Anti-American Academia Rips Lewis and Clark

[Robert Braun]

From the Op-Ed pages of the Wall Street Journal, Ocotber 22, 2003.

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A Corps That Needs Rediscovery
At the Lewis and Clark bicentennial, the influence of anti-American academia.

BY MARK YOST
Wednesday, October 22, 2003 12:01 a.m. EDT

CLARKSVILLE, Ind.--There's a great American tale that's largely going untold. It involves a far-flung adventure by daring men who seemed to know no fear. Along the way, they encountered hostile forces, fierce weather and a formidable landscape. It's a story that should stir the heart of every 10-year-old American boy (and girl).

Unfortunately, the 200th anniversary of the Lewis and Clark expedition, which charted President Thomas Jefferson's prescient Louisiana Purchase and opened up the American West, is getting a lukewarm reception as it makes its way across the country, tracing the footsteps of this historic journey. Tepid crowds are greeting the re-enactors, which shouldn't be a surprise in the wake of academia's roughly 40-year assault on what used to pass for conventional American history. Is it any wonder that with a curriculum that reduces the accomplishments of Jefferson and the other Founders to "slave owners" the Corps of Discovery would be viewed as a less-than-noble lot?

The nearly two-week celebration here was the second of 15 planned Lewis & Clark Bicentennial Commemoration National Signature Events. The first was held at Monticello in January and the last is slated for St. Louis in September 2006. Stops in between include the Mandan Nation in North Dakota, the Yellowstone River in Montana, the Nez Perce tribal lands in Idaho, and, of course, the Pacific Northwest.
Historically, the Indiana site, across the Ohio River from Louisville, Ky., was not an insignificant stop for the Corps of Discovery. While many believe the expedition started in St. Louis, it was here, near Clarksville, named after Revolutionary War hero George Rogers Clark, that it really began. It's also where Clark's little brother, William, first met up with Meriwether Lewis on the expedition. This meeting was re-created last week, amid a pelting rain that kept the crowd at just a few hundred. It was also from this frontier region that Clark culled a group of hearty mountain men who would make up about one-third of the corps.

This was all told well in a locally made documentary shown at the Interpretive Center at the Falls of the Ohio State Park, the host of the bicentennial events. Further downriver is George Rogers Clark's ancestral home, believed to be the departure site for the expedition when it shoved off for St. Louis, roughly 250 miles away, to sit out the winter before beginning its journey up the Missouri in the spring of 1804.

Most Louisvillians would be hard pressed to repeat these facts. A slew of elementary-school field trippers trekked through the exhibits last week, along with hard-core history buffs from the surrounding area. But for most, this historic re-enactment was a nonevent.

Just ask Emily Isaacs, age 10, a fifth-grader and a friend's niece. Did you study Lewis and Clark in school?

"We did a little bit," she said sheepishly, "last year."

What can you tell me about them?

"I can't think of anything," she said after an awkward silence.

And while she didn't know much about Lewis and Clark, she knew a lot about Columbus.

"He brought over diseases," she said eagerly.

It reminded me of the time I asked my nephew what he'd learned in school about World War II.

"Well, I know the Germans were bad," he said with equal trepidation. "But I know we were bad, too."

In their defense, neither is the class dunce. They're merely repeating what passes for history these days.

Adding insult to injury, the alleged "Shawnee Village" set up on the banks of the Ohio offered more kitsch than culture. A group of ragtag--many white--re-enactors dressed in "traditional" garb fired clay pots, threw tomahawks and sold cheap souvenirs, trinkets and foodstuffs (my favorite was Shawnee Popcorn).
With three years to go, there's still hope for rekindling genuine interest in the Lewis and Clark expedition. With his wonderful documentary, "The Civil War," Ken Burns showed that it's still possible to get people excited about unglamorized American history. Maybe all it would take is a reshowing of his superb 1997 "Lewis & Clark" documentary (or "The Far Horizons," the great 1955 film starring Charlton Heston and Fred MacMurray--one guess as to who gets Sacagawea).

But I'm not holding my breath.

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[Susan Gordy]

There is so much to address in that one article that it would take me days to respond. But I pretty much agree. Living and dealing with this on a daily basis can be just as challenging.

But then a positive note comes through from a new volunteer after a training session,"What a great evening -- sitting in a log cabin, warmed by an open fire, taking notes by candle-light, and learning so much -- albeit only a small bit of all that you know about the period.

Because of your enthusiasm, I can so see myself making stew or sausages or bread or candles or soap that I am even driven to kill a whale so I can make stays for my corset or otherwise re-create whatever we were wearing while waiting for Black Hawk.

Please let me know when you are continuing the tour of the fort -- I have to be there for the next episode."

There is hope.

[Rusty Ayers]

Hey, if you're going to build an 1830s whaler and go out to kill whales for corsetry, I'm in. I'm still trying to figure our how to justify doing a Richard Henry Dana "Two Years Before the Mast" sailor impression at Apple River.

"A Dead Whale... Or a Stove Boat!"*

*apologies to Herman Melville

[Robert Braun]

Yes.. whaling. Reminds me the of the knot the prestiege media tied itself into trying to cover that tribe of native people who not too many years ago decided to recapture some of their tribal tradition through a traditional whale hunt!

Regarding the article that opened this thread, I recall a recent exchange with my son's middle school history..err.. "social studies" teacher, when he came come and announced that his class was going to "put Columbus on trial." What?

Among the paperwork and "supporting" documentation selected by the instructor for the trial was a fictional account of the native people first encountered by Columbus. The author wrote as if reporting the "impressions" of native persons first meeting with European explorers. By way of an example, I will state here that the author stated that the men "came ashore in their finery, looking very much like a Jack of Clubs," or words to that effect.

I took this gaffe, and others in the ficitional text, and wrote my son's teacher, reporting with examples the obvious shallow historical reseach involved in the text, not to mention the logical fallacies and nonsensical contexts-- obviously native people prior to European contact would have no idea what a period deck of playing cards might look like! (This was but one example. It was obvious from the reportedly "pro-Columbus" documents that the authors had no contextual understanding of Spanish or Italian history; no connectivity with the accention of the Spanish monarchy and what the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella did for Spain, and no regard for the heroism of Columbus' first voyage-- which many regard as at least as courageous as the expedition of Lewis and Clark, if not more so.)

To her credit, my son's teacher was duly impressed.. and reported that she had not looked at the accounts provided to students in this particular context. I provided her with some university-quality documentation and other sources that provided a factual view of the voayage and its outcomes, all of which was apparently recieved with gratitude. I never did learn if the trial actually happened or not.

The bottom line is that the education of America's young people has take a decidedly negative, iconoclastic turn. It is not "history for history's sake"-- it's all about how BAD America is. "Bad" in the sense of how terrible very select groups have been treated (or someone's "impression" of how bad some of the very select groups have been treated.) Dare to challenge this biased presentation, and (once the shocked expressions and eye-rollings cease) one is greeted with the usual-- nay obligatory-- cacaphony of "don't you think the story of _____ people should be told, too?" and "Eurocentric history has all been written by white males" and "we need to tell the other side of the story, too."