Friday, March 6, 2015

March 6, 2015: Forgotten Wars: Remembering the Sand Creek Massacre

[Two hundred years ago this week, the U.S. declared war on the North African nation of Algiers, leading to the unremembered conflict about which I wrote in Monday’s post. That Second Barbary War is one of many such forgotten wars in American history, and I’ll also highlight and AmericanStudy others for the remainder of the week’s posts. Leading up to a special weekend post responding to a relevant recent piece by one of my model AmericanStudiers.]
Three impressive sites and pieces on the 150th anniversary of an event that seriously complicates any easy or simplistically good-and-evil narratives of the Civil War:
1)      The Colorado Commemoration Commission’s official site;
2)      Ned Blackhawk’s impressive New York Times op ed on why and how we should remember the massacre;
3)      And an NPR story on the Colorado governor’s apology, and how it reflects some of our contemporary engagement with these histories.
Special post this weekend,
Ben

PS. What do you think? Other under-remembered conflicts you’d highlight?
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2 comments:

  1. Andrew LipsettMarch 6, 2015 at 6:08 AM

    Ben, tracing Colorado's own commemoration of Sand Creek is an interesting journey in and of itself. Much as I hate to give credit to the New Republic for anything, here's an interesting article on the Colorado State Capitol building's own remembrance of the conflict:

    http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120441/statue-celebrated-sand-creek-massacre

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  2. AmericanStudierMarch 6, 2015 at 6:24 AM

    Thanks Andrew! Seems like one of those places where Michael Kammen's distinction between celebratory commemoration and more critical remembrance gets particularly complicated and interesting.

    Ben

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