Monumental Mobility: The Memory Work of Massasoit

by Lisa Blee, Jean M. O'Brien

Installed at Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1921 to commemorate the tercentenary of the landing of the Pilgrims, Cyrus Dallin's statue Massasoit was intended to memorialize the Pokanoket Massasoit (leader) as a welcoming diplomat and participant in the mythical first Thanksgiving. But after the statue's unveiling, Massasoit began to move and proliferate in ways one would not expect of generally stationary monuments tethered to place. The plaster model was donated to the artist's home state of Utah and prominently displayed in the state capitol; half a century later, it was caught up in a surprising case of fraud in the fine arts market. Versions of the statue now stand on Brigham Young University's campus; at an urban intersection in Kansas City, Missouri; and in countless homes around the world in the form of souvenir statuettes.

As Lisa Blee and Jean M. O'Brien show in this thought-provoking book, the surprising story of this monumental statue reveals much about the process of creating, commodifying, and reinforcing the historical memory of Indigenous people. Dallin's statue, set alongside the historical memory of the actual Massasoit and his mythic collaboration with the Pilgrims, shows otherwise hidden dimensions of American memorial culture: an elasticity of historical imagination, a tight-knit relationship between consumption and commemoration, and the twin impulses to sanitize and grapple with the meaning of settler-colonialism.

288 pages, Hardcover

First published March 18, 2019

Reviews

[Jesse]

A thought-provoking insight into the complex narratives surrounding Cyrus Dallin’s MASSASOIT statue in Plymouth, MA (and various other places across the country where its placement is questionable), as well as the general disparity between commonplace narratives about the history of settler-colonialism in Plymouth and what actually transpired there. You’ll be smarter (and more historically sensitive) for reading it.

[Aden]

A thoughtful look at the way America reckons with its destructive past through the lens of memorializing. Can a public history that embraces discomfort make room from monuments such as the Massasoit statue? If a statue can be interpret as a Pilgrim-centered symbol, how does the reproduction of that symbol within the nature of capitalism and marketplaces further problematic fantasies? Here is an excellent quote from the book about what happens when you sanitize complex history to an audience of colonizers: "Consumerism represents a response to national trauma that resembles a tourist relationship to complex histories that helped trigger violence, and it encourages a sense of innocence and victimhood through tragedy on the part of the consumer." Really solid and important stuff here. Would highly recommend, especially if you have a hard time understanding the nature of Indigenous memorials. Who are this monuments for, and are they doing more harm than good?