Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Tuesday, August 25, 2015 -- Mattie died 311 weeks ago today.

Tonight's picture was taken in August of 2007. Mattie was working away on one of his favorite things... digging through sand, clay, and pebbles to reveal a plastic dinosaur. Mattie loved the whole notion of being an archaeologist! He started his love for digging when he was well but this activity even continued during his battle with cancer in the hospital. His hospital room would be transformed with a sheet on the floor, Mattie on top of the sheet digging, with goggles on and all his tools beside him. 


Quote of the day: A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new. ~ Albert Einstein

Today we visited The Autry Museum. This museum is dedicated to exploring and sharing the stories, experiences, and perceptions of the diverse people of the American West, connecting the past to the present to inspire our shared future. This is an incredibly rich and historical place to visit and each time I visit the Autry I am thoroughly impressed with their special exhibits and the level of detail that goes into assembling each gallery as well as the signage created to explain each and every item on view. The last time I was in Los Angeles and attended the Autry, I attended an exhibit that enlightened me on the Dust Bowl. Today's exhibit was on the Civil war and the role the West played during that time period. I have to admit that when I think of the Civil War, I isolate the battles and issues to the North and the South. But today I learned that so much more was going on. As the West was expanding the same issues with human rights and freedoms that the North and South were fighting about carried over into the West.  Every state and individual to some extent was involved in this conflict, including Native Americans, who interestingly enough fought on the side of the Confederacy. 

Below is a description of Today's exhibit in more detail!

The West is seldom considered in the context of the Civil War, yet Westward expansion shaped the issues that ignited that tumultuous conflict. Westerners fought in the war for both the Union and the Confederacy, felt its impact at home, and struggled with its civil rights legacy in the Reconstruction era. Empire and Liberty: The Civil War and the West investigates how Westward expansion repeatedly tested the meaning of freedom and the rights of individuals.

Empire and Liberty is presented in four sections. The first section was entitled, The Fire Bell in the Night (1803-1820). Taking its title from Thomas Jefferson’s pronouncement on the Missouri Compromise, the exhibition opens with the Louisiana Purchase and early Westward expansion, using artifacts and narratives to demonstrate that slavery reached beyond the chattel slavery of the American South to include debt slavery repaid with labor, and captive slavery, a frequent practice in Native American cultures. The Louisiana Purchase in 1803 incited fierce arguments and led to the Missouri Compromise of 1820 that divided the Western Territories into slave and non-slave sectors. In this section, an 1801 peace medal and a contemporary beaded peace medal box by Dyanni Hamilton-Youngbird (Navajo) further convey Westward expansion's complexities.

The second section of the exhibit was entitled, The Western Powder Keg (1820-1860). The West became even more explosive as the nineteenth century progressed. This section described aggressive campaigns to expel Native people from the South to the West, a move motivated by Southern cotton growers, whose profit-making ambitions snowballed with the invention of the cotton gin. The entry of Texas into the Union as a slave state proved a heated flashpoint, and the U.S.-Mexican War vastly increased the American empire and served as a training ground for future Civil War leaders Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, and Jefferson Davis. The California Gold Rush exposed many versions of forced labor. Gold Rush greed was also devastating to Native populations, who were enslaved and murdered in genocidal numbers. A Californian, John Charles Fremont, (pictured is John Fremont's expedition flag, circa 1841) was the nation’s first “Free Soil, Free Men” presidential candidate in 1856, the same year the pro and anti-slavery forces fought in “bloody” Kansas.

The third section of the exhibit was entitled, Blue and Grey (1861-1865). Empire and Liberty depicts Westerners’ participation in the Civil War alongside its impact on life in the West. The war splintered communities as Westerners flocked to both armies. When Texan Confederates invaded the New Mexico territory, they were repelled by a small cadre of Army regulars reinforced by volunteers from California and Colorado. Numerous wars flared in Indian country, with the Dakota in Minnesota; Apache and Diné (Navajo) in Arizona and New Mexico; and Cheyenne, Arapaho, Kiowa, and Comanche in Kansas, Colorado, and Texas. Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 and the Thirteenth Amendment triggered questions about unfree labor in the West, including Native slaves, indentured servitude in California, and debt slavery in New Mexico.

The final section of the exhibit was entitled, The West and Reconstruction (1865-present). Through a combination of artifacts and narratives, this section explored how post-war Westward expansion continued to spawn battles over who could enjoy the rights of American citizenship. While the Transcontinental Railroad symbolized the reunited nation, it put new pressures on Native homelands and brought thousands of Chinese, Irish, African Americans, and war veterans to the West. The Civil War escalated other wars against Native people that continued into the Reconstruction period.