Exploration

L’Anse aux Meadows

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If you visit Fort Raleigh, you’ll see a monument to the first English child born in America, but there’s no monument at Castillo de San Marco about the first African American child born 50 years earlier in Florida. In any case, some 600 years before those colonies began, the Norse established this base camp on the north coast of Newfoundland, and here they recorded the birth of Snorri Thorrfinnsson around 1000 CE. And of course the first people here were Native Americans whose ancestors left their mark on the land thousands of years ago, long before history began in the Americas.

The fine film in the visitor center explains the even greater significance of this Norse settlement. Here the circle of humanity’s exploration of the world completed the circle. Modern humans began in Africa roughly 1/4 of a million years ago, populating Eurasia next, the Polynesians spread humanity into the Pacific, and humans crossed the ice to North America some 25,000 years ago. The Vikings, meaning the seafaring raiders of the Norse people, explored the North Atlantic a thousand years ago. Although they did not settle permanently, the Norse left their foundations here. They traded cloth and milk with natives for furs, and they explored at least as far as New Brunswick on the border of what is now the US. That meeting reintroduced two distant branches of humanity for the first time since our common ancestors left Africa 100,000 years ago.

Apparently the meeting did not go well enough for the Norse to remain. The expeditionary camp was established primarily to provide wood for the colony in Greenland, but it was a long way away from Scandinavia. Outnumbered and without significantly superior weaponry, the Norse eventually packed up the sporadically used camp after a single generation. Then they mostly forgot about Vinland, leaving it for scholars to speculate without evidence about the Norse having visited North America centuries before Columbus. Until a Norwegian researcher started digging around some square foundations here with his family in the summer in the 1960s. And they found proof.

L’Anse aux Meadows, or Meadows Cove, is now a UNESCO world heritage site with living history interpreters, and the reconstructed longhouse village is an excellent place to visit, photograph and ask questions. There is a statue of Leif Ericsson at the small harbor and various Viking themed tourist attractions nearby.

I dropped off the Tesla supercharger network in Nova Scotia, and PlugShare has poor coverage up here. So I switched to ChargeHub to find CCS chargers and made good use of my CCS adapter in Newfoundland. Some road construction unfortunately had cut off power for most of the day both to the park and to a crucial fast charger on the way, but since I often plan to skip a charger if needed, I made it anyway. By the time I arrived at the visitor center, the power had been restored, and while chatting with docents in the wood framed peat-sod house above, I charged at the free Tesla destination chargers (at the second entrance). Canada has a reliable EV charging network coast to coast, including helpful chargers at sites like these, and they’re stretching it northwards too.

Monticello

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Jefferson’s entryway is like a science museum. The wind vane connects to a display on the ceiling outside, the clock connects to a series of weights that display the day of the week. The antlers on the wall show American megafauna, and the Native American artifacts represent various tribes. There’s a concave mirror which reflects your image upside down, and there are various maps, as one would expect from the sponsor of Lewis & Clark’s expedition. The rest of the house also includes various gadgets and experimental devices, so he apparently enjoyed being seen as a wizard.

To call the house symmetrical is an understatement. The other side also has columns, well, just look at the back of a nickel. There are long wing-like patios connecting outbuildings, a tunnel running the transverse length underneath, and a winding garden path. Monticello means ‘little hill’ in Italian, but the views are impressive. Jefferson used to peer down through his telescope at the University of Virginia, which he also designed and founded and which is also part of this World Heritage site.

Jefferson is unpopular today, due to his treatment of slaves, and today’s Monticello does an excellent job of describing the hard life of the hundreds of enslaved people who worked here. The house tour includes the slave tour, and the docents are knowledgeable and answer a whole range of difficult questions. DNA testing revealed many secrets of Jefferson’s relationship with Sally Hemings—a child when it began—, and much more research has been done to unearth fascinating and desperate stories of slavery and a few of liberation. Jefferson knew slavery was wrong, and he had argued against it as a younger man. Some of his friends and colleagues freed their slaves and urged Jefferson to do the same, but with only a few exceptions, such as his own biracial children, he refused even in his will.

It is not wise to condemn the man entirely, however. If you believe that all men are created equal, that we all deserve freedom of religion without government interference, and many other American ideals, then you agree with Jefferson, who enshrined those ideals in our nation’s founding. We should hate the man for his racism and for perpetuating slavery instead of helping end it, but we should also admire his genius, as an architect, a revolutionary, and a renaissance man. Jefferson knew that the most memorable characters of the ancient classical ages all had tragic flaws that often destroyed them in the end, but that’s why we remember their stories—both good and evil—, to learn from them.

Cabrillo National Monument

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On the left coast, last week I visited another park dedicated to a Spanish explorer. In 1542, the same year DeSoto died and Coronado gave up searching for gold, Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo sailed into San Diego Bay, before also dying on his expedition to explore America. The myth of the seven cities of gold was a powerful draw for the Spanish. Cabrillo was a slaver, who killed Aztecs by crossbow for Cortes and was rewarded with land, mines and enslaved Guatemalan natives. Wanting more, he headed north in ships built by slave labor in order to claim more land and enslave more natives. Cabrillo got as far as the Channel Islands, before dying by accident, and his crew made it as far as Oregon upwind before returning.

The monument is at the end of Point Loma, past Fort Rosencrans National Cemetery, overlooking the Naval Air Station on Coronado Island. Several different 25 minute films play on the half hour, and there’s an interesting old lighthouse to explore. Hiking paths on both bay side and ocean side offer especially beautiful views, and there’s parking near the tide pools and the sea cove connected by a lovely short trail. From the cliffs, I saw large sea lions, numerous pelicans, cormorants and seagulls. It’s a beautiful Navy city with famously great weather, and the Old Town, the Gaslamp District and the Hotel Coronado are among the interesting sights. Hopefully this post fits thematically, even though it is a bit out of trip order and way off geographically.

Coronado National Memorial

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They’re not exactly sure which river valley Coronado walked up with his plumed helmet, shining cuirass, retinue, soldiers and slaves on his way to find the seven cities of gold, but from the bluff here, you can see both. Apparently, a couple natives convinced him to walk as far as Kansas, before he realized it was a ruse and executed them.

The park is near the Mexican border, and someday there’s hope that there will be a sister park on the other side. Of course these days, some people are paranoid about migrants crossing illegally, so there were plenty of warnings and border patrol operations nearby. I can’t see anybody climbing all the way up here without a vehicle. The road up is unpaved and there’s parking a short hike from where I took the photo. Although the road is rough, it presented a scenic shortcut to my next destination.

Fort Davis National Historic Site

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This is an Indian Native American War era fort. Soldiers from here, including African American Buffalo Soldiers, fought Geronimo and the Apaches in Arizona, the Kiowas and the Comanche, patrolling the San Antonio-El Paso road against raids. President Andrew Jackson predicted it would take a thousand years for white settlers to replace the Native Americans in the west. In reality, the process only took a few decades.

I believe the goal of history should not be a recitation of events. I believe the point of history should be to learn from the past in order to make better decisions in the future. The people are dead. They don’t care whether we praise them or criticize them; that’s not the point. We need to evaluate past actions in the context of the times.

Columbus was an innovative navigator, whose initial voyage went against common sense at the time and changed people’s understanding of the world. He was also wrong about who the Natives were, and he treated them viciously. But he didn’t create racism or slavery. Those were taught in European universities, supported by the church and were the official policy of European governments. Those institutions, which still exist today, bear the responsibility for atoning for the evils of racism and slavery of colonialism.

Kit Carson was an accomplished explorer, who developed strong relationships with the Native Americans he met and traded with. He did what others did not dare and changed people’s understanding of the west. He also carried out a brutal scorched-earth campaign against the Navajo and marched them into internment camps. He neither created racism nor invented the policy of removing Native Americans from their land.

Andrew Jackson was an American hero for defeating the British in the Battle of New Orleans in 1815. He also fought many wars against the Native Americans, broke treaties and even defied Supreme Court orders to remove Native Americans along the Trail of Tears, leading to a legacy of depressed, poverty-stricken reservations. He should have chosen a different path, leading to greater education, cultural exchange, technology transfer, integration and cooperation. The US Presidency, Congress and the military, which still exist today, bear the responsibility for atoning for the evils of the wars and forced removal of Native Americans.

History must be studied to make these judgements and to recommend corrective actions whenever possible, otherwise we doom ourselves to carry the burden and even repeat our past mistakes.