Comunidad de La Rioja

―Parkman is the most American of all our historians, because he deals with purely American history; but at the same time he is a historian for all mankind, and all time, one of the greatest that ever lived.‖

John Fiske The Romantic school of history dominated American historiography for the better part of the nineteenth century. It was driven by the desire to define the American experience and position modern America within the context of world history. For many contemporary authors such as Emerson and Cooper, this search for national and literary identity was meant to negate European social and literary conventions. This ―protest against antiquity‖ (Lewis 160) was, however, not limited to one specific branch of written production, but permeated the entire literary circus. In the realm of historical writing, this quest for cultural independence manifested itself in two dominant schools of thought. On the one hand, George Bancroft attempted to explain the American past and its emancipation from colonial rule by narrating universal histories. These vast, metaphysical musings became increasingly popular in the middle of the nineteenth century and described history as the succession of several grand stages, with the present as the grandest of them all. The application of the Hegelian dialectic allowed Bancroft to investigate the underlying reasons for the constant change that, for him, defined American history, while establishing historiography as the appropriate method to make sense of it. Accordingly, for American universal historians, ―history became a myth which revealed the purpose behind the change: an explanation of the very essence of the New World became the crown, the key, and the consummation of a universal historical process‖ (Lewis 162).

The second school of thought promoted a tragic vision of history. Most significantly Francis Parkman and William Prescott explained the American past as a story of loss rather than a story

of gain.12 In this ―Hobbesian state‖ the world was a place of violence and conflict (Lewis 168). In the eyes of a tragic historian this topography of war always had and always would define human history. However, for Parkman, this view of history as the bloody encounter between rivaling forces also produced the very virtues necessary for human progress. In the case of American history, Parkman located the defining struggle for American freedom in the clash between France and England. Parkman argues that it is out of this encounter and its culmination in the French and Indian War, with the forced participation of the American colonists, that the revolutionary spirit emerged.

Parkman‘s historical approach is most definitely a product of the Romantic movement in American arts and letters. Yet, it is also a reflection of the earliest tradition of historical writing in the New World: the Puritan view of history. Although Parkman had an ambiguous relationship towards his Puritan heritage and hardly fits the description of a religious historian—neither in terms of content or style—, he promoted a vision of history that lauded Puritan virtues and embraced British control over the continent. For readability‘s sake he overcame his acquired distaste for the Puritan faith of his ancestors and recognized its value for character formation. Many of his greatest historical characters, in fact, display distinctly Puritan ethics and thereby advertise ―the virtues Parkman most admired: manliness, independence, patriotism, and enterprise‖ (Salamon 60). As a New Englander, he not only represented the New England historical tradition, but also felt the moral obligation, characteristic of this school of thought, to incite a sense of ethical virtue and moral purity in his readership. But his admiration for the early American colonists was not limited to his appreciation of their moral strength and capacity for

12

It is important to remember, however, that both universal and tragic historians viewed the course of history as inherently progressive. Although Parkman‘s histories lament the loss of the American forest, for example, they still reflect the belief that the American experience mirrors the social, moral, and intellectual evolution of human civilization.

enduring hardship and suffering. Beyond this tragic faculty, Parkman also respected their unwavering optimism in the process of history. In his historical method, Parkman therefore adopted the ―cosmic optimism‖ (Salamon 72) of the founding fathers which unquestionably asserted that divine providence will safely guide the history of mankind to its necessarily glorious completion. In the same manner as he praised Puritan virtues as universal American values, he embraced a progressive optimism that posited universal freedom as the endpoint of the historical process. While the Puritans awaited a second coming as the necessary endpoint of all history, for Parkman the American Revolution occupies this trans-historical significance. As a result, his writing mirrors a ―secular millennialism‖ not unlike the prophetic vision of history early Puritan writers of history had advanced (Salamon 72).

Possibly, as John Fiske suggested, Francis Parkman is the most American of all historians who wrote during the nineteenth century. Not only did his historiographic gaze remain focused on the analysis of American freedom and independence even when analyzing the conflict between two European powers, but Parkman‘s technique further mirrors the introduction of uniquely American themes and motifs. Nonetheless, we would do injustice to Parkman‘s complex methodology if we do not appreciate his other inspirations; stimuli that came not from previous generations of American writers, but from European intellectuals, explorers, and artists who investigated similar questions on the nature and function of history.

One of the most important and least recognized of these transatlantic kindred spirits was the German explorer, philosopher, and geographer Alexander von Humboldt. Parkman‘s naturalist method, the exploration and subsequent integration of natural settings and geographic locations into historical writing, owes much of its literary success to Humboldt‘s groundbreaking

subsequent visit to Philadelphia and Washington, marks a decisive turning point in nineteenth century science in general and American self perception in particular. Humboldt‘s unique blend of interdisciplinary scientific research, paired with his seemingly insatiable enthusiasm, passion, and creativity undoubtedly prepared the ground for Parkman‘s histories.

Although Parkman was not a direct member of what Laura Dassow Walls named the transnational ―Humboldt network‖ (which included such notable contemporaries and acquaintances of Parkman as George Ticknor, Edward Everett, Washington Irving, George Bancroft, and John Pickering) he still was familiar with Humboldt‘s many explorations and publications, especially because Parkman‘s friend E.G. Squier, with whom he frequently exchanged letters, also cultivated a correspondence with Humboldt. The most powerful link between Parkman and Humboldt, however, is the historical work itself. Parkman not only shared with the German scientist an enthusiasm for the landscapes he visited and depicted, he also showed a keen eye for the people and cultures there. Although Humboldt is undoubtedly more humanist in his portrayal of the native inhabitants of the Orinoco system and the Andean highlands, the two authors are linked by the shared conviction that nature devoid of human presence is incomplete.

First and foremost Parkman shared with Humboldt an appreciation for the natural world. Both of them understood the vital importance of geography for a proper and complete understanding of human existence. In this regard, Parkman learned from Humboldt that he ―inhabited a continent that is unstable, shifting, uncertain; [where] the solid ground of the familiar shakes underfoot and betrays our placid belief in continuance‖ (Walls 152). Humboldt was aware, and so was Parkman, that the history of human progress was a relentless assault on nature, that human progress could only be obtained at the price of transforming the sublimely

primordial wilderness of North and South America into manageable geographies subservient to human usage. Nonetheless, that does not mean that the two writers approved of the practice. Quite the contrary is true. While both Humboldt and Parkman were keen observers of the environmental destruction caused by European colonial conquest, they also identified the devastating effects on the environmental equilibrium. Humboldt, for instance, as Laura Dassow Walls notes, argued ―as early as 1805 that cutting down forests causes climate change, and in later works attributed the alarming and inexplicable fall in water levels in both Mexico‘s Lake Tetzcoco and Venezuela‘s Lake Valencia to deforestation by the Spanish‖ (9). Similarly,

Parkman, who was also a respected horticulturist and the author of a book on roses, was quick to detect the environmental tragedy tied to ruthless territorial expansion in North America. In a letter to Abbé Casgrain from 1892, Parkman lamented the continued destruction of Lake George: He writes:

When I first knew Lake George, the islands of the Narrows were thickly covered by pine, spruce, and fir trees […] the nouveau riche, who is one of the pests of this country, has now gotten possession of the lake and its islands. For my part, I would gladly destroy all his works and restore Lake George to its native savagery. (Jacobs Letters Volume2 65)

The above letter is just one example of Parkman‘s environmental consciousness. Actually, as Wilbur Jacobs explains in his article ―Francis Parkman: Naturalist-Environmental Savant,‖ Parkman wrote at least two more articles during his life in which he directly attacked deforestation and called for the implication of government funded forest conservation measures.13 For Parkman, the continuing destruction of the great American forest directly translated into a process of human degeneration that caused a loss of virtues, values, and principles. Parkman was surely not an environmentalist in the modern or postmodern sense of

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The first article, entitled ―The Forest and the Census,‖ a book review of Sprague Sargent‘s latest work, appeared in the June issue of the Atlantic Monthly in 1885. The second piece, ―The Forests of the White Mountains,‖ was published on February 29 1888 in Garden and Forest.

the term, but his work, without question, was concerned for the environment. As Parkman most forcefully shows in Montcalm and Wolfe, he perceived the disappearance of the American forest

as tragic catastrophe that equated to the loss of a vital part of American history itself. Parkman‘s histories were indeed unthinkable without the sublimely beautiful and primordially unforgiving wilderness as its backdrop. His is a history, as he himself termed it, of the American forest; and his lifelong promotion of the immeasurable value of nature for the formation of the American character makes him a ―nineteenth-century wilderness advocate‖ (Jacobs ―Naturalist‖ 343).

As much as Parkman shares Humboldt‘s concern for the environment, his historical writings echo the principles of a naturalist observer in the Humboldtian tradition. Similar to Thoreau, Parkman internalized the romantic credo of personal experience over second hand reports and was eager to visit and explore the sites of historical action. As I mentioned earlier and will discuss in greater detail in the subsequent chapters, these on site observations, in revised form, would then serve prominently in his volumes as the foundation for the comprehensive

descriptions of weather and climate. While he shared Humboldt‘s passion for exploring the sites of history first hand, Parkman was also a scientist. Besides his personal immersion in his

subjects, he conducted meticulous archival research and geographical surveys. In addition, he studied and collected archaeological artifacts from Native American cultures and owned an extensive collection of photographs, daguerreotypes, and other source material which are a record of his methodical determination to unlock the secrets of the past with the help of modern science.

Figure 2.1: This carte de visite, entitled Squaws Guarding Cornfield from Depredations of Blackbirds, from Parkman‘s private collection testifies to Parkman‘s lifelong fascination with

Native American culture and customs. In addition to photographs he also collected indigenous archaeological artifacts.

Figure 2.2: Tepees of the Sioux Indians, Minnesota. This hand-colored carte de visite also comes from Parkman‘s photography collection which is now housed by the Massachusetts Historical

While Parkman‘s treatment of nature and the environment reproduces many of Alexander von Humboldt‘s attitudes toward space, his principles on the form and function of historical narratives were inspired by another Humboldt; namely Alexander‘s older brother Wilhelm. In 1821 the Prussian minister of education and renowned linguist penned an essay entitled ―On the Historian‘s Task‖ which he delivered that same year to the Prussian Academy in Berlin. In the essay, Humboldt outlines the key ideas of what would become known as one of the most influential schools of historical thought in the nineteenth century: an idealist philosophy of history. Over the course of its fifteen or so pages, Humboldt locates historical writing at the intersection of intuition and science, thereby challenging the claims of absolute and objective truth by other historians. For Humboldt, historical facts, are merely the ―skeleton of an event‖ and ―the result of tradition and scholarship which on has agreed to accept as true‖ (Humboldt 58). These facts only resemble the outward truth of historical events. In order to reveal the inner truth of history, Humboldt explains, the historian must transcend the world of mere appearances and interrogate the eternal ideas manifest in every event of history. In this process of the

combination of outer and inner truth, the historian must employ certain tools otherwise his account will be a falsification overlooking the essence of the historical process. Further,

Humboldt asserts, the historian must be receptive of and eventually employ eternal ideas, while pursuing ―all the manifestations of the mind‖ (Humboldt 59). These preparatory elements, according to Humboldt, form the foundation for a twofold historical method. The initial step must be the critical investigation of the events, their temporal ordering and meticulous study. Subsequently, once the outward truth (the factual framework) is established, the historian must connect the events and enter the stage of subsequent understanding. History, Humboldt assures us, is not an unchecked employment of the imagination, but the historian ―subordinates his

imagination to experience and the investigation of reality (58). While the poet attempts to capture the truth of form, the historian strives to unearth the truth of the content. This distinction between poetry and history leads us to the heart of the matter. Humboldt‘s theory of history is idealist in nature, that is, it is concerned with ideas. For Humboldt, as for Leibniz, ideas exist as an antecedent in the human mind. These include not only conscious thoughts of human

individuals, but also a priori subject-object relationships, in essence an eternal maelstrom of truths. However, in reality they are obscured or obstructed by form and appearance. A truthful and complete understanding of reality, objects, and events is therefore only possible if we can see past the distracting veil of appearances and uncover the ideas, and ultimately the universal processes, behind it. As these eternal ideas are manifested in and reflected by historical events as such (as history is both the result of these primordial current while at the same time reflecting them), the historian can discover them through a careful contemplation of the events themselves. The presupposition of a priori ideas manifest in the process of history leads Humboldt to

announce the existence of what he calls the ―essence of history.‖ The revelation of this trans- historical idea and the subsequent study of its manifestations in the historical process is the true task of the historian.

In short, Humboldt‘s understanding of history posits the existence of a transcendental idea in everything that is or happens. Therefore, all events in the history of the world are interconnected and linked to a general nexus. This eternal design is not directly perceptible as it is obstructed by the world of appearances and the limits of human perception. This idea can only be sufficiently revealed by the historian through the careful study of historical events, as they are both

manifestations and reflections of eternal truth. Accordingly, the task of the historian is to actively pursue, perceive, and finally articulate it in an attempt to fuse the outward truth of historical facts

and the inner truth of the sublime idea. This is achieved first through the careful study of events and the related facts, and secondly the imaginative, or creative act, of pursuing the idea with all available intuitive faculties of the mind. This process must become second nature to the historian and applied to every historical inquiry.

Parkman was, of course, familiar with this school of historical thought. Many of his

acquaintances studied in Germany and returned the continental philosophies to their homeland. Especially Bancroft, as mentioned earlier, was influential in spreading the principles of German idealism among the intellectual elite of America. In Göttingen, Heidelberg, and Berlin he had studied under some of the greatest scholars of continental Europe, including Eichhorn and Heeren. Additionally, in the German salons Bancroft had met many of the eminent intellectuals of the time, including Wilhelm von Humboldt himself; he also dined with Goethe, discussed philosophy with Hegel, and made the acquaintance of Alexander‘s old mentor Johann Friedrich Blumenbach. After his return to America, Bancroft tutored Greek at Harvard and opened a boy‘s school with his friend and fellow Göttingen alumnus Joseph Cogswell (1816-1819). At Round Hill Farm, Bancroft and his colleagues adapted the principles of education many of them had experienced and become electrified by during their expatriatism. In the next years, until Bancroft traded the principal‘s office for a seat in the Massachusetts state senate, his school would shape the minds of such future luminaries as Ellery Channing, James Lowell, and John Motley.

Although Parkman had not studied at a German university as some of his contemporaries had, he did, of course, travel the European continent extensively and was exposed to the flourishing brand of idealism conceptualized by Herder and others.

It is then no surprise that Parkman‘s work is, in fact, so Humboldtian that it can be easily described as a showcase in idealist philosophy. Parkman‘s History of France and England in

America, like no other work in American history, articulates in dialectical fashion the slow and

painful emergence of a single, universal idea out of the sustained conflict between two nations. Centuries of conflict ultimately reveal a general motif which Parkman identifies as the primum mobile of world history. The idea that for Parkman rests at the foundation of all humanity is the idea of freedom and his entire life work does nothing more and nothing less than trace the