The stage is now set for historical reconstructionists to design anew. I shall first postulate the following: Those of European, Anglo-Saxon heritage did indeed conquer the American continent through a combination of aggression, intellect, “ethnic cleansing,” pacts made and honored, treaties broken, honest pursuit of simple lives and simple homes, pursuit of wealth, a desperate reprieve from a feudalistic past they were fleeing, and a fledgling sense of incremental equality, or at least access to it, all largely premised on a tacit yet profound vision of a vast continent unhindered by the past.
Mexican historians (many of whose ancestors were invaders as well) have remarked with disdain, trepidation and envy how the American settlers continued their sweep across the continent until the conquest was complete, from ocean to ocean. Mexican historian Josefina Zoraida Vazquez summed up the historical backdrop simply: “The North Americans kept up this continuous expansion, and the United States government followed their footsteps” (as quoted in Lions of the West by Robert Morgan).
And here we are — “from sea to shining sea.”
Was this era, largely promoted and executed foremost by President James K. Polk, one of sheer, unjustified aggression, extolled to the tune of “Manifest Destiny”? Or was it a preemptive measure to counter the combined intent of the European powers — Spain, France and especially Great Britain — whose purpose was to contain and potentially recolonize the raw and inexperienced novice nation-state? There are arguments for both positions.
In my judgment, one of the greatest, most influential personages of the past millennium was George Washington. His perseverance, bravery, natural intuition, ambition, honor, decency and record of accomplishment during the Revolutionary War years and as president was almost beyond mortal. The depth of his emotional and psychological fortitude remains incomparable. Without Washington, our United States would not exist. During his years of nation-building prominence, and well after his death, his deification was not preposterous.
Shall the new historians, now more minority-centric in nature, feel obligated and justified to place an asterisk next to his name, considering that he, and all the Founding Fathers, were of European ancestry? That during that era, non-European progeny, men and women alike, were not in positions of power, that Native Americans were forced from their lands, that Black Africans were held in outright bondage and that, therefore, Washington’s acclaimed tenure in the annals of American history must be tempered? Accordingly, will 21st century guidelines mandate he be viewed more as a slave owner and oppressor of minorities than a thoroughly extraordinary human phenomenon?
Professional historians would likely not, but a progression of pop historians likely would.
Many of us don’t have to retrace our lineage back too many generations to the “old country” to see where our forebearers were locked into a serf-type class with capricious, brutal rulers dictating their very existence. The Scottish, Welsh and Irish were treated most harshly, if not brutally, by their English overlords.
Upon the signing and publication of the Declaration of Independence, the United States had officially unveiled a document of treason directly addressed against the British crown. The judicially imposed punishment for acts of treason, as described in the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica, demanded that “the culprit be dragged on a hurdle to the place of execution; that he be hanged by the neck but not till he was dead; that he should be disembowelled or drawn and his entrails burned before his eyes; that his head be cut off and his body divided into four parts or quartered.”
Anyone can comprehend the utter dread in which these populations lived. The world wasn’t just harsh, but vicious.
Prior to there being an all-powerful Great Britain, there was just Britain. Not unlike the Scottish, Welsh and Irish beneath them, so too were the earlier native British once overrun and dominated by external invaders: the Normans, the Anglo-Saxon Jutes, the Vikings and Norsemen, the Romans. They, too, were once battered into a subservient slavish status, mired in the cruelties that beset such tribulations.
And yet, through the millennia, along with the pillage and carnage, came culture, an inclusive, expanding language, assimilation, religions, gradually evolving human rights, shared commonalities, intermarriage, the beginnings of government, along with natural intragroup hostilities as well.
The history of civilization is an unyielding continuum of waves of invaders — those thus conquered, and those who conquered.
The design and founding of the United States was indeed an exclusive production by the offspring of European/Anglo-Saxon peoples. Their language, culture, religions, work ethic and value system have certainly dominated throughout the past two-plus centuries. If they hadn’t established predominance, with all the resources available, that would be remarkable. The majority culture is surely inclined to assert and perpetuate its worldview throughout the varied mechanisms intertwined within the overall collective system and unlikely to, without just cause, defer to the proclivities of those parties outside those of the standard-bearer. Groups survive through common interests as they do common fears.
All issues of insinuated superiority aside, the European/Anglo Saxon peoples did spread worldwide their influence, culture, language, customs and values — all reinforced by a display of military power.
Historically, European and Arab empires and the Chinese dynasties were all major world powers. The Chinese created ships far superior in size and technology to anything manufactured in Europe. The Arabs held extensive libraries — vastly more expansive than anything yet compiled to the north. Both had been worldly explorers. And then both turned inward, experiencing considerable conflict, with centuries of bloody civil wars in China. Europeans did much the same, warring among the various empires, yet they did not cease their outward exploration and expansion — and the impact has been profound. Were they superior or of a supreme order? No, but they were eminently successful.
The very desirable, though mortal, state of success can easily be twisted into a crown of superiority, not only by those in attainment, but somewhat more critically by those on the ideological social fringes. That we as humans possess biases is surely nothing to shy from, or fear. To live within a neutered state of human motivations, emotions and root feelings is illogical. Commonly, biases have a component of fear attached. How we choose to address our fears and biases is essential.
Directives do not create truthful goodwill or equality. Simply acquiescing to hierarchical power does not foment a conviction that the present activism requires of us. There needs to be maintained a healthy space between the increasing demands of societal forces soliciting ideological transformation and individuals’ free will to interpret the world on their own terms.
That those Americans of European ancestry continued to format an all-embracing public constitution, along with the political one that founded the country, would be expected. Certainly a sense of relative privilege had been afforded simply by virtue of common affinities and affirmations. To have deferred to surrounding, though outside, groups and networks, extending to them significant prerogatives and powers, would clearly contradict the dominant groups’ own secured station in the larger scheme. We, meaning people and groups in general, tend not to encourage that sort of behavior.
The key is to promote inclusion on a more expansive scale, versus a retractive mode expected on behalf of the prevailing populace. The contrast may appear moot, yet it is critical.
The terms “implicit bias,” “systemic racism,” “white privilege” and “white supremacy” are undeniably attention-getting. Along with offense, these attack words are not without foundation. However, any “new order” is to be viewed with suspicion — for as an ascending grouping periodically shifts, the motives may not. Explicit in this mission directive is to lay bare our ancestral sins — by not only social pressure, but edict (in academic institutions particularly) — willfully censuring our personal and family histories to states of self-incrimination, resulting in a guilt-ridden compliance.
The “new” histories promoted by social activists shall lay claim to be unbiased, impartial, egalitarian and minority-centric in vision to rebalance the past corrosive effects of the differential treatment pitched by the dominant white culture. It is likely that the recording of history, as well as the contemporary translation of history prior, shall devolve into numerous interpretations, all loyal to the discernment of the particular group seeking validation.
We choose to take but a fragment of history, and under the extreme heat of present-day magnification, transfer a slight percent into an all-encompassing, determinative whole. A duel between any number of contending forces, all striving to define in terms supportive of their worldview — a decreed basis for both the accuracy of the particulars and defensibility of their ethics.
Richard D. Bircher lives in Lebanon.