Historical Perspectives

I was lucky enough to grow up in the 21st century as a white male. So being able to have perspective about what it was like in the late 19th century for a Native American child that was forced into a boarding school, as hard as I try I couldn’t possibly put myself in their shoes. The closest I can get is this, I had to fly to my grandparents' house by myself when I was around 9. No matter how much I begged and pleaded there was no way I could stay and hang out with my friends that summer. But, that's all it was — A summer. The children that were forced into boarding school weren't so lucky. Floyd Red Crow Westerman said in the Npr interview that it was hurting his mom and him. I couldn't say the same about my mother she probably threw a party.

We also talked about how the different generations of historians can affect how history is interpreted. The traditional history of the West was people going out west and becoming these grandiose cowboys and succeeding in taking over the great unknown. Traditional western history was about the tough people who picked themselves up by their bootstraps and got it done. That it was destiny for Americans to move out west. Even the name “Manifest Destiny” sounds like it has a certain flair to it. Nothing was ever about the families who were struggling on the frontier. I believe the statistic was over 60% failed to sustain a homestead in the west and moved back east.

The painting above is something I saw a lot in my Texas History classes. This is a painting by John Gast it shows that the settlers were going from the light to the dark of the country. Whilst chasing all the buffalo and the Natives away in the process.

So to conclude all I kept thinking about during this Module was this gif.