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#Post#: 206--------------------------------------------------
Re: #10: Whose West is It?
By: renee Date: January 23, 2019, 8:14 pm
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[quote author=juliab link=topic=11.msg202#msg202
date=1548294824]
Question: What does it mean that Native Americans were not seen
as a part of the “environment” they inhabited? Do you believe
that they should be included in this or not, and why?
[/quote]
From the start of Yellowstone’s opening, park officials
expressed concern about “Indian troubles” (265) in the park. At
first, the officials were afraid of attack, but later the issue
moved to hunting inside the park. This reading focused on Native
Americans who entered the park against the rules in order to
hunt. Park officials were determined to prohibit Native
Americans from entering the park as they thought nature would be
better preserved.
However, Native Americans are just that, native to the
environment and deserve to have the same rights to the land as
anyone else. I do think that making hunting within park grounds
illegal was a smart choice in order to preserve the land but
this law must be equally enforced for everyone. A national park
should be a place that is open to everyone to admire the beauty
of the natural environment. Even today, some parks require an
entry fee that limits who can visit the park. Yellowstone was
opened to show the “innumerable unique and marvelous wonders of
the Yellowstone” (264) a sight that should be available to
everyone, especially native people who lived here first and were
the first ones to shape the land.
What was the government's message about Native Americans when
they kept them out of Yellowstone?
#Post#: 207--------------------------------------------------
Re: #10: Whose West is It?
By: Reed Date: January 23, 2019, 8:23 pm
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(preface-- I'm very sorry if any of this comes off as rude. I'm
really bad at talking to people. I really am interested in your
perspective on this, though.)
[quote author=JTodd link=topic=11.msg198#msg198 date=1548285314]
The West cannot be defined by any one of these terms because no
two groups define it in the same way.
[/quote]
Jake-- while perspective is something important to take into
consideration when you’re trying to define something as nebulous
and huge as “the west”, I also think it’s important to make that
relativity a minor part of the answer. After all, the people in
this class can have conversations where we refer to something as
“the west” and everyone knows that it’s this general geographic
area, with some shared history, values, and culture. If the west
really were completely relative, we wouldn’t be having this
conversation: it wouldn’t exist.
As far as I know, nobody else in this class comes from the
western united states. Our only sources of native perspective of
the west are the readings we did last night and, well, you. You
probably have some really illuminating, specific things to say
into how the west is geographically (and by extension,
culturally) different from New England, because you have spent
lots of time in both. In fact, I know for a fact that you do--
you felt strongly that the assessment of the west as being
defined by aridity was reductive and untrue, which means you
have a specific idea of what it is defined by... and how it
defines you. What does it mean that you are from the west? How
does it make you different from the rest of us yankees?
How does Weston feel, as a place, different from Jackson hole?
What’s “New England” anyway? Maybe by thinking about this place
you’re in now, that’s different from what you grew up with, we
can find definition in contrast.
#Post#: 208--------------------------------------------------
Re: #10: Whose West is It?
By: ccogswell Date: January 23, 2019, 9:04 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=renee link=topic=11.msg206#msg206 date=1548296097]
[quote author=juliab link=topic=11.msg202#msg202
date=1548294824]
Question: What does it mean that Native Americans were not seen
as a part of the “environment” they inhabited? Do you believe
that they should be included in this or not, and why?
[/quote]
From the start of Yellowstone’s opening, park officials
expressed concern about “Indian troubles” (265) in the park. At
first, the officials were afraid of attack, but later the issue
moved to hunting inside the park. This reading focused on Native
Americans who entered the park against the rules in order to
hunt. Park officials were determined to prohibit Native
Americans from entering the park as they thought nature would be
better preserved.
However, Native Americans are just that, native to the
environment and deserve to have the same rights to the land as
anyone else. I do think that making hunting within park grounds
illegal was a smart choice in order to preserve the land but
this law must be equally enforced for everyone. A national park
should be a place that is open to everyone to admire the beauty
of the natural environment. Even today, some parks require an
entry fee that limits who can visit the park. Yellowstone was
opened to show the “innumerable unique and marvelous wonders of
the Yellowstone” (264) a sight that should be available to
everyone, especially native people who lived here first and were
the first ones to shape the land.
What was the government's message about Native Americans when
they kept them out of Yellowstone?
[/quote]
By keeping a certain group of people out of an area, one is
sending the message that at the very least these people are not
welcome nor wanted in said area. This place does not belong to
them, and they don't belong in the place, they are perhaps nor
fit or worthy of being there. This seems to be how the
government viewed and treated the Native Americans, but it's
confusing to me given what we learned in the past about the
misinformation that "Native Americans are closer to the land".
It's weird that this would be contradicted, but then again I
can't say I'm surprised. My guess as to what is happening here
is the park officials were afraid of the Native Americans,
coupled with them not wanting conflict to halter tourism, and
used the fact that Native Americans depleted resources in their
daily life to prompt an order of protection for the park to be
deemed necessary. This in turn fuelled their hopes of shutting
Native Americans out of the park entirely. Also, whenever the
park officials describe the hunting and living practices of the
natives, they act like it's the worst thing ever for these
people to be using resources "recklessly" or whatever, but the
only reason they care about other people's use of the resources
isn't out of "conservation", but because they just want the
resources to use themselves. I think this sends the additional,
maybe subliminal message that the it's fine for the white
settlers to use the resources how they want, but natives don't
know how to use the resources "properly".
#Post#: 209--------------------------------------------------
Re: #10: Whose West is It?
By: liamf Date: January 23, 2019, 9:17 pm
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[quote author=Reed link=topic=11.msg207#msg207 date=1548296638]
How does Weston feel, as a place, different from Jackson hole?
What’s “New England” anyway? Maybe by thinking about this place
you’re in now, that’s different from what you grew up with, we
can find definition in contrast.
[/quote]
While I’ve never lived in Jackson Hole, I feel as though I can
speak to the idea of living in two very contrasting places. For
context, I used to live in Tacoma Washington, but now I live in
Winchester, Massachusetts. These two cities/towns are very
different from one another. When we lived in Tacoma, it was a
very blue-collar industrial neighborhood with lumber mills and
paper factories. Winchester, on the other hand, is mainly
comprised of upper-class residents, who work somewhere in
Boston. New England as a whole, at least compared to the Pacific
Northwest, has far less manufacturing compared to the
industry-centric Northwest. Today, however, the Seattle area has
been transformed into a place that houses massive tech companies
like Microsoft, or recently, Amazon. What I find most
interesting, however, is that when we lived in that area 13
years ago, these same companies were smaller, and has less of an
impact on the cities around them. Now, these Seattle revolve
around those companies.
This idea of evolution/change actually ties into the reading
quite nicely, which talks about how different groups of people
affect the value of the land around them. Why did the presence
of native Americans affect the value of yellowstone’s land? Do
you think the was the land is today would be different had the
natives not been present in the first place?
#Post#: 210--------------------------------------------------
Re: #10: Whose West is It?
By: Tommy Is The Person Who I Am Date: January 24, 2019, 6:41 pm
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[quote author=liamf link=topic=11.msg209#msg209 date=1548299878]
This idea of evolution/change actually ties into the reading
quite nicely, which talks about how different groups of people
affect the value of the land around them. Why did the presence
of native Americans affect the value of yellowstone’s land? Do
you think the was the land is today would be different had the
natives not been present in the first place?
[/quote]
The presence of Native Americans in Yellowstone was detrimental
to the value of Yellowstone's land as perceived by tour guides
and officials hoping to increase tourism. These people benefited
from getting more visitors to go to the park, but a prevalent
fear of Indians threatened their endeavors. It is interesting
that at the same time there was an opposite effect. Many had
thought that Native Americans actually avoided Yellowstone
because of its thermal features and their "pagan superstitious
fear of earthly fire-hole basins and brimstone pits" (265). If
the primary purpose of Yellowstone was originally to be a
"Wonderland," then this supposed fear would contribute to the
view of the park as mythic, thus adding to the land's value.
I do not think that the land today would be very different had
the natives not been present in the first place. Even though
they did inhabit the land, their presence was frequently
ignored, which would minimize the effect they could have on the
perception of the land. The major shift in the emphasis of
national parks, from "wonderlands" to sites for the preservation
of nature, was incited by the "railroad threat," which I do not
believe related much to the presence of Native Americans. In
fact, Spencer argues that fear of Indians actually drew
attention away from the purpose of national parks as a site for
preservation. The path to get to the current use of Yellowstone
and other national parks today might have been different had
Indians not been present in the first place, but I believe that
the land as it is today would remain largely the same.
How does the belief that Native Americans feared Yellowstone
connect to ideas about the inferiority of Native Americans that
we've heard previously?
Do you think the rights of Native Americans today would be
different had the natives not been present in Yellowstone in the
first place?
(Or just answer one)
#Post#: 211--------------------------------------------------
Re: #10: Whose West is It?
By: kellyf Date: January 24, 2019, 7:27 pm
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[quote author=mayafb link=topic=11.msg205#msg205
date=1548295988]
There also seems to be a direct connection to the idea of Eden
in the west and Eden in the east. In class (maybe last week), we
discussed how land was seized from Native Americans without
guilt because they were mismanaging it and could not properly
take care of the land. This seems quite similar in the west.
Many people thought that Yellowstone itself was an area avoided
by Native Americans (and I am honestly still confused on how
this idea manifested), and this help perpetuated the idea that
they could not care for the land. Then later the notion that
Native Americans "based their entire existence on the
destruction of wilderness" drove the whole system to believe
that the eradication of Native Americans is the best and only
course of action.
My question is this:
How does the idealization of land affect the use? In New England
it was commodified, so why, in the west was it preserved at the
expense of others?
[/quote]
I made that connection too! In New England, the justification of
colonial habitation was that, "they (the native people) inclose
noe Land, neither have any settled habytation, nor tame Cattle
to improve the Land by, and soe have noe other but a Naturall
Right to those Countries." (56) It makes sense the same
justification was used for the protection of a national park in
the West. Though to answer your question about preservation of
the West, I think there could be many reasons. 1) There is so
much more land, Yellowstone is 1/3 of Massachusetts and 1/25 of
Wyoming. Having so much more land, which is not permanently
inhabited, with some cool features, makes it easier to preserve.
2) A federal government exists. In New England, there was no
grand power (other than the King, but he had other things to
worry about - like new colonies emerging in a new land) to make
preserving land a value. It is like we were saying on the first
day, the preservation of nature comes with privilege. Plus, the
federal government would like "to keep the region's scenic
wonders out of the hands of private interests." (264) 3) The
'expense of others' doesn't matter. The first administrators
"expressed little or no concern about native peoples." (264)
From the reading, it doesn't seem like anyone from the park
cares about the native people, only about keeping them off the
'wonderland.' I think this reason is scariest for me, as I
appreciate the natural wonders of Yellowstone, and I wouldn't
want to disturb the fiction of "an empty, seemingly untouched
landscape." (272) But still that 'untouched' aspect comes from
taking away native hunting rights and forcing native people onto
reservations. It makes me wonder about other 'preserved land'
that comes at the expense of others... Nantucket? Appalachian
Trail? Death Valley?
TLDR: The West is huge, the federal government is Gwyneth
Paltrow, struggle doesn't matter, Nantucket?
Q: Is is ok to preserve land/animals/THE ENVIRONMENT at the
expense of others?
#Post#: 212--------------------------------------------------
Re: #10: Whose West is It?
By: Reed Date: January 24, 2019, 7:38 pm
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[quote author=Tommy Is The Person Who I Am
link=topic=11.msg210#msg210 date=1548376902]
How does the belief that Native Americans feared Yellowstone
connect to ideas about the inferiority of Native Americans that
we've heard previously?
[/quote]
I’m gonna focus on the Chaplin reading’s ideas about native
american inferiority.
Recap: according to Chaplin, racism against native americans
began when white colonists observed native americans dying by
the thousands from diseases assumed to be indigenous to the
area, which the white people eventually concluded came from some
sort of racial failing to adjust to their environment. The next
convenient step in logic to make for white people, then, was
that since they were not dying in America, they were better
suited to the land at a fundamental, biological level, than the
native americans. Europeans also concluded that native americans
might just be the latest of a series of failed colonizations of
America by other groups, and that as the stronger, newer
arrival, they were supposed to take over the land that the
native americans had arrived on but failed to adapt to.
It feels likely that the recent-arrivals hypothesis contributed
to the idea that native americans were afraid of yellowstone’s
geothermal activity, and in a small way to the idea that native
americans just die easily, so they must be physically delicate.
However, I think this is mostly about the eden lecture that
Rachel delivered on the 12th, about europeans mistaking america
for an eden and native americans for an innocent original
people. After all, the idea that an entire culture is terrified
of some natural phenomena must assume that the people in
question are not scientific people, but instead are
unintelligent or animal-like in their attitudes towards
not-easily-explainable natural phenomena. Considering someone to
be less than human also makes it easier to indiscriminately kill
them when they inevitably demand rights.
Question: Why do humans consider ourselves, and markers of our
presence, unnatural?
#Post#: 213--------------------------------------------------
Re: #10: Whose West is It?
By: kellyf Date: January 24, 2019, 7:41 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=Tommy Is The Person Who I Am
link=topic=11.msg210#msg210 date=1548376902]
[b]How does the belief that Native Americans feared Yellowstone
connect to ideas about the inferiority of Native Americans that
we've heard previously?
[/quote]
Just some quick thoughts: It reminds me of the caricature of a
caveman being afraid of fire. Even the primary source quote
mentions the "superstitious fear of earthly fire-hole basins and
brimstone pits." (267) So yes, it does play into the ideas about
the inferiority of Native Americans that we've heard previously.
Though, as we discussed earlier, I think that these ideas are
all justification for the habitation of non-natives, and by
extension, the creation of Yellowstone National Park.
#Post#: 215--------------------------------------------------
Re: #10: Whose West is It?
By: jterry2020 Date: January 24, 2019, 8:51 pm
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Responding to Kelly's question: Is is ok to preserve
land/animals/THE ENVIRONMENT at the expense of others?
I think answering this question based on this reading and
government's justification for keeping the Natives out of
Yellowstone (to “protect the wilderness”) ends up with a
different answer than the question by itself. In terms of
answering the question based on the reading, I would say no (not
ok to preserve land at expense of others) because there are many
examples of non-native society doing things with no regard to
the environment. I think saying it's ok to keep the Native
Americans to protect the environment was purely a justification
for restricting Native Americans and pushing them farther way.
For the question by itself, I think it depends on the level of
the expense for others. If the preservation of the environment
comes at only a small detractor for humans, I think it's ok to
prioritize the environment. If the preservation of the
environment puts the survival of the other humans at risk, I
think it's not ok because in the end our own survival is the
most important thing.
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