In The Sixth Extinction: Journeys Among the Lost and Left Behind, Terry Glavin provides a moving narration of the world we are losing. The book is most statistical in its first few pages, where Glavin lays out how the pace and scope of extinctions we face today is comparable to five historical periods of significant extinction. The book's seven chapters are stories of risk and resilience among (as the subtitles outline): a tiger, a bird, a fish, a lion, a whale, a flower, and a world.
While the highly readable narrative style is commendable on its own, the book also is satisfying for its geographic scope - taking readers to varied cultures and ecosystems - and several strains of analysis woven throughout the text. Glavin borrows an analytical tool from the United Nations Environment Programme, which developed four scenarios of how humans might respond to loss of biodiversity, dubbed the "security first," "markets first," "policy first," and "sustainability first" options. Introducing their basic tenets in the prologue, Glavin further elucidates the scenarios in his chapters by pointing to ways in which the movements he documents might be categorized. Although the set of possible future conditions is virtually infinite and inevitably messier than is suggested by scenario analyses, I find them useful tools for understanding likely consequences of different sets of values. The scenarios Glavin borrows are relevant to responses underway today, and his use of them enriches both the scenarios set forth and his narratives of biodiversity challenges.
The book understands extinctions to be complex phenomena, with a variety of proximate and ultimate causes. Glavin both implicates humans and goes easy on us, identifying human actions as the critical factor in the current wave of extinctions, but noting that it was not our intention and that humans have made many noble efforts to reverse or mitigate this impact. Human actions have lead to extinctions not only by directly killing animals but also by destroying habitat and by introducing exotic species that crowd out natives. Glavin seems to imply that because our destructiveness is a secondary effect of our actions, we are somehow less culpable for their results. In the long span of history, there may be something to this argument, but we now have the ability to anticipate secondary effects and do have responsibility for the foreseeable consequences of our actions. On the other hand, the evidence the book provides that humans do value the natural world is a source of hope that we might in fact take responsibility for and change our actions.
Another recurring theme is Glavin's assertion that humans (and environmentalists in particular) have made false distinctions between humans and nature, civilization and wilderness. Although this is an intriguing and on some level compelling assertion, Glavin does a mediocre job of substantiating it in his writing. His illustration of how societies in different times and places have had various relationships with nature successfully casts doubt on the notion that there is one Right Relationship or that we have found it (although I don't think either of these beliefs are widely held), but does not successfully breakdown distinctions between human society and the natural world. Moreover, the writing style, while enjoyable, tends to re-enforce the us/them dichotomy. In telling the story of endangered species, the style tends to exoticize the animals and conveys an almost voyeuristic sense of watching them in their habitat (almost like a National Geographic special) rather than relating to them in the world we share, as I might expect from someone trying to break down arbitrary distinctions.
The strongest way in which Glavin establishes a unitary sense of nature is by addressing both species loss and the loss of diversity in human cultures as part of the same "dark and gathering sameness." Having the stories of losses of human languages, history, and local knowledge and lore woven with the stories of habitat and species loss adds richness to the storytelling. However, the analysis of the association of these two phenomena is a bit shallow. In the examples provided, their causes and consequences seem a bit distinct (e.g., cultural repression in Soviet Russia led to losses in human culture while fish species fared better in Soviet days). Also, while the text draws on a fairly well established literature regarding the benefits of biodiversity (especially as laid forth by E.O. Wilson), it does not provide comparable references or well formed arguments regarding the benefits of diverse human cultures. Glavin asserts that the human species is more "resilient" for having diverse cultures, in parallel to an example about crops with diverse sub-species being more resilient to diseases. However, the book does not grapple with the fact that cultures are not static artifacts under any conditions (gathering sameness or otherwise) nor compare the benefits of diverse cultures to those of a more homogeneous culture which is also more complex. Perhaps he will explore the connections more fully in another work.
Another area that was not adequately addressed was climate change. Glavin makes mention of climate change a few times in the book, as something that will worsen the current period of extinction. Indeed, other reading I've done (e.g., The Rough Guide to Climate Change: Symptoms, Science, Solutions by Robert Henson (London: Rough Guides, 2008) has pointed to the biodiversity impacts of climate change that we already are experiencing and expect to intensify in the coming decades. While The Sixth Extinction is more historic than predictive and I would not expect Glavin to include a great deal of anticipatory evidence of the impact of climate change, devoting a couple of solid paragraphs would be a worthwhile addition to the book, as considering an expanded set of causes for extinctions has a significant impact on the set of responses we should be preparing.
What most disappointed me about the book is Glavin's rejecting environmentalism and the "language of environmentalism." He defines these terms in fairly broad brush early on, and goes on to repeat his criticism at several points in the book. This troubles me because of the suggestion that the environmental movement is some solid, well defined structure of a white liberal elite walking in lock step and speaking with one voice. It's not. And while I might enjoy watching Carl Pope, Wangari Maathai, and Van Jones duke it out to claim the microphone of Environmentalism, the reality is that these are just a few figures inside a big tent of people that come with diverse values and proposed solutions. They form alliances. They have arguments. The behavior among the various groups and activities that I would include as part of today's environmental movement look an awful lot like the whole rest of the world. Perhaps defining an environmental movement within human society at all is a false distinction on the order of considering nature as "other."
The reason this is more than a minor irritation to me is that it seems a familiar tactic. Writers decry environmentalism in an effort to have their environmental arguments taken seriously by a public they believe are not environmentalists. That the naysayers draw arbitrary distinctions is illustrated, conveniently, by an article that appeared in the New York Review of Books while I was reading The Sixth Extinction. John Terborgh's review of Rewilding the World: Dispatches from the Conservation Revolution by Caroline Fraser (15 July 2010) sets forward a different notion about what humans' relationship with nature is and should be. In the Rewilding analysis, conservation is best achieved when humans are willing to respect a separate space for wildlife, giving up the "romantic" and "fanciful" European/American idea that people and nature can co-exist peaceably (perhaps that we are in fact one...?). This group of romantic westerns sounds an awful lot like Glavin's environmentalists, the ones who draw false distinctions between humans and nature, society and wilderness. Hmmm...
A similar ploy has been used in works like "The Death of Environmentalism" (Shellenberger and Nordhaus, 2004). I've argued against the environmental movement's being viewed as a uniform, cohesive group, but do think there is some valid criticism of the power structure within parts of the movement and manner in which groups have chosen to talk about and address environmental issues. Certainly the movement has as yet been insufficient to the task of changing our course or transforming our ethos. Still, I would call on critics not to wholly dismiss environmentalism but rather to identify allies within the movement and to call on everyone to think deeply about their relationship with the world we live in and how to appropriately act on their own values. Drawing arbitrary lines among people will no more get us to our goal of living in a just, peaceful, and flourishing world than will drawing arbitrary lines between humans and nature.
The Sixth Extinction is an enjoyable and thought provoking read. I hope to find other books that draw on Glavin's style and theme to explore our relationship with and impact on the planet.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
You Are Not a Gadget: a Manifesto / Jaron Lanier -- NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010
Jaron Lanier was among a handful of virtual reality pioneers, and so you would think that he would be excited about the prospect that a global network of computers, programs, and computer users might allow us to transcend the limits of our pre-internet understanding of the world through the development of a transcendent silicon-based intelligence, but such is not the case. In You Are Not a Gadget Lanier expresses his discomfort, even horror, at the de-humanizing effects of what he calls "cybernetic totalism," i.e., the "ideology" that intelligence, even consciousness, can be explained through computationalism and that the developing global network of computer connections will eventually evolve into a super-intelligence or conscious being.
Lanier offers little argument against this view, except that it is based on the romantic hopes of cybernetic totalists. In the meantime, the popularity of cybernetic totalism has meant that computer engineers are designing hardware and software that dismisses the contributions of human individuals and "locking in" a computer infrastructure that requires devaluing their contributions. Lanier suggests that the computer industry has and is turning its back on many more creative and valuable lines of development in pursuit of cybernetic totalism.
Early in the book, he criticizes Web 2.0 technologies as doing to people what MIDI did to music, i.e., identifying aspects of music that are useful in defining notes, without succeeding in capturing the whole of musical experience. For Lanier, MIDI has homogenized music, forcing it into the constraints of a computer program. Simialry, Web 2.0 technologies have led us to represent ourselves in pre-packaged ways, chopping up our selves into smaller and smaller encodeable fragments that can be captured in cloud computing for the benefit of the "Lords of the Cloud," or those who can mine the collective data made available on the Web by the "Peasants of the Cloud."
The benefits that might accrue to the Lords of the Cloud depend on the truth of a hypothesis advanced by James Surowiecki in his book The Wisdom of Crowds. (See this blog for a review of The Wisdom of Crowds. Surowiecki claims that very often the aggregated (or averaged) opinions of a large number of lay people will be more accurate than highly educated expert opinion. If this is true, then the Lords of the Cloud can employ "crowd sourcing" to generate a more accurate understanding of the world than was possible prior to the advent of the Web. Lanier's response to this is nuanced. While he recognize that a collective opinion is more valuable in many instances, a small group of people organized around an individual's vision or inspiration often can produce a much superior outcome. Lanier's case is surprisingly strong here.
Lanier's colorful language makes You Are Not a Gadget an entertaining read, but his book is strong on assertions and weak on arguments. In his introduction to the final chapter he tellingly writes, "This is about aesthetics and emotions, not rational argument. All I can do is tell you how it has been true for me, and hope that you might also find it to be true." Unfortunately, much of what he asserts is amenable to rational argumentation. Hopefully, his provocative presentation will prompt others to provide it.
Lanier also skips from subject to subject at astonishing speed. Sometimes the work appears to be more a collection of blog posts than a coherent, extended book-length argument. He appears to have been affected by the very atomization of discourse that he laments. He takes up metaphysics, epistemology, political philosophy, psychology, sociology, language, and music among other topics. Clearly, he recognizes how his work in computer science has important ties to all of these fields, but it is difficult to know how grounded his conclusions are. Certainly his treatment of metaphysics and political philosophy is at best extremely superficial and at worse sophomoric. Nonetheless, he bravely advances views on issues that deserve more serious consideration than they have received.
Lanier offers little argument against this view, except that it is based on the romantic hopes of cybernetic totalists. In the meantime, the popularity of cybernetic totalism has meant that computer engineers are designing hardware and software that dismisses the contributions of human individuals and "locking in" a computer infrastructure that requires devaluing their contributions. Lanier suggests that the computer industry has and is turning its back on many more creative and valuable lines of development in pursuit of cybernetic totalism.
Early in the book, he criticizes Web 2.0 technologies as doing to people what MIDI did to music, i.e., identifying aspects of music that are useful in defining notes, without succeeding in capturing the whole of musical experience. For Lanier, MIDI has homogenized music, forcing it into the constraints of a computer program. Simialry, Web 2.0 technologies have led us to represent ourselves in pre-packaged ways, chopping up our selves into smaller and smaller encodeable fragments that can be captured in cloud computing for the benefit of the "Lords of the Cloud," or those who can mine the collective data made available on the Web by the "Peasants of the Cloud."
The benefits that might accrue to the Lords of the Cloud depend on the truth of a hypothesis advanced by James Surowiecki in his book The Wisdom of Crowds. (See this blog for a review of The Wisdom of Crowds. Surowiecki claims that very often the aggregated (or averaged) opinions of a large number of lay people will be more accurate than highly educated expert opinion. If this is true, then the Lords of the Cloud can employ "crowd sourcing" to generate a more accurate understanding of the world than was possible prior to the advent of the Web. Lanier's response to this is nuanced. While he recognize that a collective opinion is more valuable in many instances, a small group of people organized around an individual's vision or inspiration often can produce a much superior outcome. Lanier's case is surprisingly strong here.
Lanier's colorful language makes You Are Not a Gadget an entertaining read, but his book is strong on assertions and weak on arguments. In his introduction to the final chapter he tellingly writes, "This is about aesthetics and emotions, not rational argument. All I can do is tell you how it has been true for me, and hope that you might also find it to be true." Unfortunately, much of what he asserts is amenable to rational argumentation. Hopefully, his provocative presentation will prompt others to provide it.
Lanier also skips from subject to subject at astonishing speed. Sometimes the work appears to be more a collection of blog posts than a coherent, extended book-length argument. He appears to have been affected by the very atomization of discourse that he laments. He takes up metaphysics, epistemology, political philosophy, psychology, sociology, language, and music among other topics. Clearly, he recognizes how his work in computer science has important ties to all of these fields, but it is difficult to know how grounded his conclusions are. Certainly his treatment of metaphysics and political philosophy is at best extremely superficial and at worse sophomoric. Nonetheless, he bravely advances views on issues that deserve more serious consideration than they have received.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Guide to the Flora of Washington and Vicinity / Lester F. Ward -- Washington DC: GPO, 1881
Flora of Washington is a monograph in the series Bulletin of the United States National Museum, published by the Department of Interior under the direction of the Smithsonian Institute. It is the first "scientific" attempt to catalog the flora of Washington and the surrounding region since the 1830 catalog entitled Florae Columbianae Prodromus, and it contains lists of plants found by several botanists (mostly Ward) over the years 1878-1880.
The volume begins with 59 pages describing the range and localities where plants were collected with various information about the flowering of plants, their statistical frequency, and the methods for classifying them, but the heart and bulk of the volume is a list of the Latin names of the collected plants. Usually accompanying each entry is the name of the collector, the common name or names of the plant, the times when it flowers and fruits, and, when the plant is not commonly found in the region, the locale where it was found. Sometimes further information is included in a note.
Ward's list of plants includes an indication as to whether the plant appeared on the 1830 Prodromus list, providing a valuable record of the impact of the growth of the Washington D.C. on the flora of the region. Unfortunately, the method of classifying plants has changed since 1881, making current use of the list difficult. However, many names are consistent with our names today. For example, Ward writes that Cannabis sativa grows in "waste lots in the city." Somethings haven't changed. Throughout the work, many current concerns about invasive species and habitat destruction are raised, though the concern is understandably less critical than it is today.
The final 28 pages are "Suggestions to Beginners," explaining in extraordinary detail the equipment needed to identify, collect, transport, preserve, and mount plants to be included in one's herbarium. Ward even recommends methods for mailing one's plant inventories and duplicate plants to other botanists when making trades. (By including nothing in writing in the packages of plants, one could take advantage of a cheaper postal rate.)
Flora of Washington contains a final gem: a 31" x 24" fold out map of the Washington D.C. region, printed in 1882. The region ranges from the Rockville and Laurel post offices in the north to the confluence of the Occaquan and Potomac Rivers in the south; and from the Bull Run post office in the west to the Patuxent River in the east. Along with the river system of the region, roads also appear on the map. Some have retained their names to the present, others have changed, but hardly any follow the same routes of their descendant roads today.
The volume begins with 59 pages describing the range and localities where plants were collected with various information about the flowering of plants, their statistical frequency, and the methods for classifying them, but the heart and bulk of the volume is a list of the Latin names of the collected plants. Usually accompanying each entry is the name of the collector, the common name or names of the plant, the times when it flowers and fruits, and, when the plant is not commonly found in the region, the locale where it was found. Sometimes further information is included in a note.
Ward's list of plants includes an indication as to whether the plant appeared on the 1830 Prodromus list, providing a valuable record of the impact of the growth of the Washington D.C. on the flora of the region. Unfortunately, the method of classifying plants has changed since 1881, making current use of the list difficult. However, many names are consistent with our names today. For example, Ward writes that Cannabis sativa grows in "waste lots in the city." Somethings haven't changed. Throughout the work, many current concerns about invasive species and habitat destruction are raised, though the concern is understandably less critical than it is today.
The final 28 pages are "Suggestions to Beginners," explaining in extraordinary detail the equipment needed to identify, collect, transport, preserve, and mount plants to be included in one's herbarium. Ward even recommends methods for mailing one's plant inventories and duplicate plants to other botanists when making trades. (By including nothing in writing in the packages of plants, one could take advantage of a cheaper postal rate.)
Flora of Washington contains a final gem: a 31" x 24" fold out map of the Washington D.C. region, printed in 1882. The region ranges from the Rockville and Laurel post offices in the north to the confluence of the Occaquan and Potomac Rivers in the south; and from the Bull Run post office in the west to the Patuxent River in the east. Along with the river system of the region, roads also appear on the map. Some have retained their names to the present, others have changed, but hardly any follow the same routes of their descendant roads today.
Days on the Road: Crossing the Plains in 1865 / Sarah Raymond Herndon -- Guilford, Conn.: Morris Book Publishing, 2003
This blog entry will not only review the book in the title, but will also review An Excursion to California over the Prairie, rocky Mountains, and Great Sierra Nevada by William Kelly published by chapman and hall, 1851. Both are accounts of travels across the Great Plains during America's westward expansion.
William Kelly describes his 1849 trip from Bristol, England to the United States and his overland travel to Missouri. Along the way, he joined with 23 other men looking to emigrate to California. At first the account seems rather fanciful, crafted mostly to entertain, but as the narrative proceeds, the mundane details of life crossing rough country demonstrate a degree of authenticity to Kelly's reporting. Much of his work describes the work needed to cross rivers, marshes, and rough country, the constant search for forage for the wagon train's mules and horses, the maddening irritation of biting insects, hunting expeditions, and sometimes dangerous encounters with Indians. The most harrowing segment of his trip occurred crossing the Nevada desert. Here, one gets a clear sense that the journey could easily end in the death of every emigrant.
In contrast, Sarah Raymond Herndon's account of traversing virtually the same ground (up to the Rocky Mountains) 16 years later, describes pic-nics and parties, visits to settlements along the route, and frequent encounters with other wagon trains. She reports hundreds of wagons gathered together in a "town of tents and wagons" at the crossing of the South Platte, with "thousands of cattle, hundreds of horses, and more than a thousand human beings" crossing the river in a single day. Like Kelly, Herndon describes encounters with bad weather, but for the 1865 emigrants, they were nuisances. For Kelly's 1849 expedition, they were life threatening.
While the elements posed a greater risk for Kelly, resistance from Indians were a greater threat to Herndon. Kelly describes encounters with the Pawnee, the Sioux, the Crow, the Utah, and the Digger Indians. His assessment of each group was a reflection of their wealth and hostility. Kelly found the Sioux, contrary to reports, quite dignified and amiable. The Crow were clearly the most hostile. Kelly scorned the impoverished Diggers, who eked out a meager existence in the deserts of Nevada.
In contrast, Herndon had few direct encounters with Indians. Certainly, the size of the wagon trains crossing the continent by 1865 and the hostilities between emigrants and natives made encounters less likely, but the fear of Indian attacks was great among many in Herndon's party and Herndon recounts reports of massacres.
Both narrators describe the encounters with Mormons and are repelled by their polygamy, but Kelly acknowledges their hospitality and industry, coming away with no small respect for them. Herndon's interactions are more superficial and likely less forgiving of their gender relations from the start.
After crossing the Rocky Mountains, their journeys take different paths. Kelly proceeds through Utah and Nevada to cross the Sierra Nevadas, while Herndon travels north through Idaho to Montana. Both parties were drawn by the allure of recently discovered gold.
Reading the two accounts back to back provides a clear picture of how conditions changed for emigrants during the intervening years. It is hard to imagine how wagons could have been pulled across the continent in the spring and summer of 1849 and amazing how civilized the trail had become in 16 short years. It is also striking how unaware most of the Native Americans were in 1849 of the pending consequence of white emigration through their lands, but by 1865, the disaster must have been clear to them. What does not change is the racist views of the white emigrants and their inability to see beyond the values of their own culture.
After reading these two accounts, I was moved to pick up Francis Parkman's classic work The Oregon Trail, an account of a historian making a journey across the plains to the Rocky Mountains, then south to New Mexico and back to Missouri. As Parkman was not an emigrant himself, his perspective on the emigrants and the people of the West is more objective and rather disparaging. From the several score pages that I have read in The Oregon Trail, Parkman's literary style is far more refined than either of the authors reviewed here. It promises to be very engaging.
William Kelly describes his 1849 trip from Bristol, England to the United States and his overland travel to Missouri. Along the way, he joined with 23 other men looking to emigrate to California. At first the account seems rather fanciful, crafted mostly to entertain, but as the narrative proceeds, the mundane details of life crossing rough country demonstrate a degree of authenticity to Kelly's reporting. Much of his work describes the work needed to cross rivers, marshes, and rough country, the constant search for forage for the wagon train's mules and horses, the maddening irritation of biting insects, hunting expeditions, and sometimes dangerous encounters with Indians. The most harrowing segment of his trip occurred crossing the Nevada desert. Here, one gets a clear sense that the journey could easily end in the death of every emigrant.
In contrast, Sarah Raymond Herndon's account of traversing virtually the same ground (up to the Rocky Mountains) 16 years later, describes pic-nics and parties, visits to settlements along the route, and frequent encounters with other wagon trains. She reports hundreds of wagons gathered together in a "town of tents and wagons" at the crossing of the South Platte, with "thousands of cattle, hundreds of horses, and more than a thousand human beings" crossing the river in a single day. Like Kelly, Herndon describes encounters with bad weather, but for the 1865 emigrants, they were nuisances. For Kelly's 1849 expedition, they were life threatening.
While the elements posed a greater risk for Kelly, resistance from Indians were a greater threat to Herndon. Kelly describes encounters with the Pawnee, the Sioux, the Crow, the Utah, and the Digger Indians. His assessment of each group was a reflection of their wealth and hostility. Kelly found the Sioux, contrary to reports, quite dignified and amiable. The Crow were clearly the most hostile. Kelly scorned the impoverished Diggers, who eked out a meager existence in the deserts of Nevada.
In contrast, Herndon had few direct encounters with Indians. Certainly, the size of the wagon trains crossing the continent by 1865 and the hostilities between emigrants and natives made encounters less likely, but the fear of Indian attacks was great among many in Herndon's party and Herndon recounts reports of massacres.
Both narrators describe the encounters with Mormons and are repelled by their polygamy, but Kelly acknowledges their hospitality and industry, coming away with no small respect for them. Herndon's interactions are more superficial and likely less forgiving of their gender relations from the start.
After crossing the Rocky Mountains, their journeys take different paths. Kelly proceeds through Utah and Nevada to cross the Sierra Nevadas, while Herndon travels north through Idaho to Montana. Both parties were drawn by the allure of recently discovered gold.
Reading the two accounts back to back provides a clear picture of how conditions changed for emigrants during the intervening years. It is hard to imagine how wagons could have been pulled across the continent in the spring and summer of 1849 and amazing how civilized the trail had become in 16 short years. It is also striking how unaware most of the Native Americans were in 1849 of the pending consequence of white emigration through their lands, but by 1865, the disaster must have been clear to them. What does not change is the racist views of the white emigrants and their inability to see beyond the values of their own culture.
After reading these two accounts, I was moved to pick up Francis Parkman's classic work The Oregon Trail, an account of a historian making a journey across the plains to the Rocky Mountains, then south to New Mexico and back to Missouri. As Parkman was not an emigrant himself, his perspective on the emigrants and the people of the West is more objective and rather disparaging. From the several score pages that I have read in The Oregon Trail, Parkman's literary style is far more refined than either of the authors reviewed here. It promises to be very engaging.
An Excursion to California Over the Prarie, Rocky Mountains, and Great Sierra Nevada / William Kelly -- London: Chapman and Hall, 1851
This blog entry will not only review the book in the title, but will also review Days on the Road: Crossing the Plains in 1865 the diary of Sarah Raymond Herndon, published by the Morris Book Publishing Company, 2003. Both are accounts of travels across the Great Plains during America's westward expansion.
William Kelly describes his 1849 trip from Bristol, England to the United States and his overland travel to Missouri. Along the way, he joined with 23 other men looking to emigrate to California. At first the account seems rather fanciful, crafted mostly to entertain, but as the narrative proceeds, the mundane details of life crossing rough country demonstrate a degree of authenticity to Kelly's reporting. Much of his work describes the work needed to cross rivers, marshes, and rough country, the constant search for forage for the wagon train's mules and horses, the maddening irritation of biting insects, hunting expeditions, and sometimes dangerous encounters with Indians. The most harrowing segment of his trip occurred crossing the Nevada desert. Here, one gets a clear sense that the journey could easily end in the death of every emigrant.
In contrast, Sarah Raymond Herndon's account of traversing virtually the same ground (up to the Rocky Mountains) 16 years later, describes pic-nics and parties, visits to settlements along the route, and frequent encounters with other wagon trains. She reports hundreds of wagons gathered together in a "town of tents and wagons" at the crossing of the South Platte, with "thousands of cattle, hundreds of horses, and more than a thousand human beings" crossing the river in a single day. Like Kelly, Herndon describes encounters with bad weather, but for the 1865 emigrants, they were nuisances. For Kelly's 1849 expedition, they were life threatening.
While the elements posed a greater risk for Kelly, resistance from Indians were a greater threat to Herndon. Kelly describes encounters with the Pawnee, the Sioux, the Crow, the Utah, and the Digger Indians. His assessment of each group was a reflection of their wealth and hostility. Kelly found the Sioux, contrary to reports, quite dignified and amiable. The Crow were clearly the most hostile. Kelly scorned the impoverished Diggers, who eked out a meager existence in the deserts of Nevada.
In contrast, Herndon had few direct encounters with Indians. Certainly, the size of the wagon trains crossing the continent by 1865 and the hostilities between emigrants and natives made encounters less likely, but the fear of Indian attacks was great among many in Herndon's party and Herndon recounts reports of massacres.
Both narrators describe the encounters with Mormons and are repelled by their polygamy, but Kelly acknowledges their hospitality and industry, coming away with no small respect for them. Herndon's interactions are more superficial and likely less forgiving of their gender relations from the start.
After crossing the Rocky Mountains, their journeys take different paths. Kelly proceeds through Utah and Nevada to cross the Sierra Nevadas, while Herndon travels north through Idaho to Montana. Both parties were drawn by the allure of recently discovered gold.
Reading the two accounts back to back provides a clear picture of how conditions changed for emigrants during the intervening years. It is hard to imagine how wagons could have been pulled across the continent in the spring and summer of 1849 and amazing how civilized the trail had become in 16 short years. It is also striking how unaware most of the Native Americans were in 1849 of the pending consequence of white emigration through their lands, but by 1865, the disaster must have been clear to them. What does not change is the racist views of the white emigrants and their inability to see beyond the values of their own culture.
After reading these two accounts, I was moved to pick up Francis Parkman's classic work The Oregon Trail, an account of a historian making a journey across the plains to the Rocky Mountains, then south to New Mexico and back to Missouri. As Parkman was not an emigrant himself, his perspective on the emigrants and the people of the West is more objective and rather disparaging. From the several score pages that I have read in The Oregon Trail, Parkman's literary style is far more refined than either of the authors reviewed here. It promises to be very engaging.
William Kelly describes his 1849 trip from Bristol, England to the United States and his overland travel to Missouri. Along the way, he joined with 23 other men looking to emigrate to California. At first the account seems rather fanciful, crafted mostly to entertain, but as the narrative proceeds, the mundane details of life crossing rough country demonstrate a degree of authenticity to Kelly's reporting. Much of his work describes the work needed to cross rivers, marshes, and rough country, the constant search for forage for the wagon train's mules and horses, the maddening irritation of biting insects, hunting expeditions, and sometimes dangerous encounters with Indians. The most harrowing segment of his trip occurred crossing the Nevada desert. Here, one gets a clear sense that the journey could easily end in the death of every emigrant.
In contrast, Sarah Raymond Herndon's account of traversing virtually the same ground (up to the Rocky Mountains) 16 years later, describes pic-nics and parties, visits to settlements along the route, and frequent encounters with other wagon trains. She reports hundreds of wagons gathered together in a "town of tents and wagons" at the crossing of the South Platte, with "thousands of cattle, hundreds of horses, and more than a thousand human beings" crossing the river in a single day. Like Kelly, Herndon describes encounters with bad weather, but for the 1865 emigrants, they were nuisances. For Kelly's 1849 expedition, they were life threatening.
While the elements posed a greater risk for Kelly, resistance from Indians were a greater threat to Herndon. Kelly describes encounters with the Pawnee, the Sioux, the Crow, the Utah, and the Digger Indians. His assessment of each group was a reflection of their wealth and hostility. Kelly found the Sioux, contrary to reports, quite dignified and amiable. The Crow were clearly the most hostile. Kelly scorned the impoverished Diggers, who eked out a meager existence in the deserts of Nevada.
In contrast, Herndon had few direct encounters with Indians. Certainly, the size of the wagon trains crossing the continent by 1865 and the hostilities between emigrants and natives made encounters less likely, but the fear of Indian attacks was great among many in Herndon's party and Herndon recounts reports of massacres.
Both narrators describe the encounters with Mormons and are repelled by their polygamy, but Kelly acknowledges their hospitality and industry, coming away with no small respect for them. Herndon's interactions are more superficial and likely less forgiving of their gender relations from the start.
After crossing the Rocky Mountains, their journeys take different paths. Kelly proceeds through Utah and Nevada to cross the Sierra Nevadas, while Herndon travels north through Idaho to Montana. Both parties were drawn by the allure of recently discovered gold.
Reading the two accounts back to back provides a clear picture of how conditions changed for emigrants during the intervening years. It is hard to imagine how wagons could have been pulled across the continent in the spring and summer of 1849 and amazing how civilized the trail had become in 16 short years. It is also striking how unaware most of the Native Americans were in 1849 of the pending consequence of white emigration through their lands, but by 1865, the disaster must have been clear to them. What does not change is the racist views of the white emigrants and their inability to see beyond the values of their own culture.
After reading these two accounts, I was moved to pick up Francis Parkman's classic work The Oregon Trail, an account of a historian making a journey across the plains to the Rocky Mountains, then south to New Mexico and back to Missouri. As Parkman was not an emigrant himself, his perspective on the emigrants and the people of the West is more objective and rather disparaging. From the several score pages that I have read in The Oregon Trail, Parkman's literary style is far more refined than either of the authors reviewed here. It promises to be very engaging.
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