Will's comments (member since Jan 04, 2009)

Will's comments from the History is Not Boring group.

Will wrote: "The group term for the most of the native people of the Southwestern United States--Arizona, New Mexico, Four Corners area-- is "Pueblo." Anasazi is more specific. To call someone that's not Anas..."

What sources I could put hands on show that "about" 60,900 Native Americans were involved in the Removal of 1831-1842. [Thornton, 1990:]

The Choctaw Removal was first, commencing in the fall of 1831 under the terms of the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek. [Foreman, 1974:] The Choctaw, numbering about 12,000 [Foreman:] accounted for more than one-quarter of the total number of deaths - more than 4,000 of the total of 15,500. [Thornton, 1990; from Mooney, 1900:].

Now for the Weekend Update: I met my wife's high school history teacher. It seems that, yes, she did teach her students that the Revolutionary War was the result of the 1776 Declaration of Independence...and it began with the invasion of Washington, D.C in 1812.

Who needs Antarctic aliens? (I swear I'm not making this up.)

"I used Native American autonomy..."

An excellent metaphor ("We put you through the horror of the Trail of Tears for your own good, dear"). I've one fellow use chattel slavery in the United States as an analogy and could only shake my head in disbelief: the British are no more knowledgeable of their own history than Americans.

I much rather say that the there are many great "history-inpired" films because most people often forget that the movie industry is constantly changing information for the sake entertaiment and profit.

In days past, when I hung out in the bars, dives and flop houses in the ports of the world - not that I was ever a drinking man - I would occasionally bet a fellow traveling man that he couldn't tell me who cut Samson's hair. I won quite a bit of money, because that old Hollywood profiteer Cecil B. DeMille had fed them what their preachers had not: a version of the story of Samson and Delilah that was imperfect. Of course, I always carried a Bible to prove my point....

The answer is at Judges 16, verse 19, if you're curious, and if you can make a few pennies that way, then, "Good on ya'"

BunWat wrote: "...if the characters act and talk like people of their time, very few people are going to be able to connect with that. Movies are story telling, not re-enactments.

That last line seems to capture the message of Hayden White's Metahistory. With that thought in mind, it seems that war-related movies would be the most likely candidates for historical accuracy, since wars are one of the best- and most-documented of human endeavors (the French/Spanish account of the Battle of Trafalgar notwithstanding).

Certain details might be changed, events telescoped, or several historical persons might be combined to form one dramatic persona, but the history is still relatively fresh and participants would be unwilling to accept any movie which strayed too far from the truth.

Patton comes to mind, as does Stalag 17; another candidate might be Apocalypse Now: nobody knows how weird it got at Firebase Mary Ann before it was overrun.

The Band of Brothers mini-series closely parallels the history (this according to my father, who was with the 101st Airborne on D-Day) as does Go For Broke, the story of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team.

Anyway, isn't history based on a true story?

Manuel wrote: "Thanks Will,
This reminds me of a fascinating chapter in a book called
"Lies My Teacher Told Me" by James Loewen.
A great book separating fact from mythology in American history.

The first line of my newest book, a historiography tutorial from the perspective of American local history (okay, the newest edition of my book) is that, "American history is based on a true story." I stand (quite comfortably) on that principle.

It ain't a new idea and it ain't original, but it gets me through the day.

How about those Thanksgiving Pilgrims that were (supposedly) refugees who came to America seeking religious freedom? So many people think they wore plain black and white and were Puritans...

The Pilgrims were Separatists who followed the teachings of Richard Clyfton and who, when things got too hot in England (the Church of England was not known to be tolerant of divergent views), went to Holland, where religious freedom wasn't an issue.(Bradford's History of Plimouth Plantation)

In 1619, a lack of gainful employment -- the Pilgrims weren't Dutch and as such, weren't legally permitted to seek work in Holland -- together with a flagging truce in the Eighty Years' War and the Dutch rebellion against the Spanish, drove the Pilgrims to seek a patent for land in the American colonies so that they might enter into negotiations with the Virginia Company.

The Pilgrims decided to try America, not for religious freedom (which they had), but because it offered an escape from their dire financial straits.

In 1620, the Pilgrims managed to wangle a deal with the Virginia Company for passage as indentured farmers, even though they still had no land patent (it was finally issued when they were almost in America). Also, unbeknownst to the majority of the Mayflower's passengers, the Virginia Company's investors had changed the terms of the contract with the Pilgrims, so that their indentured farmers lost half of the land they "owned" -- after seven years of backbreaking work -- and the work week had grown from five days to six, with any personal business, including church, to be taken care of on Sunday.

While the Mayflower swung on the hook in what would be Provincetown Harbor, several passengers who were aware of the changes in the contract and who were also aware that the land patent was not in place, suggested to the group that without the patent in hand, they were free to ignore their original contract with the Virginia Company, which specified the patent be in place. The Mayflower Compact was born of this mild rebellion as an agreement for mutual support and cooperation among the colonists.

Oh, yes; the Puritans...

Although thirty-five Puritans had taken passage on the Mayflower, the Puritans weren't seeking freedom from the Church of England at all; indeed, nearly all Puritans (save these few) stayed in England and maintained their allegiance to the Church, since they were a super-conservative branch of the Church of England.

So...while there were passengers who were Pilgrims and passengers who were Puritans (and one passenger who was an 'inconvenient' member of the Royal Family), no Puritan was a Pilgrim and no Pilgrim was a Puritan. The Pilgrims went to Holland for religious freedom and they all came to America chasing a quick buck and free land, no matter what our grade school teachers said.

Jim wrote: "The Louisiana Purchase?"

Take it away, Jim!

Aimee wrote: "I keep tring to get more obsure so that they are harder to guess, but if you got it in five minutes I'm going to have to admit defeat LOL... Yes Will, you are correct."

Aw, shucks, ma'am, 'tweren't nothin' much.

Here you go:

1. Treaty of Paris (1763)
2. Peace of Paris (1783)
3. Thomas Jefferson
4. Sinking of the El Cazador

...and his antics led to a movie collaboration between Gore Vidal and Bob Guccione: Caligula"

Tom wrote: "Was looking for either the First Seige of Charleston or the Battle of Sullivan's Island."

Obvious as the nose on my face but like the nose, so familiar I didn't see it; I concede then, that we lost the palmetto log fort and possibly the War Between the States - both on points, but neither by a knockout.

Jim wrote: "I would add RACE AND REUNION by DAVID BLIGHT...also discusses the effect memory has over how history is seen by subsequent generations and how history can be distorted by faulty or actual false memory being championed by individuals, groups


A good choice, although the latter part of your comment speaks to the idea of community memory as a cultural - as opposed to a historic - record.

Heck, that might even make it a better choice. How many kids today believe that the Pilgrims were the same as the Puritans, and how many believe that the Pilgrims came to America to escape religious persecution? This cultural pseudo-memory persists regardless of fact and is so pervasive that, in the absence of documentary evidence to the contrary, it could pass into legitimate history under the aegis of an oral tradition of sufficient strength and age.

How about the wrecking of the HMS Acteon (a major loss to the RN in the Carolinas) and the failure of the British to take the palmetto log fort later known as Fort Moultrie, after William Moultrie, who commanded the garrison that first bright, shiny Carolina Day? (Don't try to tell a Charlestonian about history -- no matter what you say, you'll be wrong. After all, we won the War of Northern Aggression ... didn't we?)

Second that, Susanna, plus Stillness at Appomattox, by Catton (a sentimental favorite).

The Invisible Man by Richard Ellison and Soul on Ice. Both might be more for the older crowd, and Soul would need notes, I think, to give those under 40 a taste of the zeitgeist of those days.

Anything short by Tom Jefferson paired with anything by Ben Franklin, to show the diversity of the founding dads.

The Life & Times Of..., as a historiography and because I want to sell more books. Pair it with Hayden White's Metahistory for contrast.

Plutarch's Noble Romans, Das Kapital, and The Prince: the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Re: the Chinese popping up in SF Bay

I was one of the mates aboard the Sheldon Lykes, the second ship to go to China after Nixon opened up trade. We couldn't find good Szechwan anywhere in Shanghai.

Let's try this again.

The demonstrations, sit-ins, walk-ins...any activity that disrupted the normal flow of traffic or the day for White Folk, had an impact on the White Folk, made the White Folk conscious of what most of them already knew in their hearts. Important and effective.

The Freedom Riders - some say the gig was an ill-advised failure, others say it was hope in a bus.

Boycotts hit the businessmen where it hurt: the wallet, meaning that they appealed to their friends that fed at the public trough for relief, if not at the local, then at the state, or higher, level.

Brown v. Board of Education, et al., provided a legal framework not only for redress of specific grievances, but also laid a groundwork to be cited in the later development of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 et seq.

I have a Dream: Some might say it was no more important to the Movement than the Gettysburg Address was to the War Between the States. Some might say that, like the Gettysburg Address, it defined the spirit of the Movement. How important was it? How important is anything, unless we envision the world without that "thing" in it.

I live just a hop and skip away from the courthouse where the Scopes Monkey Trial was held and the message, "Don't offend and don't be controversial" is still in evidence in public education.

Another point (which nobody seems to have raised) is cost: the books chosen are also the least costly. The same old chestnuts have paid for themselves many times over, there are skids upon skids of them waiting for distribution (printing costs have been paid many times over) and they represent pure profit for the distributor - who will push them as (a) discounted and (b) the "same good books you read when you were in school." Believe me, it does make a difference to cash-strapped school districts.

On the good side, when Bill Shakespeare was au currant, he gave us the phrasing and the substance of things said, which gave silent, unwitting witness to the means and manners of the day. Same goes for Silas Marner, anything by Steinbeck (who didn't feel the Depression after reading The Grapes of Wrath?) or any of the other "classics," some of which stink as literature, but many of which are remarkable historical commentaries.

Perhaps, after all, it is the teacher's take on it that makes a difference.

I'm still waiting for the politicians P.J. O'Rourke described in A Parliament of Whores, the ones who will "pave the streets with bacon" and insure that we're all "farting through silk."

Maybe they'll put poor, starving writers on the public payroll...

If nothing else, they'll be the most entertaining show in town!

La Fete Nationale des Acadians in New Martinsville, LA?