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calarco 's review for:
Dispossessing the Wilderness: Indian Removal and the Making of the National Parks
by Mark David Spence
If you are looking for a great source on the National Park Service's history with Native American groups, then I highly recommend Dispossessing the Wilderness.
In this volume Mark David Spence works from the conviction that, "wilderness is both a historical and cultural construct" (5), and expands on how these ideas have been used to disenfranchise the indigenous people who actively shaped the land and made it as we see it today. Rather than embracing Native American perspectives of the land, sadly, false notions of pristine, untouched land is a visage so prevalent, it is thoroughly integrated into the country's sense of national identity.
Along with an overview of America's westward expansion, this history also outlines the changing perspectives of people and nature over time as seen with prominent figures like George Catlin, John Muir, artists of the Hudson River School like Thomas Cole, and early American authors like Henry David Thoreau. Each of these thinkers and cultural icons helped to shape American perspectives and expectations of what the 'wilderness' entailed.
After exploring how early iterations of U.S. policy and the National Park Service interacted with Native American people living within the boundaries of different parks (as they had for centuries beforehand), it also explores three case studies at Yellowstone, Glacier, and Yosemite National Parks. Each situation did not end great for N.A. stakeholders, and they highlight an unsettling historical pattern, which entails that parks 'protect' natural resources by removing the people who culturally engage with them.
It's hard not to agree with Spence's final musing, "Rather than idolize the wilderness as a nonhuman landscape, where a person can be nothing more than 'a visitor who does not remain,' national parks might provide important new lessons about the degrees to which cultural values and actions have always shaped the 'natural world'" (139).
The history is hard to take in, but I am nonetheless optimistic that parks can work together with Native American groups to oversee the stewardship of America's heritage. Sitka National Historical Park just compacted with the federally recognized Sitka Tribe of Alaska to manage the interpretation of the park. I would hope that this is a sign of better things to come.
Overall, I really liked this book. If you know of similar sources, please leave any recommendations you may have in a comment!
In this volume Mark David Spence works from the conviction that, "wilderness is both a historical and cultural construct" (5), and expands on how these ideas have been used to disenfranchise the indigenous people who actively shaped the land and made it as we see it today. Rather than embracing Native American perspectives of the land, sadly, false notions of pristine, untouched land is a visage so prevalent, it is thoroughly integrated into the country's sense of national identity.
Along with an overview of America's westward expansion, this history also outlines the changing perspectives of people and nature over time as seen with prominent figures like George Catlin, John Muir, artists of the Hudson River School like Thomas Cole, and early American authors like Henry David Thoreau. Each of these thinkers and cultural icons helped to shape American perspectives and expectations of what the 'wilderness' entailed.
After exploring how early iterations of U.S. policy and the National Park Service interacted with Native American people living within the boundaries of different parks (as they had for centuries beforehand), it also explores three case studies at Yellowstone, Glacier, and Yosemite National Parks. Each situation did not end great for N.A. stakeholders, and they highlight an unsettling historical pattern, which entails that parks 'protect' natural resources by removing the people who culturally engage with them.
It's hard not to agree with Spence's final musing, "Rather than idolize the wilderness as a nonhuman landscape, where a person can be nothing more than 'a visitor who does not remain,' national parks might provide important new lessons about the degrees to which cultural values and actions have always shaped the 'natural world'" (139).
The history is hard to take in, but I am nonetheless optimistic that parks can work together with Native American groups to oversee the stewardship of America's heritage. Sitka National Historical Park just compacted with the federally recognized Sitka Tribe of Alaska to manage the interpretation of the park. I would hope that this is a sign of better things to come.
Overall, I really liked this book. If you know of similar sources, please leave any recommendations you may have in a comment!