Happy New Year! I’m a firm believer in “anniversary history” and I like to start out the new year previewing (or guessing) what commemorations we might see. This past year was a busy one with the 400th anniversary of two major ports in our area, Gloucester and Portsmouth, as well as Rye and Dover, New Hampshire. I was really impressed with Gloucester’s year-long commemoration, especially its 400 Stories project, which will be a lasting legacy. Salem’s 400th is coming up in 2026, and I’ve been working on a book though all of last year and part of 2022 for that big anniversary: I’m handing it off to the publisher this month and eager to work on some other projects. 2024 looks a bit quiet in comparison with some other years but I’m sure there will be several Revolution 250 events. Salem was very much the center of the action in 1774 so I hope our city can rise to the occasion. Here’s where I think/know/hope we will see some reflective/commemorative activity:
Indigenous History: It seems to0 large a concurrence to me to have the 100th anniversary of Indian Citizenship Act occur in 1924 and the 200th anniversary of the establishment of the Bureau of Indian Affairs not to have a major reflective moment, especially given the current and intensifying historiographical interest in Native American history. We certainly need one (or two or three or…….) moments of reflection. Again, NOT an American historian, so a bit shocked that unqualified citizenship was not granted to Native Americans until 1924 (actually, I don’t think I can use the word unqualified) and their voting rights were still challenged after that!
Essay on citizenship by a student at the Leech Lake Indian School, 1917-1920, Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Record Group 75. “the ones who steal or TELL LIES are not good citizens.” (capitalization mine)
Winter Olympics (on a much lighter note): the first Winter Olympics was held in 1924 in Chamonix, France, and in the following year the International Olympic Committee voted to make it a regular event every four years. Now of course the summer and winter Olympics are staggered, and as this summer’s games are in Paris I think there will be some kind of recognition of the centennial from a cultural and/or French perspective.
Courtesy Swann Auctions
Impressionism: Speaking of France, the first impressionist exhibition happened in Paris in 1874, and this cultural watershed will be marked with a major exhibition at the Musée d’Orsay that will travel to the US later in the year. 130 works will be featured, including paintings by Monet, Renoir, Degas, Morisot, Pissarro, Sisley and Cézanne and some of their lesser-known contemporaries, as well as an “immersive expedition in virtual reality” entitled “Tonight with the Impressionists.” Looking over all the previews for this commemoration, I realize that I’ve never appreciate how radical the Impressionist movement was—looking forward to this spring.
Claude Monet, Impression, soleil levant (détail), 1872-1873, musée Marmottan Monet, Paris © RMN-Grand Palais
Salem as center of pre-Revolutionary activity: 1774 was a big year for Salem in terms of Revolutionary activity. Royal Governor Thomas Gage moved the location of the Massachusetts General Court from Boston to Salem, where he hoped it would be “more inclined to comply with the King’s Expectations,” in June but compliance was not forthcoming. Not at all. The Salem assembly would not comply or even be disbanded after Gage’s order, instead resolving to endorse “a meeting of Committees, from the several Colonies on this Continent … to consult upon the present state of the Colo¬ nies, and the miseries, to which they are, and must be reduced, by the operation of certain Acts of Parliament respecting America ; and to deliberate and determine upon wise and proper measures to be by them recommended to all the Colonies, for the recovery and establishment of their just rights and liberties.” This “meeting of Committees” became known as the Continental Congress. Later in the summer, after Gage prohibited town meetings without his prior approval, Salem held one which drew over 3000 attendees, and in the fall a Salem “tea party” on October 3 was followed by a de facto declaration of independence. After yet another Gage cancellation, of a meeting of the Massachusetts General Court, its members met anyway on October 5 and voted “to resolve themselves into a Provincial Congress” which was not answerable to London.
January 1st, 2024 at 2:54 pm
The issue of Native American citizenship is a complex one, even apart from contemporary racial perspectives, which of course informed the debate. The United States from the Treaty of Paris (1783) onward definitely included within its claimed territorial jurisdiction Native American tribes over which it in fact exerted no actual authority, but treated as “dependent nations” (in itself a loaded concept capable of multiple interpretations). And Native American attitudes toward acquiring U.S. citizenship were conditional on whether they saw some advantage, thought it implies a heretofore unaccepted acknowledgement of U.S. authority, and raised the issue of how being U.S. citizens affects their membership (which might be considered citizenship) in Native American tribes.
From the U.S. government’s perspective, Native Americans could be divided into those who had assimilated and hence become U.S. citizens. “Indians not taxed,” who were Native Americans living on U.S territory (as defined by treaties with foreign powers, none Native American) but who were not subject to full U.S. authority and “wild Indians,” a subcategory of the latter who lived beyond effective U.S. jurisdiction. Those tribes with whom the U.S. had negotiated treaties were generally considered “dependent nations” and “Indians not taxed,” and it was not just a matter of accepting the Native Americans, but possibly infringing on their tribal authority, that made extending them citizenship a controversial issue. It’s worth perusing the Congressional Record, the then-official recording of Congress’s proceedings, over the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause, to realize how distinctive the question of Native American citizenship was from, say , accepting foreigners as citizens
As a side note, and pardon me for going on so long, much of the contemporary opposition to extending citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants is intellectually based on misappropriating the arguments over Native American citizenship to immigrants; John Eastman, perhaps the most famous legal scholar to oppose citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants, relied in part on a Supreme Court decision, Elk v. Wilkins (1884), to justify his position.
P.S. The use of the phrase “illegal immigrant” is not meant to take a side in THAT debate, merely to use the phrase as it is used by people such as Eastman.
January 1st, 2024 at 3:29 pm
Thank you, Brian. I’m glad you went on and on—-I am reading how complex this was, and grateful for your summary!
January 2nd, 2024 at 11:17 am
Coincidentally, just after I wrote this, I was reading one of those “state of the field as of about five years ago” books on the history of witchcraft which in one chapter discussed Native American sovereignty and its role in the trial and execution of two Pueblos of New Mexico Territory as witches by Native American authorities in 1854. The author, Adam Jortner, a professor at Auburn, links the incident to the more general issue of violence along the frontier, among other things, but his discussion of Native American sovereignty discusses how its nature under U.S. rule was as much a practical issue as a matter of treaty responsibilities.
Not a subject in which I expected to see a discussion of Native American sovereignty to come up, so I’m grateful to the author.
January 2nd, 2024 at 9:12 pm
1854!!!
January 1st, 2024 at 3:35 pm
Hello,
I love reading your blog. However, I wanted to offer a clarification. Indeed, the Lafayette Trail places markers, but it is a totally separate organization from the American Friends of Lafayette (AFL) who will be hosting the entirety of the recreation of Bicentennial Farewell Tour…the largest reenactment ever staged in history! It will cover 13-months, 24 states and 6000 miles. I am the National Vice Chair for the event. Your blog erroneously leads the reader to think that the Lafayette Trail and AFL are the same organization. You correctly linked to AFL’s website lafayette200.org which is the “go-to” site for all planned events for the Farewell Tour, but again, The Lafayette Trail (markers only) and the American Friends of Lafayette’s Farewell Tour (reenactment and hosting organization for the 13 month celebration…lafayette200.org) are two TOTALLY separate organizations! Thank you so much!
Patricia L. Maclay, MD
National Vice Chair
Bicentennial of the Lafayette Farewell Tour (2024 – 2025)
Board Member
American Friends of Lafayette
January 1st, 2024 at 3:39 pm
Thank you so much, Patricia! I will correct and clarify in the post. Thanks also for all your hard work—great initiative.