Importancia de la muestra y del modo de aplicación de los cuestionarios

―His Soul is dormant; and no exertions of the missionaries, Jesuit or Puritan, of the old world or the new, have as yet availed to rouse it.‖ Francis Parkman The Oregon Trail

In 1832, the German nobleman and naturalist Prince Maximilian of Wied left his family‘s castle at Neuwied to explore the interior of the North American continent. Inspired by the

successful explorations of Alexander von Humboldt, Prince Maximilian had already completed a two year journey into the rainforest of Brazil fifteen years prior, and was now itching to explore the largely unknown interior of the Indian Territory in the northern part of the American

continent. In the eighteen-twenties, another German nobleman, Paul Wilhelm von Württemberg, had already successfully travelled up the Missouri River from New Orleans, and Wied was planning to follow a similar route. Like Humboldt, Wied was an enlightenment thinker and avid naturalist interested in scientifically recording the wonders of the New World for European eyes. In the hopes of discovering formerly unknown species and returning them to his native Germany for more careful study, Wied planned to meticulously record geographical and thermostatic data, and collect biological and zoological specimen. But first and foremost, the prince was thrilled by the prospect of studying a human wonder of the New World that had aroused a good deal of interest on the European continent: the Native American Indian. Thus, ―it was his avowed intention to document the life-world of the North American Indian population in good time, before their unique culture was lost forever— as had already happened in the eastern states of America‖ (Wied 17). For this philanthropic purpose, Wied brought along the young Swiss artist Karl Bodmer who was to document the discovery of new animals and plants on the expedition and sketch portraits of the indigenous population. Indeed, Bodmer was able to sketch members of numerous Indian tribes along the Missouri, including the Mandans who were wiped out by a

small pox epidemic shortly thereafter, and was thereby able to preserve a glimpse of the marvelous civilizations that soon would be destroyed or forced into assimilation. With similar effect like George Catlin, the ―excellent artist Bodmer,‖ Parkman judged, (AHalf Century 564) brought the West into the homes of eastern urbanites and European noblemen, thereby defining the image of the American West all around the globe. In A Half Century of Conflict, Parkman

praises Bodmer‘s importance for the preservation of authentic Native American life and his dedication to representational accuracy by saying:

Prince Maximilian spent the winter of 1832-1833 near the Mandan villages. His artist [Karl Bodmer], with the instinct of genius, seized the characteristics of the wild life before him, and rendered them with admirable vigor and truth […] and his pictures are invaluable as faithful reflections of aspects of Indian life which are gone forever. (France and England Vol. 2: 591)

Wied‘s expedition kept him in North America for almost two years. Under the pseudonym Baron von Braunsberg Wied travelled up the Missouri River to present day North Dakota where he spent the winter at Fort McKenzie. On his journey, Wied certainly got a first-hand look at the volatility of frontier life as his party got caught up in violent conflict between the American Fur Company and a group of Crow Indians. He witnessed, like Parkman, the almighty power of the American Fur Company in the unorganized territories and experienced a glimpse of Native American culture and customs while collecting many priceless indigenous artifacts and zoological specimen. Nonetheless, when Wied returned to Boston to board a ship back to

Germany, he had failed to achieve one thing: Like Parkman sixteen years later, he was unable to witness the ―American Indian in his pristine state‖ (Wied 25).

Parkman, unlike other American writers of the nineteenth century who participated in the literary invention of the West, had not only firsthand experience with the indigenous tribes of the territories beyond the frontier, but also researched his literary subjects methodically. Like Wied,

the historian was inspired by the Humboldtian expeditions at the beginning of the century and believed in the methodical collection and evaluation of Indian artifacts. Among Parkman‘s reasons for going westward was therefore also the scientific curiosity to study Native American life and to lay an anthropological foundation for his historiographic methodology. Although the study of anthropology in the first half of thenineteenth century had not yet developed into a scientific discipline, there were, however early anthropological pioneers who promoted a rigorous and precise study of Native American culture. One of those early American

anthropologists was Ephraim George Squier. It was Squier, acquainted with Parkman through their days at Harvard, who provided Parkman with invaluable source material on the plains tribes he encountered on the Oregon Trail, Indian anthropology, and archaeology in general.29 Squier, who later published a book on native religious practices entitled The Serpent Symbol and the

Worship of the Reciprocal Principles of Nature in America (1851), was then considered an

expert on Indian customs and his advice helped to increase the narrative‘s verisimilitude as well as Parkman‘s reputation as a serious researcher. Throughout his career Parkman would continue to seek expert assistance on Native American traditions from more experienced scholars of Native American life, such as Lewis Henry Morgan and Henry Rowe Schoolcraft (Mullin 294).

Despite his efforts to enhance the scholarly accuracy of the book, Parkman was criticized, even in his own time, for the depiction of Native Americans. Melville, for example, famously scolded Parkman for his sense of racial superiority in the Literary World (1849). Upon

publication, Parkman‘s trail account was also immediately criticized for voyeurism and his failure to appreciate Native American culture and its practices, a verdict that, of course, has been

29

Howard Doughty points out that Squier was one of the two people (the other being Charles Eliot Norton, also an amateur ethnologist and later the editor of the book version of TheOregon Trail) Parkman exchanged letters with most frequently during the time he prepared his trail journal for publication in TheKnickerbocker (Doughty 145, 150).

echoed many times since and has become the standard assessment of his portrayal of Native Americans. However, it should be considered that Parkman‘s stay in the Ogillallah camp made him ―the first American man of letters to possess any real firsthand understanding of the Indian‖ (Wade Parkman Journal Volume 2 394). For whatever it was worth, Parkman, unlike other

influential figure in the process of creating a literary stereotype of indigenous culture, such as Irving and Cooper, had actually seen a Native American village with his own eyes. Further, it seems noteworthy that Parkman certainly understood the centrality of Native Americans for the fate of the continent. Although TheOregon Trail depicts Native American life in the final stage

of their existence and doomed for extinction, Parkman‘s later writings on early American history highlight the centrality of Native Americans for American freedom. The French colonial

presence in Canada, for example, is doomed Parkman explains, because the Jesuit bishops attempted to conspire with the Iroquois and failed to achieve lasting conversion of the Native tribes. Accordingly, the French‘s inability to ―civilize‖ the Iroquois and subsequently press them into permanent alliances directly resulted in their defeat by the British.

Parkman‘s acknowledgment that Native American tribes played a crucial role in American history has scholarship, both literary and historical in scope, not prevented from criticizing Parkman‘s account of the Oregon Trail. It has, in fact, become a standard scholarly position to attest Parkman an inherent inability to respect, even comprehend, the cultural other he

encountered. Some critics, such as L. Hugh Moore, in his article ―Francis Parkman on the Oregon Trail: A Study in Cultural Prejudice,‖ even went so far as to ascribe to Parkman an utter unwillingness to grasp Indian culture because he was hopelessly and unchangeably trapped in his New England elitism. As a result, Moore, for example, argues that Parkman‘s Oregon Trail narrative, in fact, reveals more about the prejudices of New England society than about westward

expansion and Indian life and that the trip left him ―amazingly unchanged‖ (197). Although this criticism is in certain arenas underwritten by Parkman‘s text and there is no doubt about the historian‘s belief in the inevitable destruction of Native American life and his wrongful mythologization of prehistoric Amerindian societies, we need to be cautious to attest a

methodological malaise that permeates his entire, and especially his later work: for the Oregon

Trail is a text that stands at the beginning of the author‘s work.

While Parkman‘s portrayal of Native Americans has almost unanimously been identified as an example of Anglo-American imperialist thought infused with a heavy dosage of racial typecasting, relegating Indian culture and customs to a primordial, primitive form of existence doomed to extinction, some scholars, such as Sally A. Hawthorne, see Parkman also as a staunch defender of a static caste system. For Hawthorne, Parkman‘s paternalistic portrayal of the plains tribes in TheOregon Trail is therefore also an attempt to assert ―the superiority of Parkman‘s

own class‖ (326). The New England establishment of Protestant patricians Parkman belonged to understood themselves, and their literary exploits, as both vanguards and defendants of

progressive American values.

Along similar lines other scholars, such as Lynda Salamon, see Parkman‘s description of Native Americans directly linked to his Puritan heritage. Although Parkman was neither

practicing nor endorsing Puritanism, and in fact had a rather ambiguous relationship to the faith of his ancestors, he nonetheless recognized the powerful impetus of Puritan values on American culture and was fascinated with the seemingly unbreakable will of the early colonists. For him, the Puritan character was undoubtedly an ideal literary framework for his historical subjects. While the virtues of the Massachusetts Bay Colony survived in his books, so did the Puritan conception of Native American life. Salamon even contests that while Parkman‘s view of

indigenous cultures ―derived in part from the social theories nurtured by his patrician upbringing, from Teutonic theories of racial superiority, from nineteenth century Darwinism, and from current literary stereotypes,‖ he was ―deeply indebted to his Puritan ancestors‖ (67). Puritans and Calvinists alike saw in the Indians evidence of satanic possession and perceived in their culture signs of devil worship. New England Puritans and Calvinists of theseventeenth century

condemned the Indians as satanic brutes who engaged in a complicit alliance with Lucifer

(supposedly evidenced by their barbarous practices and cannibalism) to claim the New World for the devil himself. Parkman was surely influenced by the historical and contemporary discourses on Native American culture, to attest him blind obedience to existing literary stereotypes seems, however, unwarranted. Especially because Parkman‘s entire oeuvre reflects a life-long interest in the relationship between religious missionaries and indigenous populations of North America. Particularly The Jesuits in North America here serves as a powerful example of Parkman‘s

sometimes unusual interpretation of the relationship between the European colonizers and their Native American victims. In the text, as well as in Montcalm and Wolfe, Parkman rereads the

history of Indian cruelties as the outgrowth of excessive missionary zeal and religious fanaticism. For him, it was as much the Jesuits‘ ruthless policies in New France that had to be blamed for rampant scalping and border raids during the French and Indian War, as they had directly encouraged Iroquois war parties to prey on frontier settlers.

It is true that there are examples of stereotyping in Parkman‘s writing, especially when it comes to understanding and respecting indigenous culture instead of dismissing it as a primitive lifestyle destined for destruction. Yet other critics deemed his representation of Native American life and culture truly revolutionary. James Barnes in his article ―Bancroft, Motley, Parkman and Prescott: A Study of their Success as Historians‖ exclaims that ―Parkman was extraordinary in

his determination to break down the stereotypes surrounding the study of Native Americans. He was far ahead of his time in the meticulous ways he depicted the confrontation between

civilization and barbarism. Probably more than any other contemporary historian he personally observed the sites and remains of the scenes he portrayed‖ (Barnes 65). Although Barnes

judgment of Parkman‘s depiction of Native Americans was written more than forty years ago, it does reflect that Parkman‘s text evoked contradictory responses throughout the years. Not surprisingly, some of Parkman‘s contemporary reviewers considered the depiction of Amerindian life and culture truly exceptional, hailed their authentic realism and praised his verisimilitude. George W. Curtis, while reviewing The Discovery of the Great West even deemed

Parkman‘s portrayal of Indian tribes more valuable than those of James Fenimore Cooper. Curtis explains:

It is to the pages of Mr. Parkman that we must go for the American Indian. Cooper so bewitches our fancy with Uncas and the red heroes that it is very difficult to divest our estimate of the Indian of a false and foolish glamour. (qtd. in Frothingham 37)

Similarly, Theodore Parker was quite pleased with Parkman‘s depiction of Native American life. In a letter from December 22, 1851 that criticized Parkman‘s recently published The Conspiracy of Pontiac, Parker, besides commenting on a ―list of faults‖ (377) that he had detected in the

organization and ―substance‖ (374) of the work, also praised Parkman‘s treatment of Native Americans. He writes:

You evidently have a fondness for the Indian— not a romantic fondness, but one that has been tempered by sight of the fact. Yet I do not think you do the Indian quite justice; you side rather too strongly with the white man and against the red. I think you bring out the vices of the Indians into more prominence than those of the European— which were yet less excusable (374).

Parker goes on, while ascribing to Parkman a progressive view of indigenous history, to

disapprove of Parkman‘s description in four ways: ―in the matter of rum, women, treachery, and cruelty‖ (375).

Parkman‘s biggest accomplishment in TheOregon Trail is his description of the crucial relationship between Native American people and the space that surrounds them. For Parkman, Native Americans have preserved, at least partially, an existence that because of its dependence on the natural environment is characterized by several admirable skills that were lost in the process of continued industrialization and the resulting alienation of man from nature. Native Americans, for Parkman, represent a visceral strength, maintained by the constant threat of warfare and the continuous search for hunting grounds, that renders them physically superior and causes Parkman again and again to admire their ―superb, naked figures‖ (Oregon Trail 178). Specifically the symbiotic existence that the Ogillallah have formed with the buffalo impresses Parkman. While he recognizes in the Dacotahs‘ exclusive dependency on the buffalo a definite threat to their survival, he also admires the autonomy it provides for the tribe. While certainly dependent on successful buffalo hunts, they are freed from the geographical and temporal restraints of wage labor that are increasingly dominating American life, especially in the urban centers. Among the Ogillallah, Parkman experiences the freedom of a geographically unbound existence. As a result of geographical freedom, the Ogillallah are also able to abolish temporal restraints. Initially surprised by their disregard of western means of compartmentalization, Parkman sees in them a people that live entirely in the moment, what Howard Doughty called ―the moment of total engagement‖ (132). This alternative notion of temporality is governed by an economic aspect, the hunting season, and a religious frame provided by various rituals and ceremonies. Time and space are here represented as sensed categories defined by cultural

practices instead of arbitrary demarcation lines such as border and man-made territorial markers. Although Parkman fails to provide a sustained discussion of the Native American concept of temporality, he was certainly impressed by the Ogillallah‘s customs. The experience, indeed, would influence Parkman‘s conceptualization of historiography in future text such as The Jesuits in North America and Montcalm and Wolfe in which Parkman presents the depiction of Native

American life, for him marked by a ―natural existence‖ defined by trans-historical patterns, as an alternative to Western notions of historical progress.

Figure 3.5: Karl Bodmer‘s Mato-Tope. Bodmer‘s paintings capture details of indigenous cultural

practice that would soon be lost forever. This illustration of a Mandan chief highlights the meticulously applied war paint that signifies the warrior‘s social status.

Figure 3.6: Karl Bodmer‘s The Interior of theHut of a Mandan Chief allows a glimpse into the interior of a spacious Mandan hut. Similar to Parkman, Wied and Bodmer were able to experience Native American life first hand as they spent several weeks among the western tribes.