Post #7, for the week of 17 October
Post #7, Comments on The Way to the West (for 17 Oct seminar)
I also commented on Ricky's site and Dan's site .
This small book, a collection of expanded lectures from 1993, succeeds at telling a careworn tale in a unique way. Using an interdisciplinary approach, incorporating measures of history, anthropology, environmental studies and sociology, the author paints a picture of a limited section of the West – between the Platte and Cimarron in the years well before gold fever struck Colorado – that has received critical acclaim in academia by ethnologists and historians alike.
Central to the book is the assertion that it was human interaction in general, not just white settlers, which had a cumulative effect on the region. It is this thesis that interested me, and had the strongest representation in the first two chapters. I was fascinated by the discussion of repercussions from competing interests of settlers and Native Americans that had never previously entered my mind. If I had given thought to the interaction of Bison and horses, I had certainly never drilled down to discover a hidden competition for forage and water between the horses of the tribes and the teams of the settlers. The author’s assertion that this competition between the two categories of horses had an effect on Bison long before the commercial destruction of the latter was a new insight to a problem I had assumed I had an adequate understanding. This additive nature is, to me, a hallmark of a useful work.
I was also impressed by the sections dealing with the Great Peace of 1840, and by discussion of the changes to the Platte River Valley due to transient Oregon Trail travelers. I would have never associated a peace between nations as directly contributing to the demise of the Bison, but the author makes a compelling case for exactly that result. Prior to reading this book, I would have also assumed that the vast expanse of the area would have allowed for wagon ruts to be the only trace left by the settlers heading west. This book quickly disabused me of that notion as well, by presenting the reduction in firewood and forage in the river valley – commodities the Cheyenne relied on for winter survival – as a consequence of the passing of settlers.
Excellent read, I’m saddened that I will miss the discussion (I’ll be in Germany until Wed) this week.
I also commented on Ricky's site and Dan's site .
This small book, a collection of expanded lectures from 1993, succeeds at telling a careworn tale in a unique way. Using an interdisciplinary approach, incorporating measures of history, anthropology, environmental studies and sociology, the author paints a picture of a limited section of the West – between the Platte and Cimarron in the years well before gold fever struck Colorado – that has received critical acclaim in academia by ethnologists and historians alike.
Central to the book is the assertion that it was human interaction in general, not just white settlers, which had a cumulative effect on the region. It is this thesis that interested me, and had the strongest representation in the first two chapters. I was fascinated by the discussion of repercussions from competing interests of settlers and Native Americans that had never previously entered my mind. If I had given thought to the interaction of Bison and horses, I had certainly never drilled down to discover a hidden competition for forage and water between the horses of the tribes and the teams of the settlers. The author’s assertion that this competition between the two categories of horses had an effect on Bison long before the commercial destruction of the latter was a new insight to a problem I had assumed I had an adequate understanding. This additive nature is, to me, a hallmark of a useful work.
I was also impressed by the sections dealing with the Great Peace of 1840, and by discussion of the changes to the Platte River Valley due to transient Oregon Trail travelers. I would have never associated a peace between nations as directly contributing to the demise of the Bison, but the author makes a compelling case for exactly that result. Prior to reading this book, I would have also assumed that the vast expanse of the area would have allowed for wagon ruts to be the only trace left by the settlers heading west. This book quickly disabused me of that notion as well, by presenting the reduction in firewood and forage in the river valley – commodities the Cheyenne relied on for winter survival – as a consequence of the passing of settlers.
Excellent read, I’m saddened that I will miss the discussion (I’ll be in Germany until Wed) this week.
posted by john | 11:50 AM
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