive, poor climatic conditions and governmental disregard. Western territory occupied by Indians was in their opinion a “vulnerable land” (Limerick, 426).
In the belief that their rights were violated, they constantly called federal government for protection. The government was suspected of being in alliance with Indians and blamed of keeping the white Americans in legal captivity. All these frustrations resulted in various rebellious actions such as “Sagebrush Rebellion” or writing books on the issue. For example in the book of Governor Richard Lamm and Michael McCarthy, the authors described the white Americans as new Indians, the ones whose rights are violated not the ones who violate other’s (i.e. Indian’s) rights, the ones that are enslaved by either government or the Kingdom.
As the symbol of classical innocent victim were white women - he ones that worked so hard in an unfamiliar land, surrounded by loneliness (Limerick, 426). The author of the essay offers a solution in what ways we should look at the white women at that time that came to the West. Avoiding overgeneralization tendencies to see them only as supportive partners of men and martyred missioners, white women often came to the West to just satisfy their baser needs; the most popular profession was prostitution. This should be also taken into consideration. As this example shows, everything has its wrong side and right side. In my opinion, the purpose of this essay is to bring up questions, whose answers seem to be fairly clear, and reinforce discussions and multi-perspective viewing at the issues.
Well, I actually had "some" (a lot)problems while reading this text and I found it a bit difficult to understand, so please do correct me if I'm wrong.
Patricia Limerick, as Lucy already said, speaks about the difference between Historians and Anthropologists pointing out that Historians use more sources and material when exploring and analyzing their theories.
She says that the invaders and the people who are already in the US are both justified and wrong in there actions. Both sides have different stories that have evolved in time and that is why we can't be sure of what is the actual truth. She also, as it has been previously said speaks of Narcissa Prentiss Whitman, who was a white female missionary and about prostitutes that weren't all sinners and wives that weren't always acting like saints.
Main idea of Empire of Innocence is how can historians distort reality when they use word 'typical'(white-man,indian,murderer,prostitute..)There is no typical person,event,all must be understanded particularly.
''Prostitutes were not consistently and exclusively sinners,not were wives and mothers consistently and exlusively saints.''(page 430).
She also warns against using of word ''victim''( it is so popular because: '' Myths resting on tragedy and unforeseen consequences,the ancient Greeks cerainly knew, have far more power than stories of simple triumphs and victories.''- page 431).Blaming somebody or something(indians,prostitues or government) for our faults is unfair and misleading( but easier).
It is not just case of past,it still lives on.
The main purpose of historian is to inform, not to judge and offer all possible points of view.
I'm going to be completely honest about this text. I had some trouble understanding it and I'm not sure I even understand it now..What I see from what I read is that some mistakes were done by making conclusions about what happened during the history and Limerick expressed her opinion about some of them. She wrote some historian facts about moving history and anthropology together. She mentioned that on the beginning so I don't think it's necessary to write about it.
When few Americans went west, they did some things that are not justified today but they were then because they were white Americans and most people considered them as pioneers instead of trespassers.
Narcissa Whitman and Julia Bulette actually had the same interests - they both teached similar historical lessons. Relations between the two of them were not so good so it's weird to make any connection between them.
In that time, there was a completely different view of prostitution and not all prostitutes were sinners. They were also considered as good mothers and wives.
That's what I understood from this essay.. I'm still a little bit skeptic about this what I wrote because I think I didn't get the right point.
“One skill essential to the writing of Western American History is a capacity to deal with multiple points of view,” claims Patricia Nelson Limerick, one of the most influential American historian, in her essay Empire of Innocence (p. 419). For a historian, she explains, it is quite difficult to approach and to interpret history objectively, since every coin has got two sides. In Empire of Innocence, Limerick deals with the west encounter of native Indians, white Americans and their quite contradictory interests, concerning mostly the identical territorial claims. Due to many problems which the white Americans had to face, they were not a united social group either; “they were preying on each other as at preying on Indians.” Despite being guilty, these people felt innocent and victimized by circumstances. Limerick affirms such feelings belong to a human nature, no matter how self-centered or selfish the personal interests of one could be. So who is a villain and who is a victim? In order to stay objective, it is hard to judge.
Written by: Sona Gajova, October 9, 2008
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