The frontier, pioneers and Indians

[shortridge]

 

Tampa Turtle made an observation in the original thread that meshed with some of what I've been thinking recently - that youth today aren't as interested in life on the frontier, the days of the pioneers or the lives of American Indians as they were 20, 30 years ago.

 

I grew up in the '80s, reading and watching everything I could about Crockett, Boone, Carson, Bowie, Lewis & Clark, the Swamp Fox. That was part of why I wanted to be a Boy Scout - to be able to do the things they did. Though I now know their lives were far more complicated and much less nuanced than presented by Disney or in the Landmark books, they're still fascinating and inspiring.

 

I don't see that among today's youth. Has the frontier and early American life simply fallen out of vogue?

[Eagle92]

Well there are no westerns on TV at this time. That will be changing in the Fall, or so I have read.

 

As for my kids, they got hooked on F-Troop and Davy Crocket, but that's b/c we got the videos. Middle son cannot wait for CSDC b/c the theme is Wild Wild West, and he plans on bringing a few items to camp

 

Then again I plan on bringing a few items to camp too

[SeattlePioneer]

I recommend Theodore Roosevelt's interesting history, "The Winning of the West" Copyright circa 1885 or so.

 

It recounts the westward expansion from the summit of the Appachians into Kentucky, Tennesee and Ohio River Valleys in ways you don't hear about these days.

 

 

Beginning with Buffalo Bills Wild West Show, western history was romanticized in favor of white settlers mostly, Since the 1960s it's often been romanticized the Indians.

 

Roosevelt tells this story before either of these mythologies got started.

 

When I got this from the Seattle Public Library, the edition had been checked out a half dozen times since 1935, the previous time in 1955.

[dg98adams]

Our camp started a mountain man program at camp for Scouts that done 3 years at camp. They get a pioneer shirt, and additional gear each year. Several in our Troop have done it 3 years and are now the boose way way to teach it.

 

Our Troop has several ringers for throwing hawk and the frontier style camping is popular.

 

I recently completed NRA rifle instructor and plan to add muzzleloader for Spring.

 

I think they enjoy the pioneering when it's fun, and hands on.

 

 

 

 

 

[Basementdweller]

My kids think the entire cowboys and indians thing is silly.

 

The romantic west is dead in my book. As a European American I am not particularly proud of what "WE" did to the North American Indians. The entire Trail of tears, small pox infected blankets, swindling or stealing land leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

 

Of course this was before genocide was a bad word.

[Trevorum]

Among the young fellows I know, for adventure these days, the "Pioneer West" takes a back seat to the "Final Frontier" (insert sweeping musical theme).

[Tampa Turtle]

I think it resonates with *some* boys but is not just the overwhelming cultural influence it once was. There is still a lot of fun stuff in it...I think that is why "mountain man" activities are popular because of the novelty.

 

When I was a kid growing up in the late 60's/70's I hated all the cowboy and indian stuff. It seemed so ancient and the space and jet stuff--that was cool. I am not the only one; I think that is where the Woody/Buzz Lightyear thing came from.

 

Now I enjoy watching some of the old shows and movies --most of them are morality plays anyway. Funny to watch the Italian guys play Indians in Daniel Boone. I read "Cracker Westerns" set in Florida now.

 

But who knows? It could come back, probably with an updated historical twist. At Woodruff SR they talked about the shame of the Trail of Tears. Colonists and indigenous peoples clashed all over the planet. Before that tribes warred on other tribes. There is a scout lesson there somewhere.

[SeattlePioneer]

Hello Basement,

 

 

>

 

 

Yes, that's the typical way to romanticize the Indians --- the Noble Savages of Rousseau, and downplay and attack the accomplishments and achievements of the American expansion.

 

It's about as balanced as Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show was in romanticizing the cowboy and Indian conflicts.

 

No smallpox infected blankets were needed to spread that highly contagious disease. It had about the same effect on the American Indian population as the Black Death had on Europe when that disease was imported as trade routes expanded. No difference, really.

 

I'm always amused when I hear the Sioux Indian tribes whining about "land stealing." The Sioux historically occupied land in Minnesota and Wisconsin. When they got horses (courtesy of Europeans), they spilled out onto the Great Plains in the early 19th century, conquering and displacing Indians tribes that had occupied that land.

 

So why are they whining about Americans doing to them what they had recently done to others?

 

Conquer and be conquered. That is the law that the Sioux lived by.

 

You should read Roosevelt. You would find that a fresh perspective.

[Tampa Turtle]

I enjoy Roosevelt-the last good republican!

[qwazse]

My grandparents having left "occupied" lands for someplace where they could start a business and not worry about a blood feud or being taxed according to their religious/tribal status, my sympathies fall somewhere between BD's and SP's.

 

I think reckoning with the frontier is an important step in citizenship. First you realize that people passed through this land before you, then you learn some of their names, then you learn to admire the skills they acquired to get by, then you begin to understand that not everything was equitable and some took huge losses.

 

But, I don't think you learn that last step until you've taken the first three.

[OldGreyEagle]

First of all, I love the idea of the "boose way", although I had never heard it that way before but since its a contraction of the word Bourgeois, anything goes, the "boose way" is the boss of the Rendezvous, or Ronny Voo or what ever that has de-evolved to

 

The Bourgeois, the clerical employees of the fur trading companies, Hudson Bay and the like were the first middle class, not affluent as the owners, but still a cut about the Voyageurs, the Trappers and the like because they could read and write. Somehow Bourgeois thinking had a "bad" reputation when all not that long ago, being a member of the Bourgeois was the goal of most North Americans. To have a little money beyond that needed for subsistence.

 

Ah, but times change, do they not?

 

Then again there is Pierre Aloyoius DuMonde, son of Cafe DuMonde, well know New Orleans restraunteur. A Frech Voyageur turned trapper who is know to inhabit yours truly and even has his own Face Book page although he is not to active right now. Pierre throws 'hawks and has a Flintlock and two percussion cap rifles, (NRA Instructor). The youth love to have Pierre tell them stories and teach scoutcraft in Tuque and leather pants

 

[Basementdweller]

Oh seattle, I was not romanticizing the North American Indian.

 

Their culture and way of life was much harsher than that of the European. Raiding parties killing of each other for land and slaves. They were not completely peaceful people.

 

I was commenting on the cowboy vs. indian.

 

I am a product of what our explorers did to the North American Indians and I have benefited, but that doesn't make me proud or happy about it.

 

 

Now I love the frontiersman stories. Read a bunch of them as a kid as well, Boone, crocket, I loved Grizzly adams and Jeremiah Johnson movies as a kid.

[sailingpj]

I am quite amazed that nobody mentioned Louis L'amour.

[OldGreyEagle]

My parents always had a book in their "library" Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey. As a kid I would look at it and wonder what sort of tales it held. For some odd reason, I never did read it. Then in the late 90's my mother was dying of Pancreatic Cancer and I was out of work. I was with my father as my mother's condition worsened. I started to read the book. It was an escape, but I have to say it is one Anti-LDS book thats for sure. I don't see why that is never mentioned, at least I havent heard it.

[drmbear]

I read every Louis L'amour book I could get my hands on as a kid, and I still have most of them. I read lots of other frontier books as well. Stirring an interest in my 9-yo son is about impossible though. He's into the Harry Potter, Bakugan, Pokemon, etc. kinds of things, and is so far removed from that real American hero concept, with the fantasy being the development of real skills, in stealth, tracking, fighting, shooting, endurance, determination, and more. I always appreciated that the heroes in these stories I loved reading most often had to overcome great odds in a real way in order to come out victorius. Although it may be fun to get lost in the magical, fantasy worlds of video games and wizardry, where is the connection to character-building traights and real life skills?