One of the finest historic sites in the country is Maine’s Acadian Village in the Acadian Culture area of Saint John Valley in the northern tip of the state, open from mid June to mid September 12-5pm. Over a dozen buildings were donated and moved here overlooking the river that marks the border with Canada. Due to a penchant for large families, the Catholic agricultural community grew quickly, and many descendants trace their roots back to the rough hewn wooden buildings gathered here. Nearby towns also preserve their Acadian heritage, and the area has a partnership with the national park service.
What makes the place special is that you can walk in each building, including an art gallery, a church, a dentist office, a barber shop and a one room schoolhouse, and, unlike, many historic sites, you can go upstairs too. The tour guide had called in sick, but I was happy to have the place to myself for a while. Many of the exhibits have tags explaining the provenance of each item, and I was able to open a trapdoor to see how water was collected by wooden pipes. Every room seems furnished with authentic pieces evoking the lives and stories of inhabitants long ago.
I have a very old memory of hiking along a railroad bed to an old station in a French speaking village up here, so I believe this area is a revisit for me. But now I come with knowledge of the Acadian or ‘Cajun’ diaspora from Nova Scotia to Louisiana and many other areas, having eaten buckwheat cakes in Quebec, and having danced to Zydeco in the Bayous down south. Evangeline, Longfellow’s epic poem about the 18th century expulsion of the Acadians, strikes me more deeply now that I have grown children. I also have a greater appreciation for the meticulous love required to assemble such a beautifully moving collection of memorabilia from a unique culture that still thrives today, albeit out of sight of those who deny our non-English heritage.
”Silently, one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven, Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels.”
From Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie
Mississippi has three national heritage areas: Delta, Gulf Coast and Hills. Culturally, Mississippi is one of the best states in the country.
The Delta area is fascinating, and I recommend the Delta Blues Museum when you’re in the area listening to live blues music, like Terry ‘Harmonica’ Bean pictured in Clarksdale. Vicksburg and Emmett Till are both in the area too.
I drove the Gulf Coast area while visiting the Gulf Islands National Seashore, and it is beautiful. (I skipped Beauvoir, the Jefferson Davis “Presidential” Library, since he was never president of our country.) You will see signs marking the Mississippi Blueways, which are mostly paddling river routes near the coast and unrelated to the popular Mississippi Blues Trail.
This year, I visited William Faulkner’s home in Oxford, which is part of the Hills area, along with Elvis’ home in Tupelo, Tennessee Williams’ home and Eudora Welty’s too. Brices Cross Roads, Natchez NHP and Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home are in this area too. I enjoyed visiting Faulkner’s home, ‘Rowan Oak’, and walking in the pretty woods nearby, but Faulkner would much rather be remembered for his screenplays, stories and books, including The Sound and The Fury, As I Lay Dying, and Absolom, Absolom!.
Jefferson is more controversial than his $2 bill, but like his nickel, you rely on his legacy every day.
Not only was he one of many who signed our Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia, but Jefferson was the primary author. Do you believe in freedom of religion? Jefferson ensured that Roger Williams’ ideas were enshrined in our laws, writing that “no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious ministry or shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious beliefs, but all men shall be free to profess and by argument maintain, their opinions in matters of religion.” His words are etched in granite in the Jefferson Memorial above in DC.
Jefferson was our second Ambassador to France after fellow inventor Franklin, the first Secretary of State, the second Vice President to his friend and rival John Adams, and friend of revolutionary patriots like Kosciuszko, Lafayette and Patrick Henry. Jefferson first engaged Dolley Madison as official hostess at the White House. Jefferson designed Monticello—below and on the back of the nickel—which is now a World Heritage Site that includes the University of Virginia, which he also designed.
But Jefferson will forever be remembered for his failure to apply his ideal that “all men are created equal” to all men including Native Americans and slaves. While he wrote that slavery was despotism, that slaves should be free and both admired and learned from Native Americans, Jefferson perpetuated both slavery and forced native removal, believing that their fated freedoms should be left to future generations to fulfill. Jefferson supported nullification—the supposed right of states to disclaim laws they did not like—, and such failures are why traitors like Jefferson Davis were named after him, and such failures forever defame Thomas Jefferson’s historic reputation.
George Washington is remembered in countless places across the country, and there are 24 national park units and 2 affiliate sites that tell his story. Washington was born on a huge 4th generation family estate in Virginia on 22 February 1732. Among many skills, he was a licensed surveyor. The GW Parkway, the Potomac Heritage Trail, the C&O Canal, and the Natural Bridge are all comprised of lands he surveyed, planned development and in many cases owned.
Washington’s land-acquiring family was known to the Iroquois and Susquehannock, and the French met Washington as a colonial military representative in Pennsylvania. When the French and Indian War broke out, Washington was in the heart of it battling at his Fort Necessity. After that war, he married Martha Custis and settled at Mount Vernon. (Mount Vernon is privately owned, but the NPS protects the view across the river).
When our war broke out with England, Washington traveled to Philadelphia, where he accepted John Adams’ nomination to be commander-in-chief of the rebel colonies’ new army. Washington set up his HQ outside Boston, driving out the British. Washington ordered the creation of the Springfield Armory to supply guns, ordered cannon from Hopewell Furnace, and rebuilt strategic forts, such as Fort Stanwix. While the British navy loomed over New York City, state fortifications designed by Kosciuszko helped protect the city and would later block the pass at Saratoga. Still Washington was forced to retreat from the city, with hope for independence in tatters.
Surprising everyone on Christmas Night 1776, Washington crossed the Delaware and conducted a devastating raid on Hessian mercenaries. Setting up his HQ in Morristown and training troops in Valley Forge, everyone’s eyes were on the expected attempt to retake New York City. But Washington again surprised everyone, quick marched south and with the help of Rochambeau, defeated Cornwallis at Yorktown. The full story of the Revolutionary War is here.
After the war, Washington presided over the Constitutional Congress in Philadelphia and was elected our first President, taking his oath of office at Federal Hall in New York. The first presidency was challenging, including handling the Whiskey Rebellion with the help of Hamilton. Jefferson vehemently opposed Hamilton, sparking a two party model that continues today. Washington agreed with Jefferson on religious freedom, as evidenced by his visit and letters to Touro Synagogue.
Unfortunately, Washington refused to use his power to end slavery. Washington had initially opposed black people joining the Continental Army and had tried to reclaim one of his slaves—Oney Judge—who escaped from his presidential home in Philadelphia, but he freed his slaves in his will. Ironically, it was a slave named Selina Gray, descended from Martha Washington’s slaves, who saved many of Washington’s most precious artifacts during the Civil War.
Amid countless places named after George Washington, the Washington Monument on the National Mall stands alone, the tallest stone structure, tallest obelisk and tallest monumental column in the world. And George Washington’s face is carved into the sacred Black Hills at Mount Rushmore. No other president is as well memorialized by our national parks as our first.
Our history is replete with racism, and many of my posts are devoted to its tragic examples: US War on Native America, Road to Abolition, Equal Education, Black History and American Concentration Camps. Since genetically all humans are the same species, there is no scientific basis for racism. We are all on the same side. But in my travels, I have found both overt racism and subtler ethnocentrism everywhere. I have heard Swedes make fun of Norwegians, British belittle the Irish, Italians disparage Romani, Turks and Greeks complaining about each other, Russians being anti-Semitic, Japanese discriminating against Koreans, Chinese distrusting Japanese, Malaysians criticizing Chinese, Israelis insulting Palestinians, Tanzanians maligning Arabs, Dominicans faulting Haitians, etc. I’m sure many of the same folks also made negative comments about Americans, behind my back or even calling me a ‘big nose’ or ‘foreign devil’ to my face.
Basically, racism is a damaging and potentially deadly way of thinking about others. Racism divides society, treats people unfairly and often results in violence against innocent people. Academics argue about whether prejudice is an evolved human trait or whether racism is learned. I doubt anyone learns to be racist by reading 19th century books on Phrenology or old Nazi propaganda. People who look up old racist literature have already formed their views. Children acquire racial biases as toddlers and pre-schoolers, often unconsciously by observing adults. Some tribal mistake in our instinctual thinking makes us vulnerable to distrust others, unknown to us, and wish them harm. Tribal unity on superficial facial characteristics may have once been useful in outwitting Neanderthals, but in the modern, interconnected global community, it is not just obsolete, it is a deadly plague, pitting billions against billions, all the same species.
Some academics stress the importance of systemic racism, the structures that sustain it, and the leaders who promote racist ideology. But this logical approach has a human weakness, so a systemic solution is asymmetrical to the problem. Most racist adults deny that they are racist. Relatively few risk public shame with overt racism. Racism lurks in the shadows, until it explodes. Some deplorable adults promote racism consciously, but it is hardly an intellectually rigorous movement. While diversity, equity and inclusion are taught formally, racism spreads informally. In my experience, I’ve heard more racist comments from illiterates and drunks than sober academics. Racism spreads quickly among less educated people who lack access to the benefits of vibrant, integrated multiracial communities. W.E.B. Du Bois exposed the real, blunt view of racists behind their fragile intellectual facade of superiority: “they do not like them”. Racism may be an ideology to a few, but it is an instinctual flaw in many.
While racism is still obviously employed consciously as an instrument of political power, its mass effectiveness lies in its unconscious appeal. If folks already have deeply rooted prejudices, it is easier to convince them to act cruelly, even without evidence. Missionaries believed they were doing God’s work to take Native American children away from their parents and put them in boarding schools. Soldiers believed false and grossly exaggerated claims that Native Americans had committed blood-thirsty atrocities, before they machine-gunned women, children and the elderly as they slept, before taking fingers as souvenirs. Slave owners believed their superiority gave them the right to use whips and chains for generations. School boards believed that money was better spent on white children. Mobs believed that an unproven allegation of sexual assault justified days of death and destruction. And many believed that Americans of Japanese descent could not remain free, while Americans of German descent could. The cruelest acts were committed by people motivated to act without evidence.
Any system can become an instrument of racial injustice, if it is filled with enough people with deep-seated racist views. A racist jury will rule unjustly, no matter how the law is written. Political leaders do not adopt racist policies because they were proposed by Ivy League think tanks, they adopt them because they are expedient and popular among ignorant people who support them. Columbus did not wait for the King or the Pope to issue racist proclamations before enslaving the first Native Americans he met, because he brought base racism with him and his crew. And they immediately decided to apply it to the Taíno, because they were different. The root cause of centuries of tragic American history is the false, racist assumption that there was something wrong with the other group of humans. Racism is the instinctual mistake within us that causes us to break the Golden Rule.
So, since racism is fundamentally a problem of instinctual thinking, the first step in solving it is to reveal it within ourselves. We all act instinctually, or we would forget to eat and die. We are all emotional, with a million likes and dislikes, preferences and aversions. We mimic, extrapolate and project. We have a physiological and evolved social need to group together, find similar soul mates, and to feel good about ourselves at the expense of others. Our society enforces homogeneity from pre-school. Sesame Street taught us, “one of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn’t belong”. But when we defectively apply that instinctual thinking to groups of our fellow humans and feel that someone “just doesn’t belong” in our neighborhood, due to their race or ethnicity, then we are being racist. First, be aware.
Being anti-racist requires honest introspection. If you can find a racist attitude in yourself, understand where it came from, and judge it to be hurtful and wrong, then you can fight it. You can change your words and deeds. And then, you can apply that new skill to the world. Suddenly, you will recognize the next racist thing you hear as racist, and you will have the opportunity to object. You can make a little more effort to understand people who are different, and you might find that you like their food, their humor, music, literature, style, or even some of their religious beliefs. Ultimately, you must apply the same open-minded attitude to all groups of humans.
When I lived abroad, groups of schoolchildren would point at me, giggle and sometimes call me names, because I was foreign to them. Their school uniforms, group behaviors and appearance was equally strange to me, at first, but I was happy that the country stopped burning and beheading foreigners who looked like me some 150 years earlier. Culture shock has two sides, when you fall in love with a culture and when you hate it. Before you really get over culture shock, you need to go through both stages. Then you can stop seeing one group—a single culture—and start seeing the diversity within the group.
The simple truth is that there are good and bad people everywhere, in every group. It is neither accurate nor useful to judge whole groups as good or bad based on superficial characteristics. When groups of people share the same prejudice unconsciously, they begin applying their racism broadly. When groups share prejudice consciously, they organize that racism into a damaging and dangerous force, breaking down a peaceful, fair society, challenging laws and morals, and hurting innocents. Decades later, people may acknowledge that one case was wrong, without admitting that the same instinctual fault still persists.
Isn’t it time for us to admit the full extent of our racism, understand it, and stop it completely? Must we continue to repeat the worst of our history in new ways, for the same old reason? Can’t we finally decide that all humanity deserves to be treated as we believe we should be treated?
Before there was a United States, the Spanish were here first. Over five centuries ago, Spanish explorer Ponce de León arrived in Florida, somewhere near St Augustine. That settlement is older than Plimoth and even older than Jamestowne. Hernando de Soto landed in 1539—at the mouth of Tampa Bay near where Hurricane Milton just landed—, and he led his expedition through what would later become 8 US states. Before the celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month ends on October 15th, we should take a moment to reflect on the deep Hispanic roots of America, reflected in the Spanish names of many of our city, county and state names.
Arizona is ‘Arid Zone’
California is named after a 16th century Spanish fictional island
Colorado was named for it’s rich colors
Florida is ‘Flowery’ since de Leon arrived on Easter, 1513
Montana is ‘Mountainous’
Nevada means ‘Snowy’ in Spanish
New Mexico was part of the Spanish Empire’s reach to Alaska and the Great Lakes
Oregon was first recorded in Spanish
Texas comes from Tejas for ‘Friend’, used to describe Native American allies
And Utah derived from how the Spanish referred to the natives there
The Spanish began European exploration of our country, beginning by funding Columbus. One reason there are Spanish place names throughout the US is due to explorers like De Soto, Coronado, and Cabrillo. How many Americans know that St Augustine is our oldest permanent European settlement? We love Historic Route 66, but do we recognize that such Old Spanish Trails were mapped by Spanish colonizers like de Anza and de Oñate? At El Morro, early settlers carved messages in the rock in Spanish. Spanish speaking traders were at the ancient Casa Grande and at the still open Hubbell Trading Post. 100 years before we gained our Independence from the British, the Pueblo Revolt kicked the Spanish out of what’s now the US southwest. We know that Jefferson bought Louisiana Territory from Napoleon in 1803, but do we know that Napoleon got it from Spain in 1800? Our Midwest roots are both French and Spanish. The Presidio in San Francisco was Mexican for decades before the US Army took over.
And yet for some reason, we persist in ignoring our Hispanic Heritage. The Canadian River flows from Colorado, through New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma, and it was mapped by Governor Oñate in 1601. The river’s most remarkable geographic feature is in Texas, where it runs through Palo Duro Canyon, the second largest canyon in the US, described as a cañada in Spanish. And yet for generations, English speakers have tried finding non-Spanish explanations for the river’s name, such as lies that the French trappers didn’t know any Spanish, didn’t trade with the Spanish there and confusedly thought that the river came from Canada. Ridiculous!
While the ignorant falsely view Spanish speakers as only recent immigrants, in much of the country the Spanish speakers were here first, remaining for generations, even as wars and borders changed their lands from Spain or Mexico to the US. Over 40 million Americans speak Spanish at home, as they have for generations. Spanish speakers and their descendants should be rightfully recognized as founding members of our country, as their experiences and lives here predate English speaking settlers, and Spanish speaking citizens have continued contributing to our country, despite prejudice against them.
Unlike the war-shrine Alamo, the San Antonio, Tumacacori and other missions today are dedicated to peace and understanding. Despite some politicians trying to divide us, the Mexican border has long been peaceful, with disputes negotiated at places like Chamizal above in El Paso. César Chávez organized the first permanent agricultural union in the US, to lift up the lives of millions of people. And when Brown v Board of Education ended segregated schools for African Americans, it also ended segregation for Spanish speaking students at places like Blackwell School in Texas.
We should learn about our Hispanic Heritage and our past discrimination—including tragedies of mob violence and mass deportations—, so that we reject hatred and division. We can be a more just, inclusive and a better society.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Abraham Lincoln is remembered in the name of four national park sites and one national heritage area, and he is an integral part of at least four more sites, not to mention numerous other national and state sites, landmarks, parks and much more.
Abraham Lincoln National Heritage Area is in Illinois, and it includes hundreds of waysides, visitors centers, historic sites, debate sites, Lincoln’s impressive tomb in Springfield, tour routes, museums and more. The Lincoln Home and the nearby Presidential Library & Museum are key partners with the non-profit that preserves his legacy and cooperates with towns and others who celebrate Lincoln and promote Lincoln tourism.
The NPS recognizes the following four sites as integral to understanding his legacy, but many of the Civil War sites and more are part of the full story, particularly Gettysburg and Appomattox. There’s even a Lincoln story (photo above) in the defense of Washington DC.
The photo is from the moose exhibit upstairs at the visitor center. I failed to photograph a bald eagle flying right in front of the reconstructed fort, which includes a great hall, kitchen, warehouse, lookout and wooden palisade. The monument is surrounded by Anishinaabe (Ojibwe/Chippewa) land, and the tribe co-manages the unit, a first for the NPS. I stayed at the casino to catch an early ferry from Grand Portage, and I had a delicious ‘lunker’ (big fish) for dinner. From the dock, you can see Isle Royale in the distance, and there are various demonstrations of the fur trading life during the summer season.
Traders wanted access to the western rivers and lakes, and the easiest way to get there was to carry their canoes on the ~10 mile Grand Portage Trail around some impassable waterfalls (including Minnesota’s largest) on the Pigeon River at the border with Canada. At a site called Fort Charlotte, the voyageurs entered the Pigeon River—now the US-Canada border—and continued with shorter portages upstream on the Athabasca, English & Saskatchewan Rivers. They would pass through what’s now Voyageurs National Park, Rainy Lake, Lake of the Woods, and deep up into the Canadian Rockies to the Athabasca, Great Slave, and Winnipeg Lakes. The trail carried beaver and other pelts, typically trapped by natives, in 90 pound packs from inland Canada down to Montreal (skipping the polar bears around Hudson Bay), bound for global markets in Europe, Russia and China. Vast fortunes were made wiping out the abundance of our wildlife.
The park service commemorates six parks for Teddy Roosevelt, from his childhood home in NYC, to the ranch in North Dakota where he mourned, to his family home on Oyster Bay, to the room where he was sworn in after an assassination, to the DC island that celebrates his legacy and to the monument that rightly places him among our greatest presidents. The carbon crisis threatens to end the environment Teddy Roosevelt saved for us, so he would want us to switch to electric vehicles to enjoy all his parks, as I did.
I like Mount Rushmore, but it’s in the wrong place.…
At least a dozen current National Parks began with Teddy Roosevelt protecting their land, besides his namesake park above. His friendship with John Muir inspired our entire national park system. We owe a debt that we can only repay by continuing his legacy of preservation for the future.
As President, Teddy Roosevelt protected 230 million acres for us in 20+ states, including national forests, rivers, preserves and more, such as around the beautiful San Luis Valley. He’s directly responsible for all the units listed below, plus others, as well as for signing the Antiquities Act by which presidents still designate national monuments.
“The civilized people of today look back with horror at their medieval ancestors who wantonly destroyed great works of art, or sat by slothfully by while they were destroyed. We have passed that age, but we are, as a whole, still in that low state of civilization where we do not understand that it is also vandalism wantonly to destroy or to permit the destruction of what is beautiful in nature – whether it be a cliff, a forest, or a species of mammal or bird. Here in the United States we turn our rivers and streams into sewers and dumping-grounds. We pollute the air, we destroy forests and exterminate fishes, birds and mammals – not to speak of vulgarizing charming landscapes with hideous advertisements. But at last it looks as if our people were awakening. Above all we should realize that the effort toward this end is essentially a democratic movement! Now there is a considerable body of opinion in favor of our keeping for our children’s children, as a priceless heritage, all the delicate beauty and all the burly majesty of the mightier forms of wildlife. Surely our people do not understand, even yet, the rich heritage that is theirs!”
While not the largest rock formation in the west, Chimney Rock above, was the first exceptional one seen by the pioneers on their journey across the wide open prairie, so many pioneers elaborately described it in their journals. Judging by the old photos, it has lost some of its point, but it still towers over the landscape. Chimney Rock also made a clear landmark for the prairie schooners navigating on the Pioneer Trails from the Platte River to the nearby pass at Scotts Bluff. The site is affiliated with the NPS, but it is managed by the Nebraska State Historical Society.
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