“environmental myths, an impetus for oppression”

“Environmental Myths, an Impetus for Oppression”

By:

Ben Hendricks

Indian Subjugation and Yellowstone National Park Indian subjugation by Euro-Americans was crucial to the creation of the United States, since Native Americans possessed all the land before the non-natives arrived, and they now possess very little of it. Euro-Americans made this process of Indian dispossession highly violent, even genocidal. The following case study focuses on P.W. Norris, an early superintendent of Yellowstone National Park, and creates a model for Environmental Studies as they pertain to Native American dispossession. Dispossession of Native Americans in Yellowstone National Park “Created for the benefit and enjoyment of the people, Yellowstone destroyed a people. Dedicated to preservation, it evicted those who had preserved it. Touted as pristine, the policy required that we forget those whose absence diminished it. Denied its Indian past, it deprived us of the knowledge to keep it pristine.” This saying of Aston Chase encapsulates the clash in values that the establishment of

Yellowstone National park brought about. One profitable angle from which to investigate this inconsistency between the official goals for the park and its actual function is the attitudes of the parks superintends who were in charge of the actual administration of it. Of these administrations, the superintendence of Philetus W. Norris is one of the most informative. It indicates that the paradox between the parks goals and its function stemmed from the contradictory environmental views held by the US Government at the time. Ostensibly the creation of Yellowstone National Park, the first of a system of national parks, was the beginning of a new environmental policy in the United States. After all, the park had been created to protect a wilderness region from exploitation. By the second half of the nineteenth century a reaction to the Environmental Domination Ideology had developed. Grover Cleveland’s Secretary of the Interior stated that the parks purpose was “the preservation of the wilderness in as nearly the condition in which we found [it] as possible.” However, despite the fact that the creation of this national park owed itself to the development of an attitude toward the environment that undermined the dispossession of Native American’s, these peoples were removed from the park. While it required the parks officials many years to achieve this, by 1900 Yellowstone National Park was Indian free P.W. Norris The superintendence of P. W. Norris, one of Yellowstone National Parks early administrators, provides to the complexity of this procedure. Since Yellowstone National Park was the first National Park to be established it laid the premises for the relations between the National Park System as a whole and Native Americans. Because Norris was the parks first superintendent to oppose the presence of Native Americans in the park his attitudes reflect the motives and ideas that initiated Indian removal.

Norris was a participant in the conservation movement of the time, a believer in the purpose behind the establishment of the park, the preservation of the nature of the region from destruction by the exploitation of its resources. His appreciation of the parks beauty is reflected in his annual reports to the Secretary of the Interior, which contain enthusiastic descriptions of the scenery he encountered on his travels through the park. Moreover he exerted himself as the superintendent ensuring the protection of this scenery. Not content with ensuring that those regulations that had already been put in place for the park were carried out, he also initiated the adoption of new regulations when the existing ones proved inadequate. American Indian Policy Under Norris At the same time that Norris exerted himself in the cause of the preservation of the park, he also sought to remove the American Indians from the park. Throughout his stay as superintendent he worked for the acquisition of all Native American land in the park as well as those tracts bordering it. Norris, in his annual reports, indicated his belief that Native Americans roaming in the park would hurt tourism. During 1880 at when in council with a group of Indian chiefs he mentioned his fear that Indians in the park would lead to conflicts with tourists. He was especially worried that Indians would be an obstacle to the development of a tourist friendly infrastructure in the park, writing that the presence of Native Americans in the park made it difficult for him to secure leases with entrepreneurs for the upkeep of tourists in the park. Even though Norris wanted to protect the natural resources in Yellowstone National Park from exploitation, he still desired to tame the park and exploit it. Rather than

exploiting it materially, he desired to exploit its beauty and grandeur and set out to mold the nature for that purpose. Exploitation and Westward Expansion in the U.S. Norris’ exploitation of Yellowstone National Park fits in well with the support that he expressed for the westward expansion of the United States civilization. The terms that Norris used when he referred to the agents of this expansion glow with enthusiasm. He calls the railroad the “artery of civilization,” and he describes miners as “poor but dauntless path-finding prospectors of boundless hidden wealth for the race of resistless destiny.” Finally he accepted that the dispossession of the Indians was a necessary part of this expansion. He highly admired the Crow tribe, applauding them for not “obstructing the pathway of progress,” by willingly accepting the uncompensated loss of their lands The superintendence of Norris provides a lot of insight into the development of inconsistencies between the basic purpose for the establishment of the park and the consequences that this establishment possessed for Native Americans. He was a transitional figure, a position that was reflected by his environmental attitudes. As an individual he was rooted in the ideology that civilization produces progress. He advocated the civilization of the west through the exploitation of nature. When Native American land claims interfered with this goal he supported their dispossession. This aspect of P. W. Norris, as a figure that bestrode the two primary and distinct United States environmental myths, made his superintendence illuminate the wider issue of the dispossession of Native Americans from National Parks. The basic factors operating in Yellowstone National Park occurred elsewhere, officials in other parks beside the Yellowstone exploited their parks, improving nature by molding it according to their own purposes and like Norris park officials widely developed and used the justification that Native Americans “feared national park areas and had not used the land.”

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Environmental Myths, an Impetus for Oppression

The impact of environmental myths on societies makes up one of the most fascinating

insights gained by the examination of environmental history from the standpoint of cultural

theory. These myths exercise almost irresistible power over their cultures, and provide the core

of their unique cultural identity. However, these myths are largely the construct of the cultural

imagination, either having no bases in their cultures or in the environment, but because they

are so integral to a culture’s identity, they often acquire dominance over the decisions and

policies of them. Consequently, these myths are responsible for countless large scale human

rights violations. Many wars and genocides stem back to flawed decisions based on a cultural

mythological view of the environment. Accordingly this cultural theory provides the historian

with a powerful tool for analyzing oppressed ethnic groups; one that I intent to tap into in my

case study of the dispossession of Yellowstone National Park to its Native American neighbors.

Perhaps the exploitation of Native Americans is the human rights violation that

American citizens most need to understand. Firstly, Indian subjugation by Euro-Americans was

crucial to the creation of the United States, since Native Americans possessed all the land

before the non-natives arrived, and they now possess very little of it. Secondly, Euro-Americans

made this process of Indian dispossession highly violent, even genocidal. Thirdly, Native

American dispossession provided inspiration for other genocides, ones that Americans deplore.

However, since this conquest and exploitation were extremely unethical, but yet

foundational to their very identity and existence, this event is difficult for Americans to grapple

with. Therefore these following four scholarly works provide extensive and important

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information for any study of the event. By describing how landscape myths motivated this

atrocity, they provide insight into the though process behind it. They also describe how other

cultures share the same myths and similar atrocities.

Any analysis of the historical role of Landscape myths must start with Landscape and

Memory. This work by Simon Schama provides an intensive study of the function and

importance of these myths. Through a multitude of examples he develops the idea that cultures

views of their landscape provide them with an integral part of their cultural identity, how those

views are divorced from the actual, physical environment, and how they so often end in

tragedy.1

In the work Schama looks at three different forms of landscapes: wood, water, and rock.

He describes the myths connected with them, how they developed and what their impact was.

For example, one of the wood myths he analyzed was the German cultural mythology of

themselves as hardy woodland warriors preserved by the forest from the softening vices of

civilization. Schama began this depiction with a vignette outlining the myths origin. It stems

back to the writings of the Roman author Tacitus, to his both condescending and yet admiring

depiction of the German tribes as the anti-Roman.2 Schama then went on to discuss how this

myth led to Nazi’s quest for racial purity and its accompanying Holocaust.3

The Conquest of Nature, by David Blackbourn, explores in more detail the Teutonic myth

that Landscape and Memory introduced. This work discusses the relationship between the

German environmental attitudes and the development of Modern Germany, emphasizing how

1 Simon Schama, Landscapes and Memory (New York: Alfred A. Knope, 1995) 134.

2 Ibid. 76, 77.

3 Ibid. 118.

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both influenced each other. The thesis of his book is that throughout the modernization

process, Germans related to their environment from the attitude that “nature was an adversary

to be conquered and tamed.”4

The Conquest of Nature provides a fascinating example of the way that environmental

myths have lead to the oppression and land dispossession of one culture by another. He

describes the German’s as a people motivated by the myth that they possessed superior

environmental practices than the Slavs. In the beginning of the chapter Race and Reclamation

Blackbourn discusses German writers-prior to 1945-comparisons of German and Slavic

environmental practices. From these writers’ statements he concludes that German culture saw

the Slavs as lazy, worthless peoples, “incapable of shaping their own environment.”5 In

comparison the German culture saw itself as an energetic, masterful people transforming,

taming and improving their environments.6 By developing and retelling these stereotypical

images of these two cultures David Blackbourn argues that these writers were developing a

justification for the German interest in appropriating Slavic land.7

These concepts came to the fore during World War II. The Quest for Lebensraum, or

living space was one of the main motivations for the Germans in initiating the conflict.

Blackbourn describes the German, Slavic environmental myths as crucial to this Nazi pursuit.

The Nazi’s saw the Slavic east as “virgin land,” and their plans for it constituted a total

reconstruction.8 This thought process, total disregard for the Slavic inhabitance, developed out

4 David Blackbourn, The Conquest of Nature: Water, Landscape, and the Making of Modern Germany (New York:

W.W. Norton and Company, 2006) 5. 5Ibid. 254.

6 Ibid. 255.

7 Ibid. 260.

8 Ibid. 262.

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of the Nazi myth that the Slavs were servants of nature.9 Since the Slavs had left their

environment unconquered, they possessed no right to the possession of any land that the

Germans-who had “given the landscape a human imprint,”-could use.10 Accordingly the Nazi

ignored the Slavs during their attempt to Germanize the Slavic landscape, freely dispossessing

then from the areas that the Germans decided to utilize. Altogether three hundred and thirty

thousand German colonists settled in newly conquered east, leading to the displacement of

hundreds of thousands of Poles and Jews.11

This work provides a unique counter-point to my case study. Blackbourn’s description

the Slavic genocide contains the exact myth that motivated much of the Native American

genocide. Most intriguingly, however, is Blackbourn’s depiction of the Nazi’s self-conscious

imitation of the United States. According to his portrayal, they viewed their border with the

Slavic east as a frontier region and they used the terms of the Turner Frontier Thesis when

discussing it and as an argument for reconquering it. Hitler took the imitation to the extent that

he referred to the conflict between the Wehrmacht and Polish Partisan bands as an “Indian

War.” 12 Blackbourn’s account, therefore, shows some of the global implications of the

American landscape myths.

The mythological foundation of the American version of “Indian Wars,” is established by

Patricia Limerick, in the book she published in 1987, The Legacy of Conquest. Essentially, her

work was a rebuttal to the Turner Thesis which historians of the American West for so many

9 Ibid. 270.

10 Ibid. 273.

11 Ibid. 265, 266.

12 Ibid. 295-297, 305.

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years viewed as a religious text.13 The Turner Thesis describes the history of the West as the

process of Americanization; American culture-its independent, equal, democratic aspects-was

formed out of the civilizing of the “Wild West.”14 Limerick’s work redrew the history of the

West, she argued that instead of a process it is a place, and its history should be written like the

history of any other region of the United States.15

In her discussion of Native American land dispossession Limerick mainly attributes it to

environmental attitudes held by Euro-Americans, the same theme that Blackbourn repeated

several years later in his discussion of Jewish and Slavic land losses. She states that the United

States framed their actions around the idea that the Native Americans practiced inefficient land

use policies. As she states it “savagery neglected the land’s true potential and kept out those

who could put it to proper use.”16 Through this portrayal Limerick expresses perhaps the

dominant environmental myth behind Native American dispossession. However, she left

undiscussed a secondary, contradictory American landscape myth that also impacted Native

American land possession.

The 1991 volume by Mark Spence, Dispossessing the Wilderness, covers this new twist

to the American environmental myth. His book discusses the links between the establishment

of National Parks and the sequestering of Native Americans on reservations. In Dispossessing

the Wilderness Spence portrays the transformation of the Euro-American idea of wilderness-

13

Patricia Nelson Limerick, The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1987) 20. 14

Ibid. 20-21. 15

Ibid. 30. 16

Ibid. 190.

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pristine landscape in its natural state-from intrinsically containing Native Americans to existing

apart from this people.17

Spence, in his book portrays another, less familiar side than the aspect covered by

Limerick, to Indian removal. He presents the idea in his book, that Native Americans lost land

because they dominated it too much. This was owing to a second United States environmental

view becoming prominent in the late eighteenth century, that nature is valuable.18 It was a

reaction to the original Euro-American environmental theory-the idea that nature needed to be

tamed and dominated-as people were realizing that the United States exploitation of the

environment was destroying nature.19 These nature conservationists set out to preserve certain

special tracts of land in its wild, pristine form.20 Their efforts in time succeeded with the

National Park System as the result.21 However, the establishment of these parks resulted in the

surprising development of Native Americans land dispossession for their over utilization of

natural resources. Since these areas were idealized as untouched by the hand of man,

whenever the conservationists discovered that Native Americans utilization of the National

Parks resources-under the law Indians were entitled to use its land in certain ways-were

altering the landscape-they created forest fires to encourage the growth of forage-these

conservationist were outraged. According to Spence, the Native Americans were relabeled by

conservationists as “practically basing their entire existence on the destruction of wilderness.”22

Thus a new contradictory myth developed about the American Indians. The United States held

17

Mark Spence, Dispossessing the Wilderness, Indian Removal and the Making of the National Parks (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 4 18

Ibid. 20. 19

Ibid. 35. 20

Ibid. 33, 35. 21

Ibid. 39. 22

Ibid. 62.

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the policy that Native American’s had nullified their right to the land by refusing to dominate,

tame and develop its resources. Suddenly, in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the

United States also said that the American Indian land rights were nullified because they were

wasteful hunters, destroying natural resources “inherently incapable of appreciating the natural

world.”23 Accordingly the conservationists unleashed a campaign to bar the Indians from the

National Parks, and eventually, with the complicity of the Supreme Court-the case of Ward v.

Race Horse-these people succeeded getting the government to illegally drive the natives out of

the parks.24

While these works provide a thorough background to the role of landscape myths in the

Euro-American oppression of the American Indian, their analysis does not go in-depth enough

to completely provide a thorough understanding of the issue. These historical monographs do

lay out both the overarching environmental framework for the genocide of Native American

peoples as well as discussing that more than one myth was actually involved behind this

process. However these sources do not thoroughly discuss how these myths compared to each

other. Did the lifecycles of both myths overlap? How did the proponents of the second

landscape myth feel about the first myth of Native American inferiority from their inadequate

land exploitation? These important questions were not answered by these scholarly works.

Accordingly, the following case study on Yellowstone National Park has been focused around

providing an answer to them.

An Environmental Biography of P. W. Norris

23

Ibid. 62. 24

Ibid. 68.

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“Created for the benefit and enjoyment of the people, Yellowstone destroyed a people.

Dedicated to preservation, it evicted those who had preserved it. Touted as pristine, the policy

required that we forget those whose absence diminished it. Denied its Indian past, it deprived

us of the knowledge to keep it pristine.” This saying of Aston Chase encapsulates the clash in

values that the establishment of Yellowstone National park brought about. One profitable angle

from which to investigate this inconsistency between the official goals for the park and its

actual function is the attitudes of the parks superintends who were in charge of the actual

administration of it. Of these administrations, the superintendence of Philetus W. Norris is one

of the most informative. It indicates that the paradox between the parks goals and its function

stemmed from the contradictory environmental views held by the US Government at the time.

During the centuries following the creation of the first European colonies in North

America, European settlers steadily chalked up an extensive catalog of human rights violations

against the Native Americans in their ceaseless quest for land. An integral part of the Euro-

American culture provided these people with a sincere and passionately held justification for

their actions. These people were convinced that the taming of nature and the complete

exploitation of the lands resources for the use of the human race was their God given duty.

Because they felt the American Indian had neglecting this duty to civilize their land, allowing

nature to remain in its wilderness state and therefore were guilty of impeding Progress. 25

Ostensibly the creation of Yellowstone National Park, the first of a system of national

parks, was the beginning of a new environmental policy in the United States. After all, the park

had been created to protect a wilderness region from exploitation. By the second half of the

nineteenth century a reaction to the Environmental Domination Ideology had developed. Even

25

Spence, Dispossessing the Wilderness, 4

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such important individuals as Horace Greenly had become concerned about the toll that

unlimited exploitation had taken on the environment of the United States.26

Yellowstone

National Park arose out of this sentiment, the actual legislation called for its preservation of the

region in its natural condition.27

No less of an official than Grover Cleveland’s Secretary of the

Interior stated that the parks purpose was “the preservation of the wilderness in as nearly the

condition in which we found [it] as possible.”28

However, despite the fact that the creation of this national park owed itself to the

development of an attitude toward the environment that undermined the dispossession of Native

American’s, these peoples were removed from the park. While it required the parks officials

many years to achieve this, by 1900 Yellowstone National Park was Indian free.29

This

constitutes a clear ideological clash for Euro-American civilization. For hundreds of years they

take over Indian land in order to more fully exploit its resources, but now the United States also

removed them from land that had been declared to be a permanent wilderness.

The superintendence of P. W. Norris, one of Yellowstone National Parks early

administrators, provides to the complexity of this procedure. Since Yellowstone National Park

was the first National Park to be established it laid the premises for the relations between the

National Park System as a whole and Native Americans.30

Because Norris was the parks first

superintendent to oppose the presence of Native Americans in the park his attitudes reflect the

motives and ideas that initiated Indian removal to begin with.

Norris was a participant in the conservation movement of the time, a believer in the

purpose behind the establishment of the park, the preservation of the nature of the region from

26

Ibid. 33. 27

Ibid. 39. 28

Ibid. 61. 29

Ibid. 69. 30

Ibid. 70.

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being destroyed by the exploitation of its resources. His appreciation of the parks beauty is

reflected in his annual reports to the Secretary of the Interior.31

They contain enthusiastic

descriptions of the scenery he encountered on his travels through the park. Moreover he exerted

himself as the superintend ensuring the protection of this scenery. Not content with just ensuring

that those regulations that had already been put in place for the park were carried out, he also

initiated the adoption of new regulations when the existing ones proved inadequate.32

At the same time that Norris exerted himself in the cause of the preservation of the park,

he also sought to remove the American Indians from the park. Throughout his stay as

superintendent he worked for the acquisition of all Native American land in the park as well as

those tracts bordering it.33

He even traveled in 1880 to a Treaty Council between the main tribes

that used Yellowstone National park, the Crow, Shoshone, Bannock, Sheep eaters, and the

United States government over the cession of land.34

At another time he also personally met with

the Shoshone, Bannock and Sheep eaters and extracted the promise from them that they never

would enter the park again.35

Norris also used Indian agents to help in his battle against the

presence of Indians in the Park. In 1879 he managed to extradite a band of Sheep eater Indians

living in the park by petitioning the Indian agent at the Little Wind River Reservation, who sent a

force of Shoshone to round up the Sheep eaters and take back to the reservation with them.36

In

1881 by corresponding with the Indian agent, Major E. C. Stone, Norris motivated the agent to

31

Philetus W. Norris, Annual Report of the Superintendent of the Yellowstone National Park to the Secretary of the Interior for the Year 1878, (Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1879), 8. 32

Ibid. 8-9 33

Philetus W. Norris, Annual Report of the Superintendent of the Yellowstone National Park to the Secretary of the Interior for the Year 1881, (Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1881), 72. 34

Spence, Dispossessing the Wilderness, 58-59. 35

Philetus W. Norris, Annual Report of the Superintendent of the Yellowstone National Park to the Secretary of the Interior for the Year 1880, (Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1880) 3 36

E. S. Topping, The Chronicles of the Yellowstone (Minneapolis; Ross and Haines, Inc. 1968) 6.

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persuade the Indians under his charge at a council to agree to halt their excursions into the park.37

Finally he advocated, in addition to these diplomatic means, to reinforce them with the use of

force. He urged in 1881 the Secretary of the Interior to threaten those tribes guilty of intruding in

the park with the “peril of conflict with the government” and the seizure of their possessions.38

Norris’ motive for pursuing this policy is unexpected considering his love for nature.

Norris in his annual reports indicated his belief that Native Americans roaming in the park would

hurt tourism. During 1880 at when in council with a group of Indian chiefs he mentioned his fear

that Indians in the park would lead to conflicts with tourists.39

He especially was worried that

Indians would be an obstacle to the development of a tourist friendly infrastructure in the park,

writing the presence of Native Americans in the park made it difficult for him to secure leases

with entrepreneurs for the upkeep of tourists in the park.40

Norris’ concern about tourism directly arose out of his main goal as superintendent. One

reason that the United States Government established Yellowstone National Park was the idea

that the stunning topography of the region served as a “national monument to the power and

grandeur of the United States.”41

In order for the park to fully display the greatness of America

access to it for tourists needed to be unlimited. Norris fully embraced this goal for the park,

focusing his administration around molding the park into a tourist attraction. He devoted much of

his own time to the exploration of the park.42

While, as previously was mentioned, he admired

the beauty of the scenery, this activity stemmed from a far more practical motive than aesthetics,

37

Norris, Annual Report 1881, 46. 38



Norris, Annual Report of the Superintendent of the Yellowstone National Park to the Secretary of the Interior for the Year 1878, (Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1878) 10. And Norris, Annual Report 1881, 72. 41

Spence, Dispossessing the Wilderness, 39. 42

Norris, Annual Report 1878, 8

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for he refers to it as scientific exploration.43

The purpose of this investigation was the finding of

good quality locations for “routes for roads and bridle-paths” through the park.44

This whole

process of constructing Yellowstone into a place friendly to tourists he terms refers to as the

improvement of the park.45

Even though Norris wanted to protect the natural resources in

Yellowstone National Park from exploitation, he still desired to tame the park and exploit it.

Rather than exploiting it materially, he desired to exploit its beauty and grandeur and set out to

mold the nature for that purpose.

Norris’ exploitation of Yellowstone National Park, while unexpected considering his

passion for its preservation, fits in well with the support that he expressed for the westward

expansion of the United States civilization. The terms that Norris used when he referred to the

agents of this expansion glow with enthusiasm. He calls the railroad the “artery of civilization,”

and he describes miners as “poor but dauntless path-finding prospectors of boundless hidden

wealth for the race of resistless destiny.”46

Finally he accepted that the dispossession of the

Indians was a necessary part of this expansion. He highly admired the Crow tribe, applauding

them for not “obstructing the pathway of progress,” by willingly accepting the uncompensated

loss of their lands 47

Moreover the concept that Norris’ concern for tourism inspired is dislike for Native

Americans also explains his advocacy of a landscape myth about Native American fear of

Yellowstone National Park. The usual justification for Indian removal-the appeal to the Native

Americans failure to tame the wilderness-was not available for Norris to use, even though it

actually fit Norris real reason. After all the park was created to preserve the wilderness. The

43





Ibid. To be just to Norris, he did advocate that the government reimburse the Crow for their lands.

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myth that he chose to tap into for justification, was first put into writing by the Catholic priest

and explorer, Jean DeSmet, but most likely originated among the fur trappers in the Yellowstone

region.48

This landscape myth stated that the pagan Indians possessed a superstitious dread of

regions geyser activity and neither occupied the land nor depended on it for their substance.49

This tale about Yellowstone park deeply entrenched itself in American culture, quoted by such

important government officials as the Secretary of the Interior as recently as 1966.50

Norris

reiterated this theme throughout his reports. He seemed to find pleasure in the idea of the

National Park preserving itself from the pollution of Native American occupation by producing

“superstitious fear” in pagan Indians. To validate his theory Norris even pointed to We-saw, his

Shoshone guide for one of his exploring expeditions in 1881, as evidence, quoting We-saw as

telling him that all Indian peoples except the Sheep eaters avoided the park.51

Several inconsistencies point to the fact that Norris’ acceptance of this myth was not

genuine but an excuse. When writing about the myth he admits that the Sheep eater people are an

exception to it, generally including in his reiterations of the myth that the Sheep eaters did

permanently occupy the park. His description of this people further notifies that the myth is an

incomplete explanation; describing them as extremely primitive.52

As Norris indicates in his

telling of the myth, the Indians fear of the geysers comes from their superstition. Moreover, his

explanation of the Nez Perce traversal of the park in 1877 during the Nez Perce attributes their

acquisition of civilization enabling them to overcome their fear.53

Since Norris basis the Native

American avoidance of the Yellowstone region on their lack of civilization, then according to

48

Robert Keller and Michael Turak, American Indians and National Parks, (Tucson; The University of Arizona Press, 1998), 24. 49

Norris, Annual Report 1877, 11 50

Keller and Turak, American Indians and National Parks, 24. 51




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this, the primitiveness of the Sheep eaters would make them the people that would avoid the Park

the most.

This contradictions would make sense if Norris just accepted the myth for convenience

sake. Because the Sheep eaters were permanent residents he could not claim that they avoided

the park. Accordingly he chose make them an exception to the myth. To justify their removal he

chose an alternate way of minimizing their rights to the land. Accordingly he portrayed them

them as “harmless sheep-eater hermits armed with bows and arrow, ever resided there, and even

they are now vanished.”54

Firstly he adopted the tactic of turning this people into primitives

which he took to an extreme in his 1880 report. Norris describes the Sheep eaters in this report as

“leaving fewer trace than Beaver or badger.”55

This comment possesses truly sinister

implications, for it presents the Sheep eaters as a people who dominating their environment less

than even some animal species. He also described this people as vanished or as he says at a

different place, “the remnant of a fading race. 56

According to Norris view the Sheep eaters’

primitivism insured that their claims to land in Yellowstone National Park should be ignored,

particularly as the people was about to die out anyway.

The content of his reports also point toward Norris’ pragmatic use of the DeSmet’

landscape myth about Yellowstone National Park by indicating that Norris was aware that

Yellowstone National Park was not as empty of Indians as the myth represented. His reports to

the secretary of the Interior create an impression of a man highly conscious of a Native American

presence in the park, writing of Indian raids in the park as a continual threat and a regular

occurrence.57

Whereas he indicated in his description of the Nez Perce traversal of Yellowstone

54

Norris, Annual Report 1877, 11 55




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Park in 1877 that this non-sheep eater presence in the park was a onetime event, he later

describes bands of Bannocks and Shoshones entering the National Park.58

The superintendence of Norris provides a lot of insight into the development of

inconsistencies between the basic purpose for the establishment of the park and the consequences

that this establishment possessed for Native Americans. He was a transitional figure, a position

that was reflected by his environmental attitudes. As an individual he was rooted in the ideology

that civilization produces Progress. He advocated the civilization of the west through the

exploitation of nature. When Native American land claims interfered with this goal he supported

their dispossession. His primary goal for the park was maximizing the glory that the majesty of

that nature reflected onto the US by preserving that nature and improving upon that nature

whenever it imperfectly met this goal. Because he felt that the Native American presence in the

park interfered with this ambition, he advocated their exclusion from it, a concept that

corresponds with the basic ideology for Indian dispossession - Native American land claims

were invalid because of the failure to develop the land. However, Norris was aware that this

concept did not completely justify his hostility toward Native Americans, after all the purpose of

turning the Yellowstone region into a National Park was for the preservation of its land from

exploitation, accordingly he instead propagating the idea that Native Americans feared and

avoided the Yellowstone region as his main excuse. So even though Norris’ rooted his

environmental views in the domination of nature landscape myth, he did have one foot in the

other myth of the power of the pristine pure wilderness.

This aspect of P. W. Norris, as a figure that bestrode the two primary and distinct United

States environmental myths, made his superintendence illuminate the wider issue of the

dispossession of Native Americans from National Parks. The basic factors operating in

58

Norris, Annual Report 1878, 9.

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Yellowstone National park occurred elsewhere, officials in other parks beside the Yellowstone

exploited their parks, improving nature by molding it according to their own purposes and like

Norris park officials widely developed and used the justification that Native Americans “feared

national park areas and had not used the land.”59

By understanding how Norris’ hostility toward

Native Americans rose out of his basic belief in traditional views about Civilization’s superiority

to the wilderness while his protection of Yellowstone park’s resources from exploitation made

this ideology inapplicable toward native Americans in the park nullified its applicability helps us

understand how the park system became so contradictory.

59

Keller and Turak, American Indians and National Parks, 24. And Spence, Dispossessing the Wilderness, 89.

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P.W. Norris’ administration answers the eeven while his propagation of the myth of

Indian avoidance of the park showed his consciousness that his traditional views about native

Americans did not apply toward Yellowstone National park efforts to prevent the exploitation of

Yellowstone Parks resources showed that found value in an Progress the Native Ameican

dispossession Despite the apparent disconnect between the environmental views that undergirded

the establishment of this National Park system and those that drove Westward Expansion,

Norris’ administration shows how closely linked they actually were. Despite the fact that he

adopted a different justification for the dispossession of the Native Americans the actual motive

for his actions was the same. Like the miner and the settler, Norris felt that the land existed to be

exploited and that the superior civilization of the Euro-American gave him the right removes the

Indian from any land that it desires to exploit. The difference in Norris’ case was that the land he

was dispossessing from Native Americans officially was designed to be a permanent wilderness

to be preserved in the state it was found in. Since exploitation no longer was officially justified it

he adopted a different environmental myth for cover. tofor

This indicates that he felt that the traditional justification did not apply to the National

Park, indication of Norris’ of standarthis concept for he While his emphasis on making

improvements to the park indicates that his actual ideal for it was not as a pristine wilderness at

the same time he understood that the for However, he was aware that the official vision for the

park was forMost importantly however, Norris environmental attitudes illuminate the issue.

Norris superintendence provides evidence that this paradox grew out of the clash of

contradictory landscape myths, for he himself was a figure that bestrode many environmental

attitudes. He supported the preservation of nature in Yellowstone National Park. He propagated

the idea that Native Americans feared and avoided the Yellowstone region, yet he advocated the

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exclusion of all Native Americans from the park because they possessed such an extensive

presence in it that they interfered with his goals for the park. However Norris’ contradictory

views and expressions however were not irrational, they were a result of Norris’ position as a

transitional figure. While he did love nature and did want to preserve it in Yellowstone, Norris

administration of Yellowstone National Park vividly showed this. The preservation of Nature

was not his concept of the parks primary contribution to the United States; instead his concept

He be The basic factors operating in Yellowstone National park occurred elsewhere, officials in

other parks beside the Yellowstone exploited their parks, improving nature by molding it

according to their own purposes and like Norris park officials widely developed and used the

justification that Native Americans “feared national park areas and had not used the land.”60

Despite the apparent disconnect between the environmental views that undergirded the

establishment of this National Park system and those that drove Westward Expansion, Norris’

administration shows how closely linked they actually were. Despite the fact that he adopted a

different justification for the dispossession of the Native Americans the actual motive for his

actions was the same. Like the miner and the settler, Norris felt that the land existed to be

exploited and that the superior civilization of the Euro-American gave him the right removes the

Indian from any land that it desires to exploit. The difference in Norris’ case was that the land he

was dispossessing from Native Americans officially was designed to be a permanent wilderness

to be preserved in the state it was found in. Since exploitation no longer was officially justified it

he adopted a different environmental myth for cover.

60

Robert Keller and Michael Turak, American Indians and National Parks, p. 24. And Mark Spence, Dispossessing the Wilderness, p. 89.

Ben Hendricks

19

Bibliography

Blackbourn, David, The Conquest of Nature, (New York; W.W. Norton and Company,

2006)

Limerick, Patricia nelson, The Legacy of Conquest, (New York; W.W. Norton and

Company, 1987)

Schama, Simon, Landscapes and Memory, (New York; Alfred A. Knope, 1995)

Spence, Mark, Dispossessing the Wilderness, (Oxford University Press; Oxford, 1999)

Ben Hendricks

1

Shippensburg‟s Role in the Formation of Ben Hendricks as a Historian

Just before I began my formal historical training I told my Mother that I only was going

to the University to acquire the research and writing skills necessary for the production of

historical works, but not for the study of history itself. This statement rose out of my cultural

suspicion of academia. As a Mennonite I possessed the belief that Universities possessed a

perverted agenda; being the source of much false information and ideas. Accordingly while

recognizing that this institution would provide me with valuable skills, I felt that it would not be

a useful source of historical information and in particular of interpretations of historical

information. However my experience in Shippensburg‟s History Department has transformed me

as an historian beyond all expectations. I have grown tremendously both in my understanding of

the historical profession as well as in my grasp of the vocations skill set. This becomes

illuminated by an analysis of three of my history papers. The papers “China and Taiwan”,

“Governor Huey Long and his Power” and “Environmental Myths, an Impetus for Oppression,”

show how my experience in my major has been a period of growth.

I wrote my first collage research paper in Dr. Bloom‟s World History II class. The paper

“China and Taiwan” consisted of a study of the roots to the hostility between these two Eastern

Nations. For a first paper it constitutes a good example of scholarship. It is well structured. I

developed one idea to focus my research around, as I mentioned governmental change. Moreover

the research was good. My conclusions were based on concrete evidence. My five page paper

included 23 three citations and fourteen direct quotes.

However this project possessed all the weaknesses of a first attempt. I included no

primary sources in the paper. More importantly much of the secondary sources that I drew upon

were amateurish. I leaned heavily on Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia, out of the nine sources

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2

that composed my works cited page five of them are from this Encyclopedia. Moreover my paper

did not possess much analysis, primarily consisting of a narration of events. The papers thesis

states, “This issue‟s roots [tension between China Taiwan] extend back several decades to the

struggle between the Kuomintang and the Communist parties that began in the 1920‟s.”1

Therefore the body simply describes that struggle.

Furthermore this paper reflects my lack of understanding of historiography. China and

Taiwan was written out of my early view that the study of the rise and fall of governmental

structures comprises the focus of the historical profession. China and Taiwan” simply is an

account of a nation‟s transition from one governmental structure to a different one. For example

my conclusion begins with the sentence, “The roots to the issue of Taiwan‟s independence

stretch back to the struggle between Chiang Kai-shek and the Communist party for the control of

China.”2

My Theory and Practice Class with Dr. Burg stretched me greatly as a scholar. In his

class I wrote composed a research paper titled „Governor Huey Long and his Power.”3 It

consisted of a study of his acquisition of unprecedented political power as governor of Louisiana

between 1928 and 1935. This project taught me how historical works are shaped out of primary

sources. Out of this nine page paper‟s fifty-nine citations all but seven are from primary sources.

Furthermore this project records my step from the description of historical events to the

analysis of them. This is illustrated by the paper‟s thesis, “Three main factors enabled Huey

Long to gain such unprecedented power.”4 I implemented this throughout the paper by

describing these factors impact and then breaking each one down into its respective parts. For

1Ben Hendricks, “China and Taiwan.” 1.

2 Ibid. 5.

3 “Governor Huey Long and his Power.” 1

4 “Governor Huey Long and his Power.” 1

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example the first aspect the paper discusses is the support of the people for Huey. I begin by

describing the people‟s loyalty, and its impact.5 In the following paragraph starts evaluating

where that loyalty came from. It attributes it partially to Huey Long‟s campaigning ability.6 The

following paragraphs describe the dynamism of Huey‟s campaigns and how Huey‟s speaking,

administrative and creative talents created this vitality.7

While this project showed great improvement over “China and Taiwan” it still expressed

a narrow understanding of historiography. “Governor Huey Long and his Power” presented a

solely top down interpretation of historical events. It only analyzes the political factors behind

Huey Long‟s power, it does not admit to the importance or even the existence of other causes

such as economic, social, or cultural. Accordingly it epitomizes Big Man Theory. While

undoubtedly individuals have their impact on historical developments, individual influence

occurs within its environmental, cultural, social, technological and economic surroundings.

An additional weakness to the work is its lack of originality. While the quality of the

research was sound, and was based off of primary sources, it possessed little that was new. One

of the secondary sources that I drew upon, T. Harry Williams‟ biography Huey Long actually

provided a detailed discussion of the foundation of Huey Long‟s unique achievements in his

genius using the same sources that I did. As a matter of fact my most brilliant anecdote came

from his work. One of Huey‟s most bitter opponents told T. William‟s in an interview that once

he had left in the middle of Huey‟s speeches, “because I was afraid. That guy was convincing

me. I had to get out.”8

5 Ibid, 2.

6 Ibid. 3.

7 Ibid. 3 – 6.

8 Ibid. 5.

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My Seminar class had just as dynamic effect on me as my Theory and Practice class. My

research paper for this class has the title, “Environmental Myths, an Impetus for Oppression.” 9

This paper analyzes the environmental concepts behind the dispossession of Native Americans in

the National Parks. For this project I employed the case study technique. I investigate Philetus

Norris, the second superintendant of Yellowstone national Park, My project draws connections

from the experience of this key figure in this human rights violation for the event as a whole.

By writing this paper I made a giant step forward as a historian. Most importantly it

removed me from the Big Man box I had lived in throughout most of more historical career

turning me into a practitioner of cultural history. I based the primary source research on Norris‟

own writings, analyzing them for insight into his cultural attitudes and the links between them

and his hostility toward a Native American presence in Yellowstone National Park. This cultural

angle is built into the thesis statement for this case study, “His administration indicates that the

paradox between the parks goals and its function stemmed from the contradictory environmental

views held by the United States government at the time.”10

The paper maintains this cultural

focus in its body by analyzing, not the historical impact of Norris actions, but the cultural

meanings behind his actions. For example in discussing his efforts to, I talk about how his

justifications for the removal of Native Americans were rooted in his avocation of civilization as

Progress.”11

In addition this project showed an improvement in the development of an original thesis.

This partly due to format developed by Dr. Dietrich Ward‟s for the paper. He designed the

project to contain two portions written separately, the first part historiography and the second

part case study. The historiography acts as a guide rail for the case study. It guides the selection

9 “Environmental Myths, an Impetus for Oppression.” P. 1

10 Ibid. 8.

11 Ibid. 16.

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of the case study, centering it in the weaknesses of the present research done on the topic.

historiography of the topic. My historiography smoothly filled its function in my research paper.

As I developed my case study somewhat sub-consciously my historiography guided my research

and my analysis of its results into an original form that makes a contribution to the published

work on the topic. The historiography‟s success is shown by the seamless of the transition

linking it with the Case Study. The topic of the historiography is the discussion of the different

myths responsible for the dispossession of Native American land. The historiography concludes

with a paragraph about how the secondary, “Sources do not thoroughly discuss how these myths

compare with each other.”12

The case study then begins with a paragraph about how Norris was a

figure characterized by “contradictory environmental views held by” him.13

The conclusion of

the paper than emphasizes the extent that the Case Study flows out of the historiography, starting

with a statement about how “P. W. Norris [was] a figure who bridged the gap between the two

important landscape myths of the United States.”14

When I entered collage, because most of my reading had been in biography I possessed a

very narrow view of history, seeing it only from through the political, governmental level and

mainly from the lens of Big Man Theory. These three projects show how I have matured as a

historian. However my greatest progress did not occur until Dietrich Ward‟s seminar course. The

classes intense analysis for the strengths and weaknesses of the different theoretical schools of

history that I caused me to realize the importance of these schools of thought, and their validity

as methods for understanding history. This development combined with the writing and

researching skills that these papers show that I have acquired have given me confidence as I

prepare for graduate school.

12

Ibid. 7. 13

Ibid. 8. 14

Ibid. 17.

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“environmental myths, an impetus for oppression”

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