I may have said this more than once on my tour: I thought I had known, or at least, had a pretty good handle on American history. I had lived in Rhode Island for more than 40 years. When I met my wife, she lived in Lexington, steps from the Green. I had walked the Freedom Trail, visited the USS Constitution more than once, visited the disappointing Plymouth Rock, and the neighboring Plantation reenactment. In my last years at Roger Williams University, I assisted in development of the Roger Seminar, a first-year experience for our students to understand our namesake, his role in the founding of Rhode Island, and influence on the Constitution. I also knew naval history from the early days of John Paul Jones, raiding as far as Ireland (and myth making in returning silver stolen by his crew, gentleman that he was), through the explorations of Perry and opening of Asia, through the Great White Fleet, and the subsequent aircraft carrier battles of the far Pacific. My association, personal and professional, with David Lux, an historian of science and technology, taught me to understand America\u2019s role, particularly in the 20th century where she dominated those fields. The Eads Bridge, the Brooklyn Bridge, Veranzano Narrows, Mackinac Bridge, are all testaments to engineering prowess. After that long preamble, I am stunned at what I have not known and what I have learned on my travels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On my tour south in Chapter One, I had inklings that I knew little of the indigenous peoples or their societies that inhabited the Americas beyond the coasts. I had know about the Wampanoag, the Narragansett, the Mohegan and Mashuntucket. They had been decimated in the wars with the Pilgrims, who, landing in 1620, destroyed the tribes in less than thirty years in the King Phillips Wars as the Pilgrims wanted more land. They were not, however, the Indians of American popular culture exported as cowboy movies. Those Indians rode horses across great plains and harrassed, tormented, and scalped pioneers from wagon trains moving west. Cowboys and cavalry were also involved. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My first tour soutn was trying to better understand the Civil War and the subsequent Civil Rights struggles some 100 years after the last shot, the Emancipation proclamation, and Reconstruction. My current tour has no theme or agenda, although I have thought about a Native American perspective, especially with a detour in Mississippi to a mound site on my southern trip. I have dipped my toes, but am kept headed back to 1861. It may require a western tour to fully understand the tribal role. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I had thought the \u2018state\u2019s rights\u2019 argument was a Civil War justification. However, Georgia and other western states of the early post Independence like Kentucky, Tennessee, then the flood following the Louisiana purchase, had exerted states rights to justify harassment and extermination of the native tribes in their lands. The Federal Government tried to maintain supremacy over Indian affairs and argued for their protection against settlers. The states, Georgia in particular, felt otherwise. The Supreme Court in the 1820s created a new category for tribes, labeling them \u201cdomestic dependent nations\u201d rather than the sovereign nations they had been previously. Federal policy change to implementing Indian removal staunched the states right argument before it led to a crackup of the union. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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