1 00:00:01,480 --> 00:00:05,360 Speaker 1: In the eighteen thirties, two talented painters, George Catlan and 2 00:00:05,600 --> 00:00:09,320 Speaker 1: Carl Bodmer, journeyed into the West and left the future 3 00:00:09,680 --> 00:00:14,440 Speaker 1: a marvelous body of artwork time machine visuals that enable 4 00:00:14,520 --> 00:00:17,720 Speaker 1: us now to form an evocative sense of the early 5 00:00:17,760 --> 00:00:22,439 Speaker 1: West and its primary characters. I'm Dan Florey's and this 6 00:00:22,600 --> 00:00:26,960 Speaker 1: is the American West, brought to you by Velvet Buck. 7 00:00:27,600 --> 00:00:30,960 Speaker 1: Still in barrel. Velvet Buck arrives this summer, just in 8 00:00:31,040 --> 00:00:34,200 Speaker 1: time for the season that calls us home. A portion 9 00:00:34,360 --> 00:00:38,280 Speaker 1: of every bottle supports backcountry hunters and anglers to protect 10 00:00:38,280 --> 00:00:56,040 Speaker 1: public lands, waters and wildlife enjoy responsibly Catlan's and Bodmer's 11 00:00:56,360 --> 00:01:05,480 Speaker 1: time machine visuals. A few years ago, when high Summer 12 00:01:05,560 --> 00:01:09,759 Speaker 1: burned its brief bright flame in Montana's Glacier National Park, 13 00:01:10,280 --> 00:01:12,800 Speaker 1: a friend and I loaded up our backpacks and headed 14 00:01:12,920 --> 00:01:17,039 Speaker 1: off for the Northern Rockies back country. During that narrow 15 00:01:17,040 --> 00:01:21,360 Speaker 1: window and Glacier between July high water and late August snow, 16 00:01:21,800 --> 00:01:24,720 Speaker 1: you can ford the rivers on sunny mornings and sleep 17 00:01:24,840 --> 00:01:28,960 Speaker 1: under star spangled mountain skies. So my buddy and I 18 00:01:29,080 --> 00:01:32,800 Speaker 1: spent four days backpacking across the park from its western 19 00:01:32,840 --> 00:01:38,160 Speaker 1: boundary to Blackfeet Lands on its eastern one. In my 20 00:01:38,280 --> 00:01:41,160 Speaker 1: mind's eye, those four days still emerge in fair detail, 21 00:01:42,120 --> 00:01:45,560 Speaker 1: the adrenaline surge of crossing the Flathead River with a 22 00:01:45,600 --> 00:01:50,800 Speaker 1: full backpack, the thunder and spray of Niak Falls, miles 23 00:01:50,800 --> 00:01:54,520 Speaker 1: of slogging through neck high huckleberry bushes in the best 24 00:01:54,560 --> 00:01:58,800 Speaker 1: grizzly habitat left on Earth, and high elevation nights with 25 00:01:59,000 --> 00:02:04,320 Speaker 1: stars polished to brilliance. There was also the technicolor panorama 26 00:02:04,360 --> 00:02:09,040 Speaker 1: from a top cutbank pass and an unintentional glacide down 27 00:02:09,040 --> 00:02:11,920 Speaker 1: a snowfield which could have ended badly had I not 28 00:02:12,040 --> 00:02:15,359 Speaker 1: pulled out a stand up slide into second base from 29 00:02:15,360 --> 00:02:19,000 Speaker 1: a past life. No one drowned in the Flathead River, 30 00:02:19,480 --> 00:02:22,680 Speaker 1: was rushed by a grizzly, toppled off a glacier, or 31 00:02:22,720 --> 00:02:27,760 Speaker 1: got struck by lightning amongst the peaks beyond my memories. 32 00:02:28,240 --> 00:02:31,720 Speaker 1: I preserve this adventure the way we all do now 33 00:02:32,040 --> 00:02:36,760 Speaker 1: with photographs. What still photographs lack in recreating the past, 34 00:02:36,919 --> 00:02:40,920 Speaker 1: of course, is the ability to engage all the human senses. 35 00:02:41,960 --> 00:02:44,840 Speaker 1: Nayak Falls is a marvel in my shots of it, 36 00:02:45,280 --> 00:02:50,079 Speaker 1: but since this backpack predated smartphones, the falls stand mute 37 00:02:50,160 --> 00:02:55,560 Speaker 1: in my photos, they're crashing thunder now, irretrievable. I have 38 00:02:55,680 --> 00:02:59,360 Speaker 1: one photo from day two, a fresh grizzly scat in 39 00:02:59,400 --> 00:03:04,359 Speaker 1: our trail, but I only dimly recall the primary sensory effect, 40 00:03:04,400 --> 00:03:08,640 Speaker 1: which naturally was the redolent, earthy scent of half hour 41 00:03:08,800 --> 00:03:13,840 Speaker 1: old bearshit. It's fortunate that we humans evolved to be 42 00:03:14,120 --> 00:03:17,920 Speaker 1: such a visual species, though, because I can still conjure 43 00:03:17,919 --> 00:03:21,200 Speaker 1: a sense of this boundary to boundary hike and glacier 44 00:03:21,600 --> 00:03:25,520 Speaker 1: purely from images. That knowledge helps me put aside any 45 00:03:25,560 --> 00:03:28,560 Speaker 1: disappointment that when we try to reach back in time 46 00:03:29,000 --> 00:03:32,720 Speaker 1: and touch the early West, our best time machine for 47 00:03:32,800 --> 00:03:38,440 Speaker 1: that engages just one sense, the visual record, a record 48 00:03:38,520 --> 00:03:41,920 Speaker 1: left to us by artists who were adventurous and talented 49 00:03:42,040 --> 00:03:45,760 Speaker 1: enough to make us believe sometimes that we're standing there 50 00:03:45,840 --> 00:03:48,640 Speaker 1: beside them in the West of the eighteen thirties or 51 00:03:48,680 --> 00:03:52,640 Speaker 1: eighteen forties. The two time machine guys I think are 52 00:03:52,680 --> 00:03:55,520 Speaker 1: the very best for setting me down in their time 53 00:03:55,840 --> 00:03:59,360 Speaker 1: and in the places they saw are George Catlan and 54 00:03:59,440 --> 00:04:02,880 Speaker 1: Carl b Let me tell you a little bit about 55 00:04:03,000 --> 00:04:06,480 Speaker 1: each of them and why time perusing the images they 56 00:04:06,560 --> 00:04:09,680 Speaker 1: left the future just might be ours you don't have 57 00:04:09,800 --> 00:04:22,800 Speaker 1: to deduct from your allotted span on Earth. Sometime in 58 00:04:22,839 --> 00:04:28,160 Speaker 1: the past half century, George Catlan managed to be modestly rediscovered. 59 00:04:29,000 --> 00:04:31,960 Speaker 1: That's something of a miracle for a nineteenth century man 60 00:04:32,000 --> 00:04:35,919 Speaker 1: whose lifetime work was once stored away in a boiler factory, 61 00:04:36,200 --> 00:04:40,600 Speaker 1: then forgotten and left to nearly ruin there. But nowadays 62 00:04:40,640 --> 00:04:43,920 Speaker 1: most people interested in the West and its story no 63 00:04:44,120 --> 00:04:47,800 Speaker 1: Catlan's name and might have a hazy notion of his career, 64 00:04:48,240 --> 00:04:50,680 Speaker 1: even if the depth of understanding is about on a 65 00:04:50,760 --> 00:04:53,880 Speaker 1: par with having heard of Van Go enough to know 66 00:04:54,000 --> 00:04:57,720 Speaker 1: that he cut off his ear. Cocktail party conversation may 67 00:04:57,760 --> 00:05:00,640 Speaker 1: not get at exactly why this Western art was so 68 00:05:00,800 --> 00:05:04,400 Speaker 1: passionate about Indians and the Dutch Ones so committed to 69 00:05:04,440 --> 00:05:09,160 Speaker 1: slicing and dicing his anatomy. But Catlan does have name recognition. 70 00:05:10,520 --> 00:05:13,840 Speaker 1: In Catlan's case, name recognition probably has more to do 71 00:05:13,920 --> 00:05:17,919 Speaker 1: with his subject matter than with his life. Americans have 72 00:05:17,960 --> 00:05:21,800 Speaker 1: a powerful fascination with Native people. From the time of 73 00:05:21,839 --> 00:05:25,440 Speaker 1: the Boston Tea Party down to the Last Grateful Dead concerts, 74 00:05:25,960 --> 00:05:30,080 Speaker 1: Americans have been cross dressing as Indians and sometimes even 75 00:05:30,160 --> 00:05:33,160 Speaker 1: calling on the Native story to help figure out our 76 00:05:33,240 --> 00:05:37,080 Speaker 1: national identity. So most of us are prepared to understand 77 00:05:37,160 --> 00:05:41,320 Speaker 1: Catlan's mission as a painter, which was obsessive enough to 78 00:05:41,440 --> 00:05:45,440 Speaker 1: have inspired Hermann Melville in developing the character of Captain Ahem. 79 00:05:46,520 --> 00:05:49,760 Speaker 1: Because Catlan wrote as well as painted, we know a 80 00:05:49,800 --> 00:05:54,440 Speaker 1: lot about that obsession, which he described this way. I 81 00:05:54,560 --> 00:05:59,640 Speaker 1: sat out alone, unaided and unadvised, resolved if my life 82 00:05:59,680 --> 00:06:02,400 Speaker 1: should be spared by the aid of my brush and 83 00:06:02,520 --> 00:06:06,960 Speaker 1: pen to rescue from oblivion so much of the Indians' 84 00:06:06,960 --> 00:06:11,839 Speaker 1: looks and customs, as the industry and ardent enthusiasm of 85 00:06:11,920 --> 00:06:16,279 Speaker 1: one lifetime could accomplish. He wrote that he sought to 86 00:06:16,360 --> 00:06:20,920 Speaker 1: record nothing less than true and fact simile traces of 87 00:06:20,960 --> 00:06:25,320 Speaker 1: individual life and historical facts. He put that phrase in 88 00:06:25,360 --> 00:06:29,920 Speaker 1: italics to emphasize it. That goal seems noble, maybe more 89 00:06:29,960 --> 00:06:33,840 Speaker 1: than a touch romantic. In Catlan's case, romance was so 90 00:06:34,040 --> 00:06:38,159 Speaker 1: embedded that he struck his peers, fellow painters who also 91 00:06:38,240 --> 00:06:42,960 Speaker 1: went West, like Alfred Jacob Miller, John James Audobon, and yes, 92 00:06:43,080 --> 00:06:48,160 Speaker 1: Carl Bodmer, as a fraud. Humbug was the favored one 93 00:06:48,200 --> 00:06:52,080 Speaker 1: word put down Miller, who had visited some of the 94 00:06:52,120 --> 00:06:56,279 Speaker 1: same tribes shortly after Catlan used it, and so did Audobon, 95 00:06:56,680 --> 00:06:59,560 Speaker 1: who was on the Missouri River a decade after Catlan. 96 00:07:00,520 --> 00:07:05,719 Speaker 1: Bodmer actually advised European friends to avoid Catlan's exhibition, The 97 00:07:05,880 --> 00:07:09,400 Speaker 1: Indian Gallery, which in the eighteen forties was the first 98 00:07:09,640 --> 00:07:14,760 Speaker 1: traveling Western show ever to tour Europe. As for Audubon, 99 00:07:15,120 --> 00:07:18,640 Speaker 1: he wrote of Catlan, I pity him. He could have 100 00:07:18,760 --> 00:07:24,080 Speaker 1: been an honest man. What did criticism like this mean? 101 00:07:25,120 --> 00:07:28,200 Speaker 1: Was George Catlan, the first person to devote his life 102 00:07:28,200 --> 00:07:31,600 Speaker 1: to showing the world the West, its prairies, its great 103 00:07:31,680 --> 00:07:35,960 Speaker 1: herds and their predators, its villages of graceful teps, its 104 00:07:36,080 --> 00:07:39,360 Speaker 1: rivers and maces and bad lands, truly dishonest in what 105 00:07:39,440 --> 00:07:43,760 Speaker 1: he portrayed, or his competitors just expressing jealousy as the 106 00:07:43,800 --> 00:07:48,280 Speaker 1: success he enjoyed with a European tour. Envy I think, 107 00:07:48,400 --> 00:07:51,360 Speaker 1: especially in the case of Audubon and bober had something 108 00:07:51,360 --> 00:07:53,640 Speaker 1: to do with it, But there may have been something 109 00:07:53,680 --> 00:07:58,400 Speaker 1: else going on. I believe Catlan saw the West both 110 00:07:58,480 --> 00:08:02,200 Speaker 1: with his eyes and with his heart, by which I 111 00:08:02,320 --> 00:08:07,800 Speaker 1: mean he had an empathetic sensitivity. Catlan obviously had a 112 00:08:07,880 --> 00:08:11,720 Speaker 1: keen and discerning eye, but more than anything else, he 113 00:08:11,920 --> 00:08:15,560 Speaker 1: was sympathetic to Native people at a time when that 114 00:08:15,840 --> 00:08:22,320 Speaker 1: was not a common reaction for many Americans. Nothing Catlan 115 00:08:22,400 --> 00:08:24,640 Speaker 1: ever did, was easy, and that may be one of 116 00:08:24,640 --> 00:08:28,040 Speaker 1: the reasons he was able to empathize with others. He 117 00:08:28,120 --> 00:08:32,079 Speaker 1: was born in the Wyoming Valley near Wilkesbury, Pennsylvania, in 118 00:08:32,160 --> 00:08:35,559 Speaker 1: seventeen ninety six, and as a young man, trained as 119 00:08:35,600 --> 00:08:39,320 Speaker 1: a lawyer in Connecticut, like most of us do. By 120 00:08:39,320 --> 00:08:42,280 Speaker 1: his mid twenties, it changed his mind about his future 121 00:08:42,559 --> 00:08:46,160 Speaker 1: and found that his true bliss lay in painting, in 122 00:08:46,320 --> 00:08:50,360 Speaker 1: visual representations of the world. So he attached himself to 123 00:08:50,400 --> 00:08:54,840 Speaker 1: the Pennsylvania Academy in Philadelphia, studying to become a history 124 00:08:54,880 --> 00:08:59,240 Speaker 1: painter in the tradition of European academic style. At the 125 00:08:59,280 --> 00:09:02,959 Speaker 1: same time, he fashioned a sort of starving artist's existence 126 00:09:03,280 --> 00:09:07,200 Speaker 1: painting miniature portraits, a skill he would fall back on 127 00:09:07,400 --> 00:09:10,840 Speaker 1: many times in his life among the Indians. As he 128 00:09:10,960 --> 00:09:14,640 Speaker 1: learned about art, he also absorbed the heady world of 129 00:09:14,640 --> 00:09:18,560 Speaker 1: Philadelphia at a time when America was blooming and starting 130 00:09:18,600 --> 00:09:22,600 Speaker 1: to embrace a sense of America as separate from Europe. 131 00:09:22,880 --> 00:09:27,360 Speaker 1: Even exceptional, Catlin was lucky enough to find himself in 132 00:09:27,440 --> 00:09:31,480 Speaker 1: sync with America's new view of itself, even capable of 133 00:09:31,720 --> 00:09:36,439 Speaker 1: articulating a version of that Europeans could love, the United 134 00:09:36,480 --> 00:09:39,880 Speaker 1: States was hungry for some way to identify itself as 135 00:09:39,960 --> 00:09:43,800 Speaker 1: distinct from the Old World, and America's wild natural world, 136 00:09:44,040 --> 00:09:48,240 Speaker 1: along with its indigenous inhabitants, neither of which characterized Europe, 137 00:09:48,640 --> 00:09:52,439 Speaker 1: seemed to offer the best chance for them. As Catlin 138 00:09:52,559 --> 00:09:57,680 Speaker 1: and other Americans studied painting, writers like William Bartram, Ralph Waldo, 139 00:09:57,679 --> 00:10:02,960 Speaker 1: Emerson Washington Irving, James Finnimore Cooper, and Henry David Thoreau 140 00:10:03,440 --> 00:10:06,280 Speaker 1: already were at work on a body of literature that 141 00:10:06,320 --> 00:10:10,640 Speaker 1: would wrap the story of wild nature, Indians, and westering 142 00:10:10,760 --> 00:10:19,280 Speaker 1: adventuring into the country's new definition of itself. What Catlan 143 00:10:19,440 --> 00:10:25,559 Speaker 1: and his contemporaries were witnessing were the stirrings of American Romanticism. 144 00:10:26,160 --> 00:10:28,840 Speaker 1: Romanticism had begun in Europe, and it was another one 145 00:10:28,880 --> 00:10:32,520 Speaker 1: of its exports, but in Catlan's age, it took on 146 00:10:32,760 --> 00:10:37,000 Speaker 1: an American life of its own. One element of Romanticism 147 00:10:37,040 --> 00:10:40,280 Speaker 1: that landed on fertile soil here was the new idea 148 00:10:40,640 --> 00:10:45,240 Speaker 1: that wild nature wasn't the haunt of demons or hobgoblins, 149 00:10:45,280 --> 00:10:49,880 Speaker 1: at all, but in fact was the freshest manifestation of God. 150 00:10:50,520 --> 00:10:54,840 Speaker 1: So people living in close proximity to nature were especially 151 00:10:54,960 --> 00:11:00,240 Speaker 1: graced Thereau, as always was a quick study. Is not 152 00:11:00,520 --> 00:11:05,000 Speaker 1: nature rightly read that for which she has commonly taken 153 00:11:05,080 --> 00:11:09,880 Speaker 1: to be the symbol? Merely? He wrote, isn't nature? In 154 00:11:10,000 --> 00:11:15,880 Speaker 1: other words, the deity itself. That idea's deep internalization in 155 00:11:15,920 --> 00:11:20,600 Speaker 1: the American psyche explains a lot of big picture American history, 156 00:11:21,040 --> 00:11:24,880 Speaker 1: like national parks and our wilderness system, both of which 157 00:11:24,920 --> 00:11:29,240 Speaker 1: were global firsts. As for the idea that humans living 158 00:11:29,240 --> 00:11:32,480 Speaker 1: in a state of nature were blessed our noble savages 159 00:11:33,120 --> 00:11:36,280 Speaker 1: that had a rockier trajectory in a country trying to 160 00:11:36,360 --> 00:11:41,240 Speaker 1: displace the natives. When Catlan made his first Great Western 161 00:11:41,320 --> 00:11:44,280 Speaker 1: journey up the Missouri River in his quest to become 162 00:11:44,640 --> 00:11:47,720 Speaker 1: the historian of the Indian as he put it, his 163 00:11:47,960 --> 00:11:51,800 Speaker 1: eyes saw the great Plains clearly, and his romantic heart 164 00:11:51,960 --> 00:11:56,040 Speaker 1: perceived the resident natives as living in a divine state 165 00:11:56,080 --> 00:12:00,560 Speaker 1: of nature. Catlan thus was willing to make two conceptusizations 166 00:12:00,600 --> 00:12:03,839 Speaker 1: that set him apart from most of his American contemporaries, 167 00:12:04,120 --> 00:12:09,320 Speaker 1: who were interpreting Romanticism quite differently. For one, in eighteen 168 00:12:09,400 --> 00:12:14,040 Speaker 1: thirty two, Catland found the Great Plains and entirely deserving 169 00:12:14,120 --> 00:12:18,319 Speaker 1: an even inspiring romantic landscape. Most of the rest of 170 00:12:18,400 --> 00:12:22,680 Speaker 1: America followed the European tradition and searched for romantic country 171 00:12:22,920 --> 00:12:27,439 Speaker 1: in the Catskills or the Rockies, vertical terrain that reached 172 00:12:27,440 --> 00:12:32,320 Speaker 1: to the divine heavens, which the horizontal Yellow Plains decidedly didn't. 173 00:12:33,400 --> 00:12:37,679 Speaker 1: Catlan's painter contemporaries back east were thoroughly immersed in the 174 00:12:37,800 --> 00:12:41,720 Speaker 1: mountain as the be all and end all of romantic scenery. 175 00:12:42,800 --> 00:12:46,120 Speaker 1: So how interesting it was that in eighteen thirty two 176 00:12:46,720 --> 00:12:51,560 Speaker 1: George Catlan painted the curvaceous, shadow filled plains as a 177 00:12:51,800 --> 00:12:56,440 Speaker 1: soul melting country to my eye, like a fairy land. 178 00:12:56,640 --> 00:13:01,720 Speaker 1: He wrote, journeying up the Missour aboard a fur Company steamboat, 179 00:13:01,760 --> 00:13:06,560 Speaker 1: the Yellowstone. Catlan executed one romantic landscape painting after another 180 00:13:07,400 --> 00:13:11,400 Speaker 1: two Catlans. I've always lingered over to penetrate time and 181 00:13:11,559 --> 00:13:15,360 Speaker 1: visually experience the west of the eighteen thirties. Our Big 182 00:13:15,440 --> 00:13:19,439 Speaker 1: Bend on the Upper Missouri above Saint Louis, and the 183 00:13:19,559 --> 00:13:25,160 Speaker 1: brick Kilns clay bluffs above Saint Louis. These are horizontal, 184 00:13:25,360 --> 00:13:31,760 Speaker 1: romantic landscapes. Catln's time machine visuals make abundantly clear that 185 00:13:31,840 --> 00:13:35,880 Speaker 1: the three predominant characters of the nineteenth century West were 186 00:13:36,040 --> 00:13:40,719 Speaker 1: its remarkable landscapes, the most picturesque and beautiful shapes and 187 00:13:40,800 --> 00:13:45,800 Speaker 1: colors imaginable, he said, a blessed native people, and a 188 00:13:45,880 --> 00:13:51,840 Speaker 1: diverse and charismatic wildlife. Finding himself among those three, but 189 00:13:52,000 --> 00:13:55,080 Speaker 1: with a gnawing anxiety about what was coming in the 190 00:13:55,160 --> 00:13:59,280 Speaker 1: future for all of them, led him to a logical conclusion. 191 00:14:00,240 --> 00:14:04,800 Speaker 1: George Catlan was the first American to call for the 192 00:14:04,880 --> 00:14:09,719 Speaker 1: creation of a Western National Park. Here's how he put that, 193 00:14:11,640 --> 00:14:15,800 Speaker 1: and what a splendid contemplation too, when one who has 194 00:14:15,960 --> 00:14:20,480 Speaker 1: traveled these realms and can duly appreciate them, imagines them 195 00:14:20,560 --> 00:14:23,840 Speaker 1: as they might in future be seen by some great 196 00:14:23,920 --> 00:14:28,560 Speaker 1: protecting policy of government, preserved in their pristine beauty and 197 00:14:28,720 --> 00:14:34,960 Speaker 1: wildness in a magnificent park. It was Catlan's next bold 198 00:14:34,960 --> 00:14:38,440 Speaker 1: step that I think shows why he suffered attacks from 199 00:14:38,480 --> 00:14:42,160 Speaker 1: some of his contemporaries. He went on to argue that 200 00:14:42,240 --> 00:14:45,880 Speaker 1: in such a part the world could see for ages 201 00:14:45,960 --> 00:14:50,040 Speaker 1: to come. The Native Indian, in his classic attire, galloping 202 00:14:50,080 --> 00:14:53,600 Speaker 1: his wild horse with sinewy bow and shield and lance 203 00:14:53,880 --> 00:14:57,080 Speaker 1: amid the fleeting herds of elks and buffaloes. What a 204 00:14:57,120 --> 00:15:00,800 Speaker 1: beautiful and thrilling specimen for America to present des and 205 00:15:00,960 --> 00:15:04,240 Speaker 1: hold up to the view of her refined citizens in 206 00:15:04,280 --> 00:15:09,600 Speaker 1: the world in future ages. A nation's park containing man 207 00:15:09,680 --> 00:15:13,320 Speaker 1: and beast in all the wild and freshness of their 208 00:15:13,400 --> 00:15:19,080 Speaker 1: nature's beauty. Exactly here is where Catlan broke ranks with 209 00:15:19,160 --> 00:15:24,320 Speaker 1: most of his contemporaries. Most Americans expected Indians to melt away, 210 00:15:25,080 --> 00:15:29,680 Speaker 1: to perform a vanishing act in a civilized America. Andrew 211 00:15:29,760 --> 00:15:34,480 Speaker 1: Jackson's administration was already removing Indians from the east. But 212 00:15:34,560 --> 00:15:38,200 Speaker 1: if you engage Catlan's time machine visuals and study the 213 00:15:38,240 --> 00:15:42,280 Speaker 1: great portraits he painted of these Missouri River peoples, the 214 00:15:42,320 --> 00:15:49,400 Speaker 1: Blackfeet leader Buffalo Bull's Backfat and his wife Crystalstone Eagle Ribs. 215 00:15:49,720 --> 00:15:53,200 Speaker 1: One of the extraordinary men of the Blackfoot tribe, Catlan said, 216 00:15:53,760 --> 00:15:57,520 Speaker 1: the crow four wolves, who carries himself with the most 217 00:15:57,560 --> 00:16:03,440 Speaker 1: graceful and manly mien. They tell another truth of Romanticism. 218 00:16:04,480 --> 00:16:09,640 Speaker 1: All these people were noble children of nature. When he 219 00:16:09,680 --> 00:16:12,960 Speaker 1: wrote of them in his classic book Letters and Notes 220 00:16:13,000 --> 00:16:17,000 Speaker 1: on the North American Indians, Catlan compared them to the 221 00:16:17,160 --> 00:16:22,280 Speaker 1: ancient Britons or to the Greeks of Homer's literature, in 222 00:16:22,360 --> 00:16:25,840 Speaker 1: their wildness and romance and color. As he put it, 223 00:16:26,240 --> 00:16:30,520 Speaker 1: America's native people were worthy of admiration, and by all 224 00:16:30,560 --> 00:16:36,200 Speaker 1: that was right and romantic, they ought to endure in America. 225 00:16:36,400 --> 00:16:39,640 Speaker 1: This is where George Catlin was most exposed, and his 226 00:16:39,840 --> 00:16:44,880 Speaker 1: empathetic heart does not resemble Alfred Jacob Miller's or Autumn's, 227 00:16:45,120 --> 00:16:49,480 Speaker 1: or it seems, the universal and not very sympathetic heart 228 00:16:49,560 --> 00:16:54,840 Speaker 1: of nineteenth century America. The Swiss Carl Bodmer, whose time 229 00:16:54,920 --> 00:16:58,040 Speaker 1: machine visuals I want to take up next, knew damn 230 00:16:58,120 --> 00:17:01,480 Speaker 1: well he was a much better painter than Catlan, yet 231 00:17:01,480 --> 00:17:04,800 Speaker 1: he struggled to have his work recognized and most likely 232 00:17:04,960 --> 00:17:09,760 Speaker 1: was jealous of Catlan's successes with his fellow Europeans. But 233 00:17:09,880 --> 00:17:14,440 Speaker 1: the Americans, Miller and Audubon saw the same northern plains 234 00:17:14,440 --> 00:17:18,679 Speaker 1: and native people Catlan did, yet a different alchemy played 235 00:17:18,680 --> 00:17:24,520 Speaker 1: out for both of them. True American noble savages weren't Indians, 236 00:17:25,280 --> 00:17:29,840 Speaker 1: but euro American's gone native like Daniel Boone, are the 237 00:17:30,000 --> 00:17:35,440 Speaker 1: mountain men Miller promoted for that role. As for Audubon, 238 00:17:35,760 --> 00:17:39,960 Speaker 1: who sneered at Catlan's infatuation with Indians. He seems to 239 00:17:40,040 --> 00:17:43,840 Speaker 1: have believed that the iconic American child of nature should 240 00:17:43,880 --> 00:17:49,160 Speaker 1: be John James Ottobon. So Audubon toured Europe with flowing hair, 241 00:17:49,680 --> 00:17:54,000 Speaker 1: dressed in fringed buckskins to present the Old worlders a 242 00:17:54,160 --> 00:18:01,239 Speaker 1: non Indian American noble savage. My other candidate, archdruid of 243 00:18:01,280 --> 00:18:04,880 Speaker 1: the early Western time machine, was not American but Swiss, 244 00:18:05,520 --> 00:18:08,560 Speaker 1: and like Catlin, what he did so critical to a 245 00:18:08,680 --> 00:18:11,919 Speaker 1: visual species like us was to paid a record, in 246 00:18:12,080 --> 00:18:15,840 Speaker 1: full color splendor, of almost all he saw in the 247 00:18:15,880 --> 00:18:22,919 Speaker 1: eighteen thirties West. His name was Karl Bodmer. Before I 248 00:18:22,960 --> 00:18:27,640 Speaker 1: described Bodmer's wondrous talents and the grand adventure that elicited them, 249 00:18:28,240 --> 00:18:30,879 Speaker 1: let me make the visual case just a bit better. 250 00:18:32,080 --> 00:18:35,280 Speaker 1: On our Glacier Park traverse. My buddy and I both 251 00:18:35,359 --> 00:18:39,800 Speaker 1: kept journals fairly full written accounts, Yet the seventy or 252 00:18:39,840 --> 00:18:43,400 Speaker 1: so photos I shot stand as a far more potent 253 00:18:43,440 --> 00:18:47,240 Speaker 1: way for me or for someone else, to relive the experience. 254 00:18:48,160 --> 00:18:50,919 Speaker 1: I notice when I read it now that my journal 255 00:18:51,040 --> 00:18:56,080 Speaker 1: mostly captures my daily emotional states, but the visual record 256 00:18:56,160 --> 00:18:59,720 Speaker 1: retrieves what the country looked like, the shape we were in, 257 00:19:00,119 --> 00:19:04,520 Speaker 1: how other hikers appeared. The reactions of wildlife are camp scenes. 258 00:19:05,359 --> 00:19:08,080 Speaker 1: I'm a writer, but I didn't write down many of 259 00:19:08,119 --> 00:19:12,800 Speaker 1: those things. Visuals of the world are precisely what Bodmer, 260 00:19:13,000 --> 00:19:15,560 Speaker 1: who had barely turned twenty four when he started up 261 00:19:15,600 --> 00:19:18,399 Speaker 1: the Missouri River in the year eighteen thirty three, was 262 00:19:18,520 --> 00:19:21,760 Speaker 1: able to bring to an early West that's now a 263 00:19:21,840 --> 00:19:27,080 Speaker 1: ghostly apparition the baseline world beneath all the subsequent change. 264 00:19:28,119 --> 00:19:31,600 Speaker 1: It's our great fortune down the timeline that Bodmer, who 265 00:19:31,640 --> 00:19:35,119 Speaker 1: is even more obscure than Catlan, brought to his adventure 266 00:19:35,520 --> 00:19:39,000 Speaker 1: both the prodigious energy of youth and a talent that 267 00:19:39,160 --> 00:19:41,680 Speaker 1: far outstripped that of any other painter in the West 268 00:19:42,040 --> 00:19:47,199 Speaker 1: until the Civil War and after. Bodmer's good fortune was 269 00:19:47,240 --> 00:19:51,040 Speaker 1: the adventure itself, which came as a gift of patronage 270 00:19:51,200 --> 00:19:56,680 Speaker 1: from the naturalist adventurer Prince Maximilian of vd nuID, one 271 00:19:56,680 --> 00:20:01,720 Speaker 1: of the great Alexander von Humboldt's prize pupils. At the 272 00:20:01,760 --> 00:20:05,720 Speaker 1: time he met Maximilian, Bodmer was training with an artist's 273 00:20:05,800 --> 00:20:08,719 Speaker 1: uncle in Prussia and getting by as a painter of 274 00:20:08,800 --> 00:20:13,080 Speaker 1: rivers and castles. Maximilian, for his part, had already made 275 00:20:13,080 --> 00:20:16,040 Speaker 1: a two year trek to Brazil and was planning his 276 00:20:16,200 --> 00:20:20,320 Speaker 1: next great adventure to the interior regions of the Missouri 277 00:20:20,400 --> 00:20:24,200 Speaker 1: in northern America. As he put it, Brazil had taught 278 00:20:24,200 --> 00:20:28,320 Speaker 1: Maximilian an important lesson. He wrote a colleague, I would 279 00:20:28,359 --> 00:20:31,680 Speaker 1: want to bring along a draftsman, a rarity which will 280 00:20:31,720 --> 00:20:35,240 Speaker 1: not be easy to find. He must be a landscape painter, 281 00:20:35,600 --> 00:20:40,800 Speaker 1: but also able to depict figures correctly and accurately, especially 282 00:20:40,840 --> 00:20:46,199 Speaker 1: the Indians. Bodmer's reaction to the Prince's offer, I do 283 00:20:46,280 --> 00:20:49,360 Speaker 1: not doubt that there are many painters who would accept 284 00:20:49,359 --> 00:20:53,520 Speaker 1: the Prince's conditions without objection to be able to go 285 00:20:53,880 --> 00:20:58,760 Speaker 1: on an interesting journey. A loopwarm reaction, maybe, but there 286 00:20:58,840 --> 00:21:03,880 Speaker 1: was a reason. Essentially, Bodmer's life became the story of 287 00:21:03,920 --> 00:21:08,840 Speaker 1: this one fortuitous offer. Later in his life post America, 288 00:21:09,240 --> 00:21:11,720 Speaker 1: he had a somewhat successful career in France as a 289 00:21:11,760 --> 00:21:15,320 Speaker 1: painter of animals and forest scenes, But in terms of 290 00:21:15,400 --> 00:21:19,160 Speaker 1: fame and an enduring reputation, Bodmer today is pretty much 291 00:21:19,200 --> 00:21:22,600 Speaker 1: a one hit band. And the Missouri River in eighteen 292 00:21:22,680 --> 00:21:26,680 Speaker 1: thirty three thirty four is the hit. Maximilian not only 293 00:21:26,720 --> 00:21:29,720 Speaker 1: gave Bodmer his one major trip abroad, it was a 294 00:21:29,760 --> 00:21:33,040 Speaker 1: trip that took him farther into darkest North America than 295 00:21:33,160 --> 00:21:37,159 Speaker 1: any artist had gone until then. When they arrived in 296 00:21:37,240 --> 00:21:40,879 Speaker 1: Saint Louis, the gateway to the West, Maximilian began to 297 00:21:41,000 --> 00:21:44,520 Speaker 1: waffle about whether to explore the southern of the northern West. 298 00:21:45,080 --> 00:21:48,239 Speaker 1: The Santa Fe Trail was now open, and stories he 299 00:21:48,240 --> 00:21:52,120 Speaker 1: heard about New Mexico were compelling. But a fur company 300 00:21:52,160 --> 00:21:55,280 Speaker 1: offer of a Missouri River passage aboard steamboats and keel 301 00:21:55,320 --> 00:21:58,800 Speaker 1: boats as far as Fort Mackenzie, within sight of the Rockies, 302 00:21:59,080 --> 00:22:05,280 Speaker 1: decided maxim on the Missouri. From his uncle, who had 303 00:22:05,320 --> 00:22:09,000 Speaker 1: studied with some of Switzerland's most prominent artists, Bodmer had 304 00:22:09,080 --> 00:22:13,360 Speaker 1: learned some valuable time machine lessons. In contrast to Catlan, 305 00:22:13,520 --> 00:22:16,760 Speaker 1: who painted so rapidly sometimes had brushes in both hands, 306 00:22:17,240 --> 00:22:21,400 Speaker 1: Bodmer was dedicated and careful, often spending an entire day 307 00:22:21,400 --> 00:22:24,919 Speaker 1: on a single piece. The simple truth is that Karl 308 00:22:24,960 --> 00:22:29,600 Speaker 1: Bodmer could paint the Western trifecta, landscapes, animals, and native 309 00:22:29,640 --> 00:22:33,080 Speaker 1: people better than just about anybody else who went west 310 00:22:34,000 --> 00:22:38,719 Speaker 1: for the full time machine effect sometimes spends slow, deliberate 311 00:22:38,800 --> 00:22:43,480 Speaker 1: time and good light with a book like Karl Bodmer's America. 312 00:22:44,440 --> 00:22:48,120 Speaker 1: The range of the guy's skill is breathtaking. While he's 313 00:22:48,160 --> 00:22:51,760 Speaker 1: most famous now for his Indian portraits and I adore 314 00:22:51,800 --> 00:22:56,680 Speaker 1: his landscapes, he probably was best of all portraying wildlife. 315 00:22:56,720 --> 00:22:59,719 Speaker 1: His portraits of the grand creatures of the West are 316 00:22:59,800 --> 00:23:06,840 Speaker 1: un expected and remarkable. Bodmer's bison, whooping crane, coyote, vulture, 317 00:23:07,160 --> 00:23:12,080 Speaker 1: bighorn sheep, pronghorns, mule, deer, elk all come across in 318 00:23:12,160 --> 00:23:17,680 Speaker 1: an effortless and observant perfection. Two of his finished watercolors 319 00:23:17,680 --> 00:23:21,480 Speaker 1: of wildlife Landscape with herd of Buffalo on the Upper 320 00:23:21,520 --> 00:23:25,720 Speaker 1: Missouri and Buffalo and elk on the Upper Missouri, are 321 00:23:25,840 --> 00:23:30,440 Speaker 1: scenes from eighteen thirties life it's hard to recreate, even 322 00:23:30,480 --> 00:23:34,959 Speaker 1: in Yellowstone or in Western movies. As for what the 323 00:23:34,960 --> 00:23:38,160 Speaker 1: country looked like, the first time I saw Bodmer's great 324 00:23:38,280 --> 00:23:43,040 Speaker 1: finished watercolor landscapes, the white castles of the Missouri, the 325 00:23:43,080 --> 00:23:46,439 Speaker 1: first chain of the Rocky Mountains above Fort Mackenzie, and 326 00:23:46,600 --> 00:23:51,600 Speaker 1: most particularly view of the bear Paw Mountains from Fort Mackenzie, 327 00:23:52,119 --> 00:23:55,159 Speaker 1: I thought he captured the early West, with its immense 328 00:23:55,240 --> 00:24:01,040 Speaker 1: feel of uninterrupted space and an unmarred, pellucid black atmosphere, 329 00:24:01,520 --> 00:24:05,560 Speaker 1: better than anything I'd ever imagined. Every time I look 330 00:24:05,600 --> 00:24:09,320 Speaker 1: at those pieces, I still think that, from a standpoint 331 00:24:09,359 --> 00:24:14,560 Speaker 1: of pure nostalgic emotion at what has been lost, Bodmer's 332 00:24:14,680 --> 00:24:17,479 Speaker 1: view of the Bear Palm Mountains is one of the 333 00:24:17,520 --> 00:24:22,840 Speaker 1: truest Western landscape paintings of all time. But the body 334 00:24:22,880 --> 00:24:26,200 Speaker 1: of work that keeps Bodmer's name alive is his marvelous 335 00:24:26,280 --> 00:24:35,880 Speaker 1: portfolio of the Indians of the Upper Missouri aricaras, hedatsas Mandans, Krees, Ascentiboins, Blackfeet. 336 00:24:36,240 --> 00:24:39,560 Speaker 1: He rendered them all and with a discipline and attention 337 00:24:39,680 --> 00:24:44,520 Speaker 1: to detail that made Catlan seem an eager amateur by comparison. 338 00:24:46,840 --> 00:24:50,800 Speaker 1: During the course of Maximilian's and Bodmer's Missouri adventure, they 339 00:24:50,800 --> 00:24:54,600 Speaker 1: spent five weeks among the Blackfeet Ascentiboins in Kreese at 340 00:24:54,640 --> 00:24:58,520 Speaker 1: Fort Mackenzie, where Bodmer did some of his most remarkable 341 00:24:58,560 --> 00:25:02,119 Speaker 1: work among Indians that ca Akatlin didn't even visit, Although 342 00:25:02,119 --> 00:25:05,800 Speaker 1: the following year Catlan would return the favor by painting 343 00:25:05,920 --> 00:25:10,680 Speaker 1: Southern Plains Indians. Bodmer never saw there were other regrets. 344 00:25:11,280 --> 00:25:14,679 Speaker 1: Maximilian's original plan was to winter at this rude outpost 345 00:25:15,000 --> 00:25:20,000 Speaker 1: and penetrate the Rockies the following spring. As European alpinists, 346 00:25:20,040 --> 00:25:23,320 Speaker 1: he and Bodmer were fascinated by mountains, and there the 347 00:25:23,440 --> 00:25:28,480 Speaker 1: Rockies were so tantalizingly close, But hostilities between the Blackfeet 348 00:25:28,480 --> 00:25:33,159 Speaker 1: and their enemies discouraged that choice. Somewhat reluctantly, the Europeans 349 00:25:33,200 --> 00:25:37,000 Speaker 1: returned downriver to the Mandan villages that autumn of eighteen 350 00:25:37,080 --> 00:25:41,600 Speaker 1: thirty three, and here they spent the winter, giving Bodmer 351 00:25:41,640 --> 00:25:44,720 Speaker 1: an opportunity for one of the most haunting visual portrayals 352 00:25:44,720 --> 00:25:48,119 Speaker 1: in the early West. What they couldn't know was that 353 00:25:48,240 --> 00:25:52,080 Speaker 1: there among the Mandans, Bodmer was preserving for the future 354 00:25:52,440 --> 00:25:56,679 Speaker 1: the appearance and vitality and lived experiences of a people 355 00:25:56,960 --> 00:26:01,000 Speaker 1: who would all be dead within three years in the 356 00:26:01,040 --> 00:26:04,840 Speaker 1: winter of eighteen thirty three thirty four. Though the Mandans 357 00:26:04,920 --> 00:26:08,919 Speaker 1: and their great leader Manta Tope had no inkling of 358 00:26:08,960 --> 00:26:14,960 Speaker 1: their fate, Bodmer's methodical work habits now captured scenes, ceremonies, 359 00:26:15,080 --> 00:26:19,840 Speaker 1: material culture, and confident, happy faces that turned out to 360 00:26:19,880 --> 00:26:25,080 Speaker 1: be horrifyingly fragile. When smallpox stalked the river shores in 361 00:26:25,119 --> 00:26:30,600 Speaker 1: the year eighteen thirty seven. As it turned out, Bodmer 362 00:26:30,720 --> 00:26:34,679 Speaker 1: really was a one hit wonder. Nothing in his subsequent 363 00:26:34,760 --> 00:26:38,320 Speaker 1: long life indicates that he had any desire for additional 364 00:26:38,480 --> 00:26:42,440 Speaker 1: historic adventures. He settled in Paris in eighteen thirty six, 365 00:26:42,720 --> 00:26:45,440 Speaker 1: and with Maximilian's help, was able to put on an 366 00:26:45,440 --> 00:26:49,480 Speaker 1: exhibit of his scenes of the West. The reception was disappointing. 367 00:26:50,400 --> 00:26:53,320 Speaker 1: Efforts to get a published version of The Missouri River 368 00:26:53,440 --> 00:26:57,639 Speaker 1: Adventure into print were also difficult. The price of the 369 00:26:57,680 --> 00:27:03,040 Speaker 1: printed version, with complete aquatchans of Bodmer's watercolors was staggering, 370 00:27:03,520 --> 00:27:07,560 Speaker 1: exceeding the annual income of all but the very wealthy 371 00:27:07,640 --> 00:27:11,960 Speaker 1: in Europe. In the eighteen forties, Maximilian offered Bodmer the 372 00:27:12,040 --> 00:27:15,040 Speaker 1: chance to accompany him on an expedition to the Caucasus 373 00:27:15,119 --> 00:27:20,199 Speaker 1: Mountains and Asian Russia. Bodmer refused. He followed that in 374 00:27:20,240 --> 00:27:23,520 Speaker 1: eighteen forty six by turning down a chance to join 375 00:27:23,600 --> 00:27:29,160 Speaker 1: a government sponsored expedition to Egypt. No interest in Egypt. 376 00:27:29,840 --> 00:27:33,520 Speaker 1: Jealous of George Catlan's successes with his book and traveling 377 00:27:33,560 --> 00:27:37,359 Speaker 1: exhibit of Indian and Western scenes, Bodmer decided that what 378 00:27:37,400 --> 00:27:40,359 Speaker 1: he really wanted to do was to throw himself into 379 00:27:40,359 --> 00:27:43,919 Speaker 1: portraying the animals of what he called the primeval German 380 00:27:44,040 --> 00:27:48,320 Speaker 1: forest before they vanished entirely from the face of the earth. Eventually, 381 00:27:48,320 --> 00:27:52,000 Speaker 1: he relocated from Paris to an art colony in Cologne, 382 00:27:52,240 --> 00:27:55,879 Speaker 1: where he spent his life painting animals, publishing books, and 383 00:27:56,000 --> 00:28:00,560 Speaker 1: illustrating books for others, including one by Victor Hugo. Carl 384 00:28:00,600 --> 00:28:04,520 Speaker 1: Bodmer died in Paris in eighteen eighty three, exactly half 385 00:28:04,520 --> 00:28:08,320 Speaker 1: a century after his time in the West. In the 386 00:28:08,359 --> 00:28:12,600 Speaker 1: mid twentieth century, Pulitzer Prize winning Western writer Bernard de 387 00:28:12,680 --> 00:28:18,760 Speaker 1: Vodo rediscovered Bodmer and reacquainted native peoples with him. Descendants 388 00:28:18,760 --> 00:28:22,480 Speaker 1: of the Indian people's Bodmer once painted, then utilize his 389 00:28:22,720 --> 00:28:29,320 Speaker 1: time machine visuals to help them recover their ancestors, their clothing, customs, 390 00:28:29,359 --> 00:28:33,360 Speaker 1: and history. Hollywood has done the same in a variety 391 00:28:33,400 --> 00:28:38,440 Speaker 1: of films, including Dances with Wolves. I think the most 392 00:28:38,520 --> 00:28:42,040 Speaker 1: powerful use of Bodmer's portfolio from the early eighteen thirties 393 00:28:42,040 --> 00:28:46,960 Speaker 1: West has been far more widespread, though, simply by providing 394 00:28:46,960 --> 00:28:49,920 Speaker 1: those of us farthered along in history with a remarkable 395 00:28:50,000 --> 00:28:54,320 Speaker 1: visual record of what the West was once, like, Bodmer 396 00:28:54,400 --> 00:29:00,320 Speaker 1: has enabled generation sense to experience that world. Canoeing down 397 00:29:00,360 --> 00:29:03,240 Speaker 1: the wild and scenic stretch of the Missouri River, I've 398 00:29:03,280 --> 00:29:07,280 Speaker 1: taken copies of Bodmer's works along to compare to what's 399 00:29:07,320 --> 00:29:12,160 Speaker 1: there now and to study and wonder by firelight. As 400 00:29:12,240 --> 00:29:15,840 Speaker 1: Maximilian wrote to a friend in Europe, if only I 401 00:29:15,880 --> 00:29:20,280 Speaker 1: could show you mister Bodmer's portfolio, how many times would 402 00:29:20,320 --> 00:29:26,000 Speaker 1: you exclaim, Oh, excellent, beautiful, beautiful. He now has seventy 403 00:29:26,080 --> 00:29:28,880 Speaker 1: pages of sketches from which you will be able to 404 00:29:28,960 --> 00:29:35,040 Speaker 1: travel very vividly. Just so, I think, for almost two 405 00:29:35,080 --> 00:29:39,080 Speaker 1: hundred years now, George Catlin's and Carl Bodmer's time machine 406 00:29:39,200 --> 00:29:44,040 Speaker 1: visuals have enabled untold thousands of us from another century 407 00:29:44,400 --> 00:29:49,160 Speaker 1: to travel very vividly. Indeed, not just from Europe to America, 408 00:29:49,560 --> 00:29:53,160 Speaker 1: but back in time and into the early nineteenth century 409 00:29:53,200 --> 00:29:57,600 Speaker 1: American West. What a gift to pass on to the future. 410 00:30:09,680 --> 00:30:14,719 Speaker 2: So, Dan, we've been working on a couple projects lately, 411 00:30:14,760 --> 00:30:17,960 Speaker 2: one on the Mountain Men we just released in January, 412 00:30:17,960 --> 00:30:22,040 Speaker 2: and now we're working on one on the Buffalo Hide Hunt. 413 00:30:23,200 --> 00:30:27,080 Speaker 2: And in the Mountain Man, I kept bumping into Catlan 414 00:30:27,320 --> 00:30:31,040 Speaker 2: references to Catlin obviously, like he's this figure that captures 415 00:30:31,160 --> 00:30:36,720 Speaker 2: this moment in time. And then the other day I 416 00:30:36,760 --> 00:30:42,200 Speaker 2: was reading old newspapers and I read this fantastic description 417 00:30:42,560 --> 00:30:45,520 Speaker 2: of a hunt, you know, and I get to the 418 00:30:45,600 --> 00:30:48,600 Speaker 2: end of it and it signed George Catlin, and it 419 00:30:48,640 --> 00:30:50,520 Speaker 2: was a letter that had sent to the editors of 420 00:30:50,560 --> 00:30:54,720 Speaker 2: this paper. And so I think one thing that's always 421 00:30:54,720 --> 00:30:56,960 Speaker 2: struck me about him is just how prolific he was. 422 00:30:57,240 --> 00:31:02,560 Speaker 2: And in my mind, he's sort of this faceless wealth 423 00:31:02,640 --> 00:31:05,840 Speaker 2: of information, this fountain of information from the West. But 424 00:31:05,880 --> 00:31:08,480 Speaker 2: I thought was, at least for me, I was interested 425 00:31:08,520 --> 00:31:11,840 Speaker 2: by your descriptions of sort of the interpersonal rivalries that 426 00:31:11,880 --> 00:31:13,880 Speaker 2: these guys had, because it wasn't. 427 00:31:14,080 --> 00:31:15,640 Speaker 3: That there was hacking on each other. 428 00:31:15,840 --> 00:31:17,720 Speaker 1: Yeah, that was a shock to me. 429 00:31:17,960 --> 00:31:20,719 Speaker 2: Yeah, because for me, for me, Catlan is kind of 430 00:31:20,760 --> 00:31:26,200 Speaker 2: just like this this very even keeled, sort of tell 431 00:31:26,240 --> 00:31:28,040 Speaker 2: it like it is, you know, almost like a Walter 432 00:31:28,120 --> 00:31:30,160 Speaker 2: Cronkite type figure. But this was this was sort of. 433 00:31:31,400 --> 00:31:36,959 Speaker 1: All that, right. Yeah, Yeah, you know, he's he's uh, 434 00:31:37,800 --> 00:31:47,640 Speaker 1: he's a pretty startlingly obscure figure for a lot of people, 435 00:31:48,320 --> 00:31:52,200 Speaker 1: given how present he was in the nineteenth century. As 436 00:31:52,200 --> 00:31:54,640 Speaker 1: you say, you can kind of just read, you know, 437 00:31:54,720 --> 00:31:58,840 Speaker 1: some eighteen thirties newspaper article and uh be shocked by 438 00:31:58,840 --> 00:32:04,320 Speaker 1: the fact. Well, George Kallin submitted this piece and his 439 00:32:04,760 --> 00:32:07,760 Speaker 1: famous book Letters and Notes, which is in two volumes, 440 00:32:07,760 --> 00:32:11,480 Speaker 1: by the way, on the North American Indians. Essentially, that's 441 00:32:11,560 --> 00:32:15,600 Speaker 1: what that book is. It's these sort of newspaper length 442 00:32:15,800 --> 00:32:20,440 Speaker 1: stories that he was sending into newspapers in the East, 443 00:32:20,920 --> 00:32:25,200 Speaker 1: along with his hastily quickly done watercolors to illustrate them, 444 00:32:25,600 --> 00:32:30,800 Speaker 1: and he assemble those ultimately in a book. So's he 445 00:32:30,960 --> 00:32:34,880 Speaker 1: should be probably a lot better known than he is. 446 00:32:35,880 --> 00:32:40,400 Speaker 1: But you're right. One of the things that is true 447 00:32:40,440 --> 00:32:42,920 Speaker 1: of his career is that a lot of the other 448 00:32:43,640 --> 00:32:48,640 Speaker 1: painters of the time, Alfred Jacob Miller, Bodmer himself, the 449 00:32:48,680 --> 00:32:54,000 Speaker 1: Swiss artists, who is also a feature in this particular episode, 450 00:32:54,640 --> 00:32:59,320 Speaker 1: and especially John James Ottobon, you know, I mean, they 451 00:32:59,480 --> 00:33:04,800 Speaker 1: kind of ink of Catlan as this quack figure and 452 00:33:04,840 --> 00:33:07,880 Speaker 1: they say very unkind things about him. You know. Evidently, 453 00:33:08,040 --> 00:33:10,360 Speaker 1: one of the common words of Progrium back in the 454 00:33:10,440 --> 00:33:13,200 Speaker 1: nineteenth century was humbug oh, which. 455 00:33:13,000 --> 00:33:17,760 Speaker 3: I thought was strictly you know, Ebenezer screws. Other people 456 00:33:17,800 --> 00:33:20,160 Speaker 3: would run around seeing humbug too. I had no idea. 457 00:33:20,800 --> 00:33:23,400 Speaker 3: Yeah that was a Charles Dickens bring him back. 458 00:33:24,200 --> 00:33:28,520 Speaker 1: Yeah it sounds like Dickens, but it actually predates Dickens. 459 00:33:28,520 --> 00:33:33,440 Speaker 1: Because George Catlan got in a lot. He hits this humbug. 460 00:33:33,520 --> 00:33:37,000 Speaker 1: You know, he's just that was just a bunch of bullshit. 461 00:33:37,160 --> 00:33:40,640 Speaker 1: He was. He's a complete loser and uh, you know, 462 00:33:40,840 --> 00:33:43,760 Speaker 1: and then Oudoban says that strange thing about him. He 463 00:33:43,800 --> 00:33:46,920 Speaker 1: could have been an honest man. I feel sorry for him. 464 00:33:46,960 --> 00:33:49,200 Speaker 1: He could have been an honest man. Now I will 465 00:33:49,320 --> 00:33:52,080 Speaker 1: say about Audubun so because one of the episodes is 466 00:33:52,080 --> 00:33:53,800 Speaker 1: going to be about Autobun and I talk about this 467 00:33:53,840 --> 00:33:57,320 Speaker 1: a little bit. Ottoman was not generous about other people. 468 00:33:57,360 --> 00:33:59,800 Speaker 1: He tended to be kind of jealous of everybody else 469 00:34:00,160 --> 00:34:03,920 Speaker 1: whoever made any kind of accomplishments. So that can be 470 00:34:04,040 --> 00:34:07,400 Speaker 1: discounted a little bit. But Carl Bodmer in Europe, because 471 00:34:07,480 --> 00:34:10,239 Speaker 1: Catlan is the guy who he's the first American who 472 00:34:10,280 --> 00:34:14,520 Speaker 1: has a traveling exhibit of the West in Europe in 473 00:34:14,600 --> 00:34:17,000 Speaker 1: the eighteen thirties and eighteen forties, and a ton of 474 00:34:17,040 --> 00:34:22,120 Speaker 1: Europeans who end up coming to America acquire their fascination 475 00:34:22,600 --> 00:34:26,080 Speaker 1: with the West by going to George Catlan's Indian Gallery. 476 00:34:26,600 --> 00:34:29,400 Speaker 1: And I mean Catlan took three or four Native people 477 00:34:29,520 --> 00:34:33,600 Speaker 1: with him, sort of like you know, Buffalo Bill did 478 00:34:34,360 --> 00:34:36,920 Speaker 1: with his Wild West. I mean, he took Native people 479 00:34:36,960 --> 00:34:41,440 Speaker 1: with him and they did ceremonies on stage. And yet 480 00:34:41,640 --> 00:34:47,360 Speaker 1: even Bodmer, who is a European himself, encouraged his friends 481 00:34:47,360 --> 00:34:53,080 Speaker 1: not to go see Catlan's show. So Catlan was clearly 482 00:34:53,120 --> 00:34:56,600 Speaker 1: a guy who is maybe a little too successful in 483 00:34:56,719 --> 00:35:02,600 Speaker 1: winning over followers. And yet at the same time he 484 00:35:03,320 --> 00:35:07,480 Speaker 1: did something pretty remarkable. I mean he went up the 485 00:35:07,480 --> 00:35:13,080 Speaker 1: Missouri River with the fur trading companies, usually on their steamboats. 486 00:35:13,080 --> 00:35:17,160 Speaker 1: That was a safe way for these people who wanted 487 00:35:17,200 --> 00:35:23,719 Speaker 1: to go west to travel. And he basically painted portraits 488 00:35:23,760 --> 00:35:26,800 Speaker 1: of half the people, half the Native people in the West. 489 00:35:27,160 --> 00:35:30,919 Speaker 1: And of course he is famous among conservationists these days 490 00:35:30,920 --> 00:35:32,799 Speaker 1: because he's the first American to ever call for a 491 00:35:32,880 --> 00:35:36,320 Speaker 1: national park. He wants the government to create a national 492 00:35:36,360 --> 00:35:39,239 Speaker 1: park on the Great Plains. But what he wants is 493 00:35:39,239 --> 00:35:41,560 Speaker 1: a different kind of national park than we think of today. 494 00:35:41,600 --> 00:35:45,400 Speaker 1: I mean, we created national parks in Yellowstone and glacier 495 00:35:45,480 --> 00:35:50,479 Speaker 1: and kindly invited the native people to leave. Catalan wants 496 00:35:50,480 --> 00:35:53,680 Speaker 1: a national park where it's all about the native people 497 00:35:53,760 --> 00:35:58,440 Speaker 1: still practicing their original culture and hunting the animals they hunted, 498 00:35:58,480 --> 00:36:01,120 Speaker 1: and so he has a different front idea about a 499 00:36:01,200 --> 00:36:03,719 Speaker 1: national park, but he does get credit for being the 500 00:36:03,719 --> 00:36:05,800 Speaker 1: first person to ever propose one in America. 501 00:36:06,280 --> 00:36:10,160 Speaker 3: I thought about that in your episode, and I had 502 00:36:10,160 --> 00:36:16,640 Speaker 3: read that about Catlan before, and it seemed like like 503 00:36:16,640 --> 00:36:20,880 Speaker 3: an outlandish idea until I thought about this. Around the world, 504 00:36:21,640 --> 00:36:24,480 Speaker 3: there are a handful example of examples of kind of 505 00:36:24,480 --> 00:36:28,799 Speaker 3: what he was talking about. You go, like the there's 506 00:36:28,920 --> 00:36:33,440 Speaker 3: autonomous zones. So along the border with Afghanistan and Pakistan 507 00:36:33,520 --> 00:36:36,120 Speaker 3: you have what they call the tribal areas or autonomous zones. 508 00:36:36,800 --> 00:36:40,880 Speaker 3: In Brazil, near the Brazil border with Colombia, you have 509 00:36:40,960 --> 00:36:48,560 Speaker 3: autonomous zones which are like hunter gatherer groups doing their 510 00:36:48,560 --> 00:36:54,799 Speaker 3: own government. They're living within a geopolitical boundary, but their 511 00:36:55,160 --> 00:36:58,440 Speaker 3: crimes aren't investigated, you know, they their own system of 512 00:36:58,480 --> 00:37:03,640 Speaker 3: government prevails in their area. Sentinel Island in the Pacific. 513 00:37:03,280 --> 00:37:06,280 Speaker 1: Nicaragua has one where it's. 514 00:37:06,480 --> 00:37:09,279 Speaker 3: It's like you're within a broader geopolitical bound but there 515 00:37:09,320 --> 00:37:12,880 Speaker 3: is a place where like native culture. The difference there 516 00:37:13,120 --> 00:37:19,560 Speaker 3: is what makes those places work is that you don't visit. Yeah, 517 00:37:19,600 --> 00:37:20,960 Speaker 3: you know what I mean. So this idea that it 518 00:37:20,960 --> 00:37:24,080 Speaker 3: would be like for people to come see that people 519 00:37:24,120 --> 00:37:25,839 Speaker 3: will be able to go and see all this, right, 520 00:37:26,200 --> 00:37:31,480 Speaker 3: and then the biggest challenge today with creating these autonomous 521 00:37:31,480 --> 00:37:35,279 Speaker 3: tribal areas is that we now know you can't go 522 00:37:35,360 --> 00:37:38,640 Speaker 3: look because when you go look, you're going to bring 523 00:37:38,680 --> 00:37:43,200 Speaker 3: disease and you're going to bring ideas. And some people 524 00:37:43,239 --> 00:37:46,920 Speaker 3: think it's like overly paternalistic on the part of the governments, 525 00:37:47,000 --> 00:37:49,120 Speaker 3: but it winds up being that it's like you don't visit. 526 00:37:49,960 --> 00:37:51,880 Speaker 1: No, that's true, And I mean I know you know 527 00:37:51,960 --> 00:37:56,040 Speaker 1: this because you've traveled everywhere and seen these and yeah, 528 00:37:56,080 --> 00:37:58,799 Speaker 1: that's been a fairly recent trend with national parks. National 529 00:37:58,840 --> 00:38:02,560 Speaker 1: parks obviously got interpreted in a vert a different way 530 00:38:02,680 --> 00:38:08,000 Speaker 1: than Catlan proposed, and then we exported the idea of 531 00:38:08,040 --> 00:38:10,560 Speaker 1: the national park around the world. So there are places 532 00:38:10,800 --> 00:38:13,839 Speaker 1: like Kruger National Park, for example, in South Africa, where 533 00:38:13,880 --> 00:38:17,200 Speaker 1: the idea was to get the native people out of 534 00:38:17,239 --> 00:38:21,320 Speaker 1: the park because European and American tourists seeing the park 535 00:38:21,320 --> 00:38:23,680 Speaker 1: would not want to see the native people. They would 536 00:38:23,680 --> 00:38:27,040 Speaker 1: want to see the landscapes and the animals, but not 537 00:38:27,320 --> 00:38:32,280 Speaker 1: the native people there. And of course what the zones 538 00:38:32,320 --> 00:38:36,719 Speaker 1: you're describing were sort of a reaction against that, where 539 00:38:36,719 --> 00:38:39,959 Speaker 1: the idea is to remove the native people. And so yeah, 540 00:38:39,960 --> 00:38:43,400 Speaker 1: it's back in the direction of what Catlan was proposing 541 00:38:43,440 --> 00:38:47,480 Speaker 1: in eighteen thirty two. But he does have this idea 542 00:38:47,640 --> 00:38:53,120 Speaker 1: pended to his proposal that enlightened and civilized people see it, 543 00:38:53,200 --> 00:38:55,560 Speaker 1: would go see and get to see what see these 544 00:38:55,600 --> 00:38:58,080 Speaker 1: people live, just the way he had gotten to do 545 00:38:58,600 --> 00:39:02,000 Speaker 1: in the eighteen thirties. But he's you know, as I 546 00:39:02,480 --> 00:39:05,880 Speaker 1: tried to say in that episode, I think one of 547 00:39:05,920 --> 00:39:08,840 Speaker 1: the reasons he comes in for the kind of derogation 548 00:39:09,040 --> 00:39:12,960 Speaker 1: that he does is because he's more sympathetic to Native 549 00:39:12,960 --> 00:39:17,080 Speaker 1: people than most other Americans are at the time. And 550 00:39:17,880 --> 00:39:20,520 Speaker 1: we have a kind of a different A lot of 551 00:39:20,600 --> 00:39:24,680 Speaker 1: Americans come to a different interpretation of the European notion, 552 00:39:24,840 --> 00:39:28,239 Speaker 1: the rousseaul notion of the noble savage living in a 553 00:39:28,280 --> 00:39:33,040 Speaker 1: state of nature Catlan. For Catlan, these native people are 554 00:39:33,080 --> 00:39:36,080 Speaker 1: the noble savages. For a lot of Americans, we sort 555 00:39:36,120 --> 00:39:40,680 Speaker 1: of translated that into well, it's actually a wide American 556 00:39:41,040 --> 00:39:45,680 Speaker 1: who lives like an Indian. Daniel Boone, Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, 557 00:39:46,200 --> 00:39:50,080 Speaker 1: the mountain men, those are the noble savages are in 558 00:39:50,239 --> 00:39:56,640 Speaker 1: you know, John James Ottoban's viewpoint, he was the noble 559 00:39:56,680 --> 00:39:59,520 Speaker 1: savage who would go to Europe and present himself to 560 00:39:59,520 --> 00:40:02,360 Speaker 1: the European ends as here is on America and living 561 00:40:02,360 --> 00:40:05,279 Speaker 1: in a state of nature, a true noble savage. But 562 00:40:05,560 --> 00:40:08,759 Speaker 1: not the Indians. And that became that, I think, that 563 00:40:08,880 --> 00:40:12,640 Speaker 1: critical breakpoint between a lot of the other people of 564 00:40:12,680 --> 00:40:16,840 Speaker 1: his time in Cantlon and even Bodmer, you know, in 565 00:40:16,960 --> 00:40:19,520 Speaker 1: Bodmer's thing. I don't know what you guys thought about 566 00:40:19,560 --> 00:40:22,480 Speaker 1: that part of it, but to me, his big role 567 00:40:23,239 --> 00:40:27,120 Speaker 1: is I mean, he not only is able to paint 568 00:40:27,480 --> 00:40:32,520 Speaker 1: landscapes and animals and people in a remarkably realistic way. 569 00:40:32,600 --> 00:40:35,759 Speaker 1: So it's kind of a time travel thing to experience 570 00:40:35,800 --> 00:40:39,600 Speaker 1: the West of the early eighteen thirties. But what made 571 00:40:39,840 --> 00:40:44,560 Speaker 1: bodmer a sort of a modern phenomenon is Bernard Devoto's 572 00:40:44,640 --> 00:40:47,440 Speaker 1: discovery of him. When Bernard Devoto was writing across the 573 00:40:47,440 --> 00:40:51,840 Speaker 1: Wide Missouri, he discovered Bodmer's work and realized this was 574 00:40:51,920 --> 00:40:56,759 Speaker 1: the most authentic Western work of Indians and wildlife in 575 00:40:56,880 --> 00:41:00,920 Speaker 1: landscapes he had found and kind of turned Bodmer into 576 00:41:01,000 --> 00:41:07,080 Speaker 1: this this official historian that Native people attempting to reacquire 577 00:41:07,120 --> 00:41:12,480 Speaker 1: their cultures, and especially Hollywood, trying to do films that 578 00:41:12,800 --> 00:41:16,160 Speaker 1: would more realistically portray Native people, they turned to Bodmer. 579 00:41:16,760 --> 00:41:19,759 Speaker 1: You know, I mean one of the films for My Youth, 580 00:41:19,800 --> 00:41:25,640 Speaker 1: a man called Horse used one of the wonderful wild 581 00:41:25,640 --> 00:41:32,120 Speaker 1: turkey headdresses that Bodmer portrayed among the Accentiboins, and they 582 00:41:32,239 --> 00:41:37,880 Speaker 1: actually reproduced that headdress in that particular yeah, off his 583 00:41:38,000 --> 00:41:41,080 Speaker 1: painting and they do the same thing and dances with wolves. 584 00:41:41,080 --> 00:41:43,120 Speaker 1: They use a lot of a lot of his work 585 00:41:43,239 --> 00:41:48,319 Speaker 1: to recreate the Indian attire and all that. So it's uh, 586 00:41:48,440 --> 00:41:50,480 Speaker 1: you know, as I was trying to say, these these 587 00:41:50,480 --> 00:41:54,520 Speaker 1: guys give us this kind of visual time machine of 588 00:41:54,560 --> 00:41:57,080 Speaker 1: being able to go back and and see the West. 589 00:41:57,160 --> 00:41:59,960 Speaker 1: Lewis and Clark write about it, and you can serve 590 00:42:00,080 --> 00:42:02,800 Speaker 1: only develop a good sense of what the West in 591 00:42:02,880 --> 00:42:05,480 Speaker 1: the early nineteenth century was liked from the literature, But 592 00:42:06,000 --> 00:42:09,080 Speaker 1: the visual, I think is and that's why movies work 593 00:42:09,160 --> 00:42:10,240 Speaker 1: so well these days. 594 00:42:10,719 --> 00:42:14,440 Speaker 3: This isn't a question, but rather a comment of what 595 00:42:14,480 --> 00:42:18,080 Speaker 3: you're talking about is dealing in these eras when there's 596 00:42:18,080 --> 00:42:23,680 Speaker 3: no photography, you're really at the mercy and understanding of time. 597 00:42:23,880 --> 00:42:28,160 Speaker 3: You're at the mercy of oftentimes one or two illustrators, 598 00:42:28,680 --> 00:42:31,959 Speaker 3: and it gets in your head that it looked that way. 599 00:42:32,360 --> 00:42:34,839 Speaker 3: And when I was a little kid, I was growing 600 00:42:34,920 --> 00:42:36,560 Speaker 3: up in the Great Legs, I was very interested in 601 00:42:36,600 --> 00:42:40,440 Speaker 3: early Great Legs history and the French like the fifteen 602 00:42:40,520 --> 00:42:45,319 Speaker 3: hundreds early sixteen hundreds, terrible terrible art where they would 603 00:42:45,440 --> 00:42:48,560 Speaker 3: kind of draw these pictures of like everything that goes on. Yeah, 604 00:42:48,680 --> 00:42:52,799 Speaker 3: and they would draw native peoples and they'd like grotesque 605 00:42:52,880 --> 00:42:54,680 Speaker 3: renditions of native peoples. 606 00:42:55,360 --> 00:42:55,560 Speaker 1: You know. 607 00:42:55,640 --> 00:42:57,680 Speaker 3: Oh no, I've seen these, and I would always have 608 00:42:57,760 --> 00:43:01,480 Speaker 3: the idea that like I wasn't drawn obviously was not 609 00:43:01,760 --> 00:43:05,080 Speaker 3: drawn to the history because I couldn't escape how the 610 00:43:05,120 --> 00:43:05,879 Speaker 3: French drew it. 611 00:43:06,000 --> 00:43:06,560 Speaker 1: Uh huh. 612 00:43:06,680 --> 00:43:11,400 Speaker 3: I'm like, that doesn't look cool. No, No, like some 613 00:43:11,760 --> 00:43:13,400 Speaker 3: like Catl and you look at cat like man, that 614 00:43:13,440 --> 00:43:16,120 Speaker 3: looks awesome, you know what I mean, Like, I'll go there. 615 00:43:16,200 --> 00:43:19,680 Speaker 1: Catlan and Bottomer both man. You know. So this is 616 00:43:19,719 --> 00:43:22,560 Speaker 1: a very different art than those guys who would do 617 00:43:22,760 --> 00:43:26,880 Speaker 1: a page and sort of put animals all over and yeah. 618 00:43:27,040 --> 00:43:29,080 Speaker 3: Everything that goes on like little chores. 619 00:43:29,160 --> 00:43:30,799 Speaker 1: It was just like it's just stick it all over 620 00:43:30,800 --> 00:43:31,200 Speaker 1: the place. 621 00:43:31,320 --> 00:43:33,680 Speaker 3: There's nothing to drew in about it. You know, in 622 00:43:34,000 --> 00:43:36,160 Speaker 3: your head, you like if you went back in time, 623 00:43:36,280 --> 00:43:37,760 Speaker 3: it would all look like that drawing. 624 00:43:38,120 --> 00:43:41,839 Speaker 2: Yeah, that stuff is closer to like the drawings from 625 00:43:41,840 --> 00:43:46,040 Speaker 2: the colonial period of these animals that don't look like animals, Jeffes, 626 00:43:46,080 --> 00:43:47,080 Speaker 2: that don't look like trees. 627 00:43:47,360 --> 00:43:50,279 Speaker 1: Yeah, a buffalo that looks like a lion, and yeah, 628 00:43:50,320 --> 00:43:52,759 Speaker 1: all that sort of stuff. Yeah. Well, these guys were, 629 00:43:52,800 --> 00:43:55,080 Speaker 1: you know, Catland, especially Bomber. I mean, these guys were, 630 00:43:55,120 --> 00:43:58,480 Speaker 1: They were incredible. So it really is a way to 631 00:43:58,560 --> 00:44:01,319 Speaker 1: sort of, you know, if you're interested in that sort 632 00:44:01,360 --> 00:44:02,920 Speaker 1: of thing. And I always have been, just like you 633 00:44:02,960 --> 00:44:04,840 Speaker 1: were interested in the Great Lakes. I've always been interested 634 00:44:04,880 --> 00:44:08,440 Speaker 1: in trying to recreate. So what was this like, what 635 00:44:08,520 --> 00:44:11,600 Speaker 1: was what would have been like to go up the 636 00:44:11,640 --> 00:44:16,160 Speaker 1: Missouri River and see the White Cliffs and so you know, 637 00:44:16,200 --> 00:44:18,640 Speaker 1: as I said later in the script, I mean one 638 00:44:18,680 --> 00:44:21,319 Speaker 1: of the things I did first time I went down 639 00:44:22,360 --> 00:44:24,399 Speaker 1: the Wild and Scenic Missouri and went through the White 640 00:44:24,400 --> 00:44:28,839 Speaker 1: Cliffs section I took Bottomer paintings with me. Yeah, I 641 00:44:28,880 --> 00:44:31,400 Speaker 1: shot photographs of them and printed them up in color 642 00:44:31,760 --> 00:44:34,280 Speaker 1: and took them along. Took about fifteen of them along 643 00:44:34,600 --> 00:44:36,880 Speaker 1: and just kind of rode along in a canoe and 644 00:44:36,920 --> 00:44:40,240 Speaker 1: held these paintings up. And I mean, he was really 645 00:44:40,280 --> 00:44:43,080 Speaker 1: good at portraying that landscape. So that's one of the 646 00:44:43,239 --> 00:44:44,840 Speaker 1: that's one of the things that gave me the idea 647 00:44:45,040 --> 00:44:48,319 Speaker 1: for a piece like this is knowing how accurately he 648 00:44:48,360 --> 00:44:48,719 Speaker 1: did it. 649 00:44:49,040 --> 00:44:56,120 Speaker 2: Yeah, getting back to Catlan and Native people, I think, 650 00:44:57,160 --> 00:45:00,560 Speaker 2: and this isn't unique to the West, but oftentime, when 651 00:45:00,600 --> 00:45:04,280 Speaker 2: people are looking at the past, they're sort of viewing 652 00:45:04,840 --> 00:45:08,279 Speaker 2: individuals beliefs on a spectrum of how enlightened they are 653 00:45:08,560 --> 00:45:13,040 Speaker 2: versus how backwards they are right. And one of the 654 00:45:13,040 --> 00:45:18,000 Speaker 2: things that I've picked up just in reading about this 655 00:45:18,080 --> 00:45:23,840 Speaker 2: period is it's the thinking about Native people and Native 656 00:45:23,880 --> 00:45:27,239 Speaker 2: cultures at the time is so multi dimensional. You know, 657 00:45:27,280 --> 00:45:34,640 Speaker 2: there's some people that maybe celebrate Native culture, but they 658 00:45:34,680 --> 00:45:37,840 Speaker 2: believe that they're going to go extinct. There's some people 659 00:45:37,920 --> 00:45:42,480 Speaker 2: that are obviously like there's the sum that you know, 660 00:45:43,120 --> 00:45:46,960 Speaker 2: don't view it positively and want to wipe out Native people. 661 00:45:47,840 --> 00:45:50,279 Speaker 2: There's some people that are trying to sort of taking 662 00:45:50,280 --> 00:45:53,279 Speaker 2: a paternalistic attitude and trying to save them. And then 663 00:45:53,360 --> 00:45:55,680 Speaker 2: even in the realm of science, you know, like you 664 00:45:55,840 --> 00:46:01,760 Speaker 2: mentioned in the last episode, questions about whether indigenous people 665 00:46:01,800 --> 00:46:05,400 Speaker 2: in the Americas were part of a separate creation, whether 666 00:46:05,440 --> 00:46:07,960 Speaker 2: they were a separate you know, or they're part of 667 00:46:08,000 --> 00:46:11,839 Speaker 2: the same race or species. I wonder if you can 668 00:46:11,920 --> 00:46:17,160 Speaker 2: sort of get into where like Catlan in particular, one 669 00:46:17,200 --> 00:46:19,880 Speaker 2: could read his idea of having parks with people in 670 00:46:19,920 --> 00:46:27,160 Speaker 2: them as being very backwards. But in terms of the context, 671 00:46:27,239 --> 00:46:30,160 Speaker 2: you know, it's sort of hard to make a judgment 672 00:46:30,640 --> 00:46:31,440 Speaker 2: value about that. 673 00:46:31,760 --> 00:46:36,279 Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, Rand, that's all excellent points, no doubt 674 00:46:36,320 --> 00:46:41,120 Speaker 1: about it. Yeah, it's complicated, and there are people with 675 00:46:41,160 --> 00:46:44,399 Speaker 1: a lot of different approaches to it. I mean, and 676 00:46:44,440 --> 00:46:47,840 Speaker 1: we're still debating. By the eighteen thirties, when Catlin and 677 00:46:47,840 --> 00:46:50,200 Speaker 1: Bodem are in the West, I mean, we're still debating. 678 00:46:50,239 --> 00:46:53,320 Speaker 1: I mean, this is the same decade when Joseph Smith 679 00:46:53,360 --> 00:46:57,040 Speaker 1: writes the Book of Mormon, which is, you know, a 680 00:46:57,120 --> 00:47:00,960 Speaker 1: postulation of the old idea that who native people are 681 00:47:01,280 --> 00:47:05,239 Speaker 1: are actually Hebrews from the lost tribes of Israel who 682 00:47:05,480 --> 00:47:07,600 Speaker 1: found their way to the Americas. I mean, that's what 683 00:47:07,719 --> 00:47:11,960 Speaker 1: the Book of Mormon basically posits has its story, and 684 00:47:12,080 --> 00:47:16,560 Speaker 1: that was an early explanation for who Indians were when 685 00:47:16,600 --> 00:47:19,600 Speaker 1: Europeans first came over. Well, who are these people? Because 686 00:47:19,719 --> 00:47:25,359 Speaker 1: they don't appear anywhere in our stories. Why are there 687 00:47:25,400 --> 00:47:28,239 Speaker 1: people here who we know nothing about? And this was 688 00:47:28,280 --> 00:47:31,360 Speaker 1: the best guess was that, well, there are some tribes 689 00:47:31,400 --> 00:47:34,200 Speaker 1: from the lost tribes of Israel who left and disappeared, 690 00:47:34,239 --> 00:47:38,120 Speaker 1: and maybe that's who this is. But by in terms 691 00:47:38,120 --> 00:47:42,520 Speaker 1: of science, by that same decade, though, there were already 692 00:47:42,600 --> 00:47:48,719 Speaker 1: people who were doing linguistic studies of tribal languages and 693 00:47:48,800 --> 00:47:53,840 Speaker 1: beginning to argue that these tribal languages don't seem to 694 00:47:53,880 --> 00:48:01,120 Speaker 1: have any relationship to Hebrew at all. Fact, what they 695 00:48:01,160 --> 00:48:05,080 Speaker 1: appeared to be closest to are the languages of Asia, 696 00:48:05,680 --> 00:48:09,240 Speaker 1: not of the Middle East. And therefore, by the eighteen 697 00:48:09,280 --> 00:48:11,920 Speaker 1: thirties there's already, you know, there are already people who 698 00:48:11,960 --> 00:48:14,160 Speaker 1: are saying, well, it looks like maybe native people must 699 00:48:14,200 --> 00:48:17,840 Speaker 1: have come from Asia and not from somewhere in the 700 00:48:17,840 --> 00:48:20,879 Speaker 1: Middle East or Europe. That's kind of one of those 701 00:48:20,920 --> 00:48:24,600 Speaker 1: scientific arguments that's at the time that Catlin and Bodma 702 00:48:24,640 --> 00:48:27,719 Speaker 1: are doing all this work, you know, But to give 703 00:48:27,760 --> 00:48:32,560 Speaker 1: you an idea of Catlan's commitment to what he thought 704 00:48:32,719 --> 00:48:34,959 Speaker 1: by creating a park with Native people and it would 705 00:48:35,000 --> 00:48:40,560 Speaker 1: have been a great good for Native people. Catlan is 706 00:48:40,560 --> 00:48:43,120 Speaker 1: one of the only people I have ever read about 707 00:48:43,600 --> 00:48:48,279 Speaker 1: who personally went in went to the White House and 708 00:48:48,360 --> 00:48:52,120 Speaker 1: got an audience with Andrew Jackson and tried to talk 709 00:48:52,239 --> 00:48:56,480 Speaker 1: Andrew Jackson out of removing Indians in the east to 710 00:48:56,560 --> 00:49:01,000 Speaker 1: the west. I mean, he actually tried to engage with 711 00:49:01,920 --> 00:49:04,239 Speaker 1: a President of the United States who was not about to, 712 00:49:04,600 --> 00:49:08,560 Speaker 1: of course stop removal, and trying to make the case 713 00:49:08,600 --> 00:49:11,080 Speaker 1: that you shouldn't do this. And the reason he thought 714 00:49:11,440 --> 00:49:14,080 Speaker 1: that Jackson shouldn't do it, He said, we all should 715 00:49:14,080 --> 00:49:18,160 Speaker 1: be growing up around Native people. We shouldn't shunt them 716 00:49:18,239 --> 00:49:21,400 Speaker 1: off to somewhere else and hide them away from the 717 00:49:21,440 --> 00:49:24,719 Speaker 1: rest of us. We should all have Native people around us. 718 00:49:25,160 --> 00:49:28,560 Speaker 1: And you know, that's again a kind of an argument 719 00:49:28,640 --> 00:49:31,279 Speaker 1: that you're hard pressed to find anybody else of the 720 00:49:31,360 --> 00:49:36,080 Speaker 1: time making. And so you know, as I've said in 721 00:49:36,120 --> 00:49:38,879 Speaker 1: that the script for that episode, I kind of think 722 00:49:38,920 --> 00:49:42,719 Speaker 1: that it's these ideas that get Catlan in trouble with 723 00:49:42,800 --> 00:49:44,680 Speaker 1: a lot of his contemporary Yeah, but if you're. 724 00:49:44,560 --> 00:49:49,120 Speaker 3: Going to condemn Catlan's thing as being, you know, viewing 725 00:49:49,200 --> 00:49:53,120 Speaker 3: Native people strictly as an other wanting to like make 726 00:49:53,239 --> 00:49:56,359 Speaker 3: museum exhibits out of them, I don't think it's really 727 00:49:56,360 --> 00:49:59,799 Speaker 3: fair to do it that way because you have to 728 00:49:59,840 --> 00:50:02,080 Speaker 3: look look at it in the context of what everybody 729 00:50:02,120 --> 00:50:03,120 Speaker 3: else was saying at the time. 730 00:50:03,120 --> 00:50:04,240 Speaker 1: Absolutely, and when. 731 00:50:04,080 --> 00:50:07,719 Speaker 3: You compare it to what everybody everybody else's idea, it 732 00:50:07,760 --> 00:50:10,440 Speaker 3: was like it was revolutionary, you know, I mean, and 733 00:50:10,480 --> 00:50:12,800 Speaker 3: it was born like from from from sympathy. 734 00:50:13,000 --> 00:50:14,080 Speaker 1: It was born from sympathy. 735 00:50:14,080 --> 00:50:15,719 Speaker 3: And you look at it now and find all these 736 00:50:15,719 --> 00:50:17,640 Speaker 3: ways to tear it apart. But you gotta be like, well, 737 00:50:17,719 --> 00:50:20,319 Speaker 3: if you're gonna do that, then you better compare what 738 00:50:20,480 --> 00:50:22,040 Speaker 3: some what Jackson's idea was. 739 00:50:22,160 --> 00:50:26,239 Speaker 1: And Jackson's idea. Jackson's idea was the same thing that 740 00:50:26,840 --> 00:50:32,480 Speaker 1: the liberation societies for manumitted African slaves was, which is, 741 00:50:33,480 --> 00:50:36,240 Speaker 1: we're going to send them back to Africa. We don't 742 00:50:36,320 --> 00:50:41,560 Speaker 1: want them to remain here. If they're free now they go, 743 00:50:41,640 --> 00:50:45,120 Speaker 1: and so we acquire a piece of West Africa Liberia 744 00:50:45,600 --> 00:50:50,040 Speaker 1: and send start sending former slaves back to Africa and 745 00:50:50,160 --> 00:50:52,920 Speaker 1: Jackson's idea with Native people was essentially the same thing. 746 00:50:52,960 --> 00:50:56,520 Speaker 1: We're going to designated a piece of the United States, Oklahoma, 747 00:50:57,120 --> 00:51:01,560 Speaker 1: the Indian Territory, and we're gonna put them all there 748 00:51:02,080 --> 00:51:04,520 Speaker 1: so we can get them out of the rest of 749 00:51:04,560 --> 00:51:08,360 Speaker 1: the rest of the country. And Catlan is one of 750 00:51:08,360 --> 00:51:12,200 Speaker 1: the few voices that's arguing against that. So yeah, absolutely, 751 00:51:12,200 --> 00:51:14,560 Speaker 1: given the context of the time, this guy is a 752 00:51:14,800 --> 00:51:22,920 Speaker 1: raging liberal trying to defend the rights of Native people 753 00:51:23,400 --> 00:51:24,480 Speaker 1: in the eighteen thirties. 754 00:51:25,560 --> 00:51:27,560 Speaker 3: Well, Dan, thanks man, look forward to the next episode. 755 00:51:27,680 --> 00:51:29,719 Speaker 1: Oh thank you, Steven Randall, appreciate it.