WEBVTT - Ep. 478: The American West 0:00:08.920 --> 0:00:13.320 This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely, 0:00:13.480 --> 0:00:18.599 bug bitten, and in my case, underwear listeningcast, you can't 0:00:18.600 --> 0:00:22.080 predict anything. The Meat Eater Podcast is brought to you 0:00:22.079 --> 0:00:25.520 by First Light. Whether you're checking trail cams, hanging deer stands, 0:00:25.600 --> 0:00:28.880 or scouting for ELK, First Light has performance apparel to 0:00:28.920 --> 0:00:31.960 support every hunter in every environment. Check it out at 0:00:32.000 --> 0:00:35.199 first light dot com. F I R S T L 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:40.559 I T E dot com. All right, joined today by 0:00:40.760 --> 0:00:46.000 esteemed historian American historian Elliott West. Welcome on the show. 0:00:46.400 --> 0:00:47.440 Thank you, it's good to be here. 0:00:47.520 --> 0:00:49.720 I've had two I've had two, well, a lot of 0:00:49.800 --> 0:00:51.440 run ins with you work, but I've had two main 0:00:51.520 --> 0:00:53.599 run ins I want to tell you about. I'll tell 0:00:53.600 --> 0:00:55.040 you about. We got to cover some stuff that I'm 0:00:55.040 --> 0:00:56.560 gonna tell you about the runnings. Sure, and then I'm 0:00:56.560 --> 0:00:59.280 gonna tell you that doctor Randall here. Do you guys 0:00:59.280 --> 0:01:02.400 know each other? Just be just He has a genuine 0:01:02.680 --> 0:01:07.840 PhD in history. I heard he told me about he 0:01:07.920 --> 0:01:12.440 told how did he bring it up? Okay, so he 0:01:12.480 --> 0:01:14.000 didn't be like a little thing he might not know 0:01:14.040 --> 0:01:14.440 about me. 0:01:15.160 --> 0:01:18.640 No, No, he. 0:01:18.600 --> 0:01:19.360 Was quite modest. 0:01:20.240 --> 0:01:22.640 I heard there are I was reading today that there's 0:01:22.720 --> 0:01:30.080 this article in the Free Pressay now that brought up 0:01:30.080 --> 0:01:32.680 I'll tell the article. The article was a guy, a 0:01:32.720 --> 0:01:37.600 climatologist that just got there's a climatologist to row to 0:01:37.680 --> 0:01:43.400 op ed in Free Press about publishing in the journal Nature, 0:01:43.920 --> 0:01:48.280 m okay, and was saying that it was talking about 0:01:48.320 --> 0:01:54.040 how biased Nature is toward what they want to publish, 0:01:54.880 --> 0:02:00.480 and they were publishing about wildfires in California and how 0:02:00.560 --> 0:02:08.800 you need to de emphasize issues not fitting with climate 0:02:08.880 --> 0:02:13.360 change to get published in Nature, like they know what 0:02:13.400 --> 0:02:18.359 they want, right, So like this climatellogy is like absolutely, 0:02:18.360 --> 0:02:21.000 climate change is a big issue with wildfires in California, 0:02:21.000 --> 0:02:24.040 but there's all these other underlying things. Eighty percent of 0:02:24.080 --> 0:02:28.040 California wildfires are human caused. Okay, where is that. You're 0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:34.160 not going to write an article about changing human behaviors 0:02:34.320 --> 0:02:39.320 leading to wildfires, or electrical transmission leading to wildfires, or 0:02:39.360 --> 0:02:41.920 the need to bury electrical lines and not have overhead 0:02:41.960 --> 0:02:44.880 electrical lines due to wildfires and that's not gonna be 0:02:44.880 --> 0:02:49.320 of interest, right, climate change boom you're in. So they 0:02:49.360 --> 0:02:51.840 wrote this article in Free Press about what they had 0:02:51.880 --> 0:02:55.200 to leave out, like what you need to leave out 0:02:55.280 --> 0:03:02.240 to catch the eye of nature to fit what they want. 0:03:02.360 --> 0:03:05.760 You know, what they've decided is scientific. And if it's 0:03:05.919 --> 0:03:09.280 it's scientific, is you know, like of whale, a whale 0:03:09.280 --> 0:03:11.160 takes a wrong turn and goes up a river and 0:03:11.200 --> 0:03:16.400 dies in a river, you better say the climate change 0:03:16.440 --> 0:03:18.840 led to that whale going up that river, and then 0:03:18.840 --> 0:03:21.600 it'll be in the paper. Right. But anyways, they're saying, 0:03:21.600 --> 0:03:25.000 they're talking about there are like sixty times more PhDs. 0:03:25.800 --> 0:03:29.480 The hell is here? Pull this up CRN sixty times 0:03:29.520 --> 0:03:34.160 more PhDs now than in nineteen sixty No kidding, that's 0:03:34.200 --> 0:03:34.639 not right. 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:37.560 May I wouldn't be surprised if it is. 0:03:38.320 --> 0:03:41.480 Meaning they just hand those things out like candy, and 0:03:41.600 --> 0:03:42.840 that was my experience. 0:03:43.560 --> 0:03:45.800 And there's no there's a lot more people and there's 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:49.680 a lot more people going to higher education than like 0:03:49.920 --> 0:03:51.960 here hold back in the World War two. 0:03:51.840 --> 0:03:53.520 And a lot of fewer tenure track jobs. 0:03:53.600 --> 0:03:55.680 Well you know how they were Here's what they were blaming. 0:03:55.800 --> 0:03:59.839 So the point being, where is this dance? I can't 0:04:00.320 --> 0:04:00.920 can you find it? 0:04:01.000 --> 0:04:04.200 I mean, I don't I don't know if this is reputable. 0:04:05.000 --> 0:04:09.040 This is Historynewsnetwork dot org. I have no idea who's 0:04:09.120 --> 0:04:11.080 behind this organization? Are you familiar? 0:04:11.200 --> 0:04:11.360 Sure? 0:04:11.600 --> 0:04:15.400 Okay, so this is it about how many PhDs are 0:04:15.480 --> 0:04:15.960 running around? 0:04:16.279 --> 0:04:20.400 Yeah? History? Oh well, you know what, Actually this is 0:04:20.520 --> 0:04:24.800 specifically about history. History. Bachelor's degrees are falling sharply while 0:04:24.839 --> 0:04:27.479 doctoral degrees in the discipline continue to rise. 0:04:30.760 --> 0:04:32.440 We don't really think about a guy like Randall. 0:04:33.040 --> 0:04:35.520 He's not as he's not as unique as he as 0:04:35.560 --> 0:04:36.320 he thought he was. 0:04:38.720 --> 0:04:40.720 He's got to see his new bumper stick or asked 0:04:40.720 --> 0:04:43.000 me about my pH d, and then he's got that, 0:04:43.320 --> 0:04:48.560 he's got that plate mt pH D. Yeah, it's a joke. 0:04:49.839 --> 0:04:50.520 It's a joke. 0:04:51.040 --> 0:04:53.000 I made a terrible mistakes. 0:04:56.120 --> 0:04:56.920 It's a tough gig. 0:04:58.320 --> 0:04:59.920 It's like a big target on your back. 0:05:03.240 --> 0:05:06.159 A couple of things. So, oh, you know, darn thing 0:05:06.200 --> 0:05:07.960 about the Darth thing. I've been thinking about the news. 0:05:08.000 --> 0:05:09.279 I got a couple of notes I made in my 0:05:09.320 --> 0:05:14.919 little note thing about that. Someday historians should write an 0:05:15.040 --> 0:05:21.360 article about how much people love to talk about if 0:05:21.400 --> 0:05:25.159 you get, if something bad happens, you're in Yellstone National Park, 0:05:26.920 --> 0:05:30.360 how much people love talking about how dumb you are. 0:05:32.040 --> 0:05:34.440 It doesn't like I was on the plane ther day 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:38.600 and so you know whatever, Like someone gets someone gets 0:05:38.720 --> 0:05:41.520 run over by a buffalo in the park, What is 0:05:41.560 --> 0:05:48.400 the story going to be? How how dumb they were? 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:51.880 Do you know what I mean? People on the plane 0:05:52.000 --> 0:05:56.440 behind me are like those people. You know. It's like 0:05:56.440 --> 0:06:00.200 like I don't know, you know, I can see know 0:06:00.760 --> 0:06:06.559 Wait a minute, animal, dude. 0:06:06.600 --> 0:06:10.080 How many times of all people, I'm surprised you're walking 0:06:10.120 --> 0:06:13.880 into like a thin layer of like hot spring crust 0:06:14.000 --> 0:06:14.840 and falling through. 0:06:15.640 --> 0:06:19.120 I just especially to walk through like three dozen signs 0:06:19.120 --> 0:06:21.359 saying stop, don't you idiot? 0:06:21.440 --> 0:06:25.360 Don't I like my instinct is to my instinct is 0:06:25.400 --> 0:06:28.120 to be like, yeah, I can see that happening. The 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:30.560 guy that cooked the chicken in the hot spring, you 0:06:30.560 --> 0:06:34.160 were supposed to get him on the show. Yeah, some 0:06:34.240 --> 0:06:36.080 guys tie a chicken on a rope and lower it 0:06:36.080 --> 0:06:38.599 in there and boil it, and everybody talks about all 0:06:38.720 --> 0:06:42.039 those they should know better. I'm like, that's it. It's 0:06:42.040 --> 0:06:47.560 like a totally interesting idea. Because Osborne Russell Journal of 0:06:47.560 --> 0:06:52.280 a Trapper, don't they talk about doing that? They do. 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:58.160 I'm gonna put this, but I want to ask you thing. 0:06:58.200 --> 0:07:03.520 Because I endorse Born, I always endorsed Journal of Trapper 0:07:04.120 --> 0:07:06.600 and the thing I'll say about it is that historians 0:07:07.920 --> 0:07:10.760 like it, right, Oh yes, yeah, it's regarded he was 0:07:10.800 --> 0:07:11.760 regarded as spot on. 0:07:11.960 --> 0:07:13.480 Sure, yeah yeah. 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:15.240 And you know what surprised me. You know another book 0:07:15.280 --> 0:07:18.040 I read, uh that I heard that historians are a 0:07:18.080 --> 0:07:22.600 little incredulous. Is Tough Trip through Paradise? 0:07:22.920 --> 0:07:23.240 Really? 0:07:24.600 --> 0:07:26.559 Yeah? Have you heard that he played a little fast 0:07:26.600 --> 0:07:27.280 and loose with. 0:07:27.200 --> 0:07:29.400 The I've never heard that. It's been years since I 0:07:29.400 --> 0:07:30.800 read it, but I loved doing I read it. In fact, 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:33.240 I was overthrown through a Paradise valley the other day, 0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:36.040 just again, is that right? Beautiful country? 0:07:36.080 --> 0:07:39.960 So you can cite uh, Tough Trip through Paradise and 0:07:40.040 --> 0:07:43.320 it's like like historians will cite Tough Trip through Paradise 0:07:43.360 --> 0:07:47.400 and it's regarded as okay, sure, yeah, yeah. But historians 0:07:47.440 --> 0:07:48.560 love Journal of a Trapper. 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:51.520 They do it really readings true a lot of a 0:07:51.520 --> 0:07:52.920 lot of the things that he says in there, and 0:07:53.320 --> 0:07:55.040 you know, jobs with the other material that we have 0:07:55.680 --> 0:07:58.000 on fur Trader and trappers and so forth. So I 0:07:58.000 --> 0:07:59.040 think it's sure good. 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:03.840 I'm gonna keep endorse that was I getting that. Oh 0:08:03.880 --> 0:08:08.440 A lot of PhDs running around, uh, A lot. 0:08:08.280 --> 0:08:12.080 Of smart people and that's somehow Buffalo brilliant. 0:08:12.120 --> 0:08:14.600 A lot of brilliant people get goured by Buffalo and 0:08:14.640 --> 0:08:16.720 get blamed for being stupid when I think that they 0:08:16.800 --> 0:08:18.000 might have just been kind of. 0:08:17.880 --> 0:08:20.120 Like backing up into the like. 0:08:20.120 --> 0:08:21.480 You know, I don't know, I'm gonna go over there 0:08:21.520 --> 0:08:22.480 and get close. 0:08:22.240 --> 0:08:25.920 To it, backing up into Buffalo with like selfie sticks. 0:08:26.600 --> 0:08:31.560 Okay, Brody, hear me out, Brody. We just worked on Okay, 0:08:31.600 --> 0:08:34.920 catch crayfish, count stars, and we encourage And what do 0:08:35.000 --> 0:08:37.440 we tell kids? What do we give tips kids? Tips 0:08:37.480 --> 0:08:39.400 on hot what to do getting close to critters, how 0:08:39.400 --> 0:08:41.400 to sneak up on stuff, but you don't got to 0:08:41.440 --> 0:08:42.360 sneak up on them. 0:08:45.160 --> 0:08:46.800 It's like you get out of the car and there's 0:08:46.800 --> 0:08:47.720 one stand in the park. 0:08:48.240 --> 0:08:51.880 I think the I think the problem that that's underlying 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:54.880 all those stories is just that you somehow expect that 0:08:54.920 --> 0:08:57.320 people go into Yellowstone and not be stupid. 0:08:57.920 --> 0:08:58.120 You know. 0:08:58.160 --> 0:09:00.440 It's like it's like that's the one place where people 0:09:00.440 --> 0:09:03.439 aren't supposed to break rules and just behave in all 0:09:03.679 --> 0:09:06.000 you know, and all types of I feel like you 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:08.199 go anywhere in the world, people are doing stupid stuff. 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:09.840 It's just that the stakes are higher when you have 0:09:09.960 --> 0:09:11.480 large animals around. 0:09:11.760 --> 0:09:13.600 But if here's the deal, if someone can to you, 0:09:13.679 --> 0:09:15.720 like like someone came to be someone here at work 0:09:15.840 --> 0:09:17.679 comes and that wouldn't be surprised if this happened. I 0:09:17.760 --> 0:09:20.440 come into work and someone's like, oh, you here, Chili 0:09:20.520 --> 0:09:24.880 got Gord by a mule deer, right, he got God 0:09:24.960 --> 0:09:27.640 by a meal deer. I wouldn't be like that, idiot. 0:09:29.640 --> 0:09:35.160 I'd just be like what, Yeah. I would automatically impulsively 0:09:35.880 --> 0:09:39.320 blame the person who got mauled by something for stupidity, 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:41.199 the way they do if it's in the park. 0:09:41.480 --> 0:09:41.800 M hm. 0:09:42.320 --> 0:09:44.280 Well. The story I remember, though, was the woman who 0:09:44.280 --> 0:09:46.240 went up to buy some gup right in front of 0:09:46.280 --> 0:09:49.360 it with a flash camera, you know, took a close 0:09:49.440 --> 0:09:52.080 up of the of hiss head from the front. Sure, 0:09:52.800 --> 0:09:55.640 and she got Gord. What do you expect that she. 0:09:58.880 --> 0:09:59.360 Expected? 0:10:00.480 --> 0:10:00.960 I can't go. 0:10:01.480 --> 0:10:02.840 I think pictures blurred. 0:10:06.720 --> 0:10:06.840 Uh. 0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:09.079 The third thing I wanted to talk about, but I 0:10:09.080 --> 0:10:10.760 can't give too many details. I got a friend who's 0:10:10.800 --> 0:10:16.040 a prosecutor in this state. He's a county prosecutor, and 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:17.880 he was telling me the other day about he had 0:10:17.920 --> 0:10:21.360 a thing he's working on where these guys in a 0:10:21.400 --> 0:10:26.959 trailer park, gotten to fight like this want being like 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:29.800 a prosecuted issue. They got to fight over a last 0:10:29.840 --> 0:10:37.240 piece of fried chicken that someone then impregnated the chicken 0:10:37.320 --> 0:10:43.800 with glass shards of glass, and a fight broke out 0:10:43.880 --> 0:10:47.520 so bad the fight broke out, went over the fence 0:10:47.600 --> 0:10:58.040 and into I ninety and shut the highway down. No, 0:11:00.559 --> 0:11:03.480 no another for common. Here's the everything, this super important 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:07.199 that I keep wanting to get to my body. One 0:11:07.200 --> 0:11:09.439 of my main best friends from growing up and we're 0:11:09.440 --> 0:11:11.920 still friends today. He comes up to our fishsheck every year. 0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:16.800 He has a new he's a teacher. Okay, he has 0:11:16.840 --> 0:11:22.200 a business, a summertime business of he's got a roving bar. 0:11:24.640 --> 0:11:34.280 I'm gonna explain this, damn it. Okay, if you live 0:11:34.320 --> 0:11:37.640 around Traverse City, Michigan, here's what you need to who 0:11:37.720 --> 0:11:41.520 you need to hire for your events. This is the 0:11:41.760 --> 0:11:43.760 this is so. This is a good, very good buddy, 0:11:43.800 --> 0:11:46.000 My Matt DROs from growing up, we still hang out. 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:49.120 Was just with him and because he's a teacher, he 0:11:49.120 --> 0:11:55.600 has a summertime business he created called roaming Roaming Northern 0:11:55.600 --> 0:11:58.280 Michigan dot com. But it's not it's roaming. No. My 0:11:58.600 --> 0:12:02.920 so roaming Andi dot com. I'll revisit this in a minute. 0:12:03.960 --> 0:12:06.000 He has a camp or trailer that he rigged up 0:12:06.040 --> 0:12:10.040 as a bar. But when you have an event, you 0:12:10.040 --> 0:12:13.880 get married whatever, twenty fifth wedding anniversary bar mitzvah, I 0:12:13.920 --> 0:12:20.320 don't know. Uh. You call him, you place your liquor order, 0:12:21.360 --> 0:12:25.360 he picks it up. Okay, so he's not selling booze. 0:12:25.960 --> 0:12:28.720 You buy your booze for your event like you normally would. 0:12:29.120 --> 0:12:32.680 He then shows up with his motor home with all 0:12:32.760 --> 0:12:38.280 the mixers and specialty drinks that he crafts for your thing, 0:12:38.800 --> 0:12:41.440 pulls his camper in and then your guests go to 0:12:41.520 --> 0:12:46.079 the bar window to get cocktails. 0:12:46.120 --> 0:12:47.560 And there's no money change. 0:12:47.320 --> 0:12:50.920 In hands, No money changes hands. Fantastic, no money changes hands. 0:12:51.480 --> 0:12:55.600 He operates out of Traverse City, Michigan. Packages prices everything 0:12:55.720 --> 0:13:02.240 at the website Roaming nom Roaming n m I dot com. 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:10.640 Matt Drose plan an event just to call him. I 0:13:10.760 --> 0:13:12.840 like it, Like if you're getting married somewhere else, get 0:13:12.880 --> 0:13:17.520 married there and call it roaming and go to Roamingnomi 0:13:17.640 --> 0:13:24.120 dot com and patronize my good friend's business. He likes 0:13:24.120 --> 0:13:26.760 to hunt and fish. 0:13:27.000 --> 0:13:30.320 He should start a franchise take over the country. 0:13:30.360 --> 0:13:32.400 Another thing I've been wanting to talk about. I invented 0:13:32.400 --> 0:13:34.960 an old saying. I'm the only guy I know that 0:13:35.000 --> 0:13:39.319 ever invented an old saying meaning, you know, like stitching 0:13:39.360 --> 0:13:40.599 time saves nine. 0:13:40.679 --> 0:13:42.320 Like you said you invented it. 0:13:42.480 --> 0:13:44.440 Yeah, I know. I thought of one that you'd think 0:13:44.559 --> 0:13:46.760 was old. And it has to do with like if 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:49.960 you send your kids out to pick pole beans and 0:13:49.960 --> 0:13:52.680 he'd be like, pick every pole bean, and then you 0:13:52.720 --> 0:13:55.800 go out and look and there's pol beans they didn't 0:13:55.840 --> 0:14:00.800 pick because it's hard to find them. Or like you 0:14:00.880 --> 0:14:04.200 send your wife's friend out to pick pole beans and 0:14:04.240 --> 0:14:06.520 she's like, I got them all, and you go on looking. 0:14:06.559 --> 0:14:09.240 They didn't get them all. They didn't look carefully enough. 0:14:09.360 --> 0:14:13.400 The old saying I invented is is I could see 0:14:13.440 --> 0:14:18.480 applications and finance and other things. A fresh a fresh 0:14:18.520 --> 0:14:20.840 set of eyes will always find more beans. 0:14:21.680 --> 0:14:21.960 Hm hm. 0:14:23.360 --> 0:14:30.480 So right. So, like let's say someone's like whatever, I 0:14:30.520 --> 0:14:33.320 don't know. You know, you can see implications and finance whatever, 0:14:33.920 --> 0:14:36.760 fresh set eye, Yeah exactly, but your body's like, no, 0:14:36.840 --> 0:14:40.040 I glass that hillside good and you sit down and 0:14:40.080 --> 0:14:43.360 you're like, you know what, buddy, fresh set eyes always 0:14:43.360 --> 0:14:44.280 find more beans. 0:14:45.360 --> 0:14:45.760 It doesn't. 0:14:45.880 --> 0:14:51.240 There's a buck right over there. You don't think so 0:14:51.720 --> 0:14:54.520 Katie thinks is like useless. He knows my wife doesn't 0:14:54.560 --> 0:14:56.800 think it's a good saying, good old saying at all. 0:14:57.480 --> 0:14:59.240 A couple more dress you sounds like a real dor 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:02.920 when you say you do, sound like a total dork 0:15:02.960 --> 0:15:07.240 when you say it. First set eyes always find more beans, Randall, I've. 0:15:07.040 --> 0:15:08.800 Never really thought about finding beans. 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:12.800 Now I'm gonna work on it. Think about it, Phil. 0:15:13.640 --> 0:15:19.240 Maybe Phil can workshop that that's different. I got a 0:15:19.280 --> 0:15:20.800 lot more stuff written out here, but we got to 0:15:20.840 --> 0:15:23.680 get down to what we're talking about. Oh, so here's 0:15:23.680 --> 0:15:24.000 the deal. 0:15:27.280 --> 0:15:27.680 This is. 0:15:29.400 --> 0:15:31.240 Our esteem. Guests probably wondering why it is here, but 0:15:31.280 --> 0:15:34.600 we're gonna have a lot of time. We're gonna get 0:15:34.600 --> 0:15:37.960 to something from your state. Elliott. Were you born in Arkansas? No? 0:15:38.040 --> 0:15:39.440 I was born in Texas, in Dallas. 0:15:39.560 --> 0:15:41.680 Oh you're born in Dallas, Texas. But you're at University 0:15:41.680 --> 0:15:42.200 of Arkansas. 0:15:42.320 --> 0:15:42.520 Yeah. 0:15:42.520 --> 0:15:44.880 I've been there for well, retired a couple of years ago. 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:47.840 At been I've been there for forty three, forty four years. 0:15:47.880 --> 0:15:49.920 Did they give you that? What's that good title you 0:15:49.960 --> 0:15:53.120 get when you retire? But you remain in good standing Americas? 0:15:53.120 --> 0:15:53.880 Are you emeretis? 0:15:53.880 --> 0:15:54.600 I'm emeritus? 0:15:54.600 --> 0:16:00.800 That's sweet man? Uh Randall have you heard of doubt? 0:16:02.120 --> 0:16:05.000 The best thing Randallsville tell me about his PhD is 0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:07.080 when he checks a book out from the library, he 0:16:07.120 --> 0:16:11.359 gets as long as he wants. That makes all while 0:16:12.880 --> 0:16:18.080 those librarians chasing after all the time, and you get that, Yeah, 0:16:18.360 --> 0:16:21.200 librarians aren't always after him for the seventy. 0:16:20.840 --> 0:16:24.880 Eight small, very very small privileges in life to make 0:16:24.880 --> 0:16:25.640 it all worth it. 0:16:26.040 --> 0:16:29.840 This is from Springdale, Arkansas. So September twenty third. We've 0:16:29.840 --> 0:16:31.640 talked about this the whole bunch. We actually for a 0:16:31.680 --> 0:16:34.320 while talked about that we were going to like start 0:16:34.360 --> 0:16:37.120 our own, which you never got around to. But this 0:16:37.160 --> 0:16:41.960 one's back on the World Champion Squirrel Cookoff, Springdale, Arkansas, 0:16:42.000 --> 0:16:45.600 September twenty third, in partnership with Arizona Fish and Game 0:16:46.280 --> 0:16:50.760 Free of vatkans Arkansas. What did I say, Arizona? I did, 0:16:52.280 --> 0:16:55.520 we probably can Arkansas. I feel, yeah, this is a 0:16:55.520 --> 0:16:57.360 lot of work. One state is not going to have 0:16:57.400 --> 0:16:59.080 a squirrel cookoff and be Arizona. 0:16:59.160 --> 0:16:59.400 Yeah. 0:17:02.000 --> 0:17:06.480 Springdale, Arkansas, September twenty third, in partnership with Oh, that's 0:17:06.480 --> 0:17:09.520 why I screwed up in partnership with Arkansas Fishing Game 0:17:09.560 --> 0:17:14.159 free event. It's a creative event and competitive cooking and 0:17:14.240 --> 0:17:20.880 squirrel dishes must contain eighty percent squirrel and be prepared 0:17:21.040 --> 0:17:23.840 on site. That's a good TIB because I've judged wild 0:17:23.960 --> 0:17:28.240 game cookoffs before where it's like the game part becomes 0:17:28.280 --> 0:17:29.040 an afterthought. 0:17:29.320 --> 0:17:31.400 Yeah, you could put like one squirrel in a pot 0:17:31.440 --> 0:17:32.160 of chili and be. 0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:36.120 Like that squirrel chili eighty percent squirrel, So you are 0:17:36.200 --> 0:17:42.760 showcasing squirrel. They have a Facebook deal. So when you're 0:17:42.760 --> 0:17:45.080 describing where to find something on Facebook, do you include 0:17:45.080 --> 0:17:47.000 like Facebook dot com? Or what do you write? How 0:17:47.000 --> 0:17:47.400 do you say? 0:17:47.480 --> 0:17:49.960 I guess, yeah, because I guess If you don't have Facebook, 0:17:50.000 --> 0:17:52.760 you can still type in this your URL and get there. 0:17:52.880 --> 0:17:57.080 Facebook dot com slash Squirrel Cookoff. We'll take you there. 0:17:57.240 --> 0:18:01.800 And it's organized by Clay's good friend. Clay's going to 0:18:01.800 --> 0:18:03.960 be there this year. I think he is. Yeah, I think. 0:18:04.000 --> 0:18:10.720 So Here's what I don't like. They're billing it. They're 0:18:10.720 --> 0:18:12.600 making it like a war on squirrels. 0:18:13.520 --> 0:18:14.840 Yeah, this squirrel has. 0:18:14.640 --> 0:18:20.440 Caused millions of dollars of damage. Listen, don't I still 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:22.680 want people to go, But this is not about squirrels 0:18:22.680 --> 0:18:23.200 being bad. 0:18:23.280 --> 0:18:26.120 Come on, I don't know. 0:18:26.560 --> 0:18:28.840 Typically I think of these things as a celebration of 0:18:28.880 --> 0:18:29.760 the animal right. 0:18:29.960 --> 0:18:32.879 Yeah, like house fires are caused by squirrels, They got 0:18:33.119 --> 0:18:34.600 all kinds of screams things. 0:18:34.600 --> 0:18:37.879 Listen, listen. I still want you to go to the 0:18:37.880 --> 0:18:40.280 squirrel Cookoff, but you need to go from a place 0:18:40.280 --> 0:18:44.080 of love, not from a place of go from a 0:18:44.080 --> 0:18:46.600 position of love for squirrels, not from a position of 0:18:46.640 --> 0:18:49.000 squirrel hatred. No. 0:18:49.160 --> 0:18:52.040 I think it's also that for anyone who needs like 0:18:52.560 --> 0:18:57.040 extra justification to, you know, push them over the edge 0:18:57.080 --> 0:19:00.320 if they might not otherwise attend they're being reminded did. 0:19:00.720 --> 0:19:02.480 But the last thing you want to create is like 0:19:02.560 --> 0:19:06.040 another a squirrel. There's a lot of things to love, 0:19:06.200 --> 0:19:08.400 like about hunting, but people like, well if I didn't hunt, 0:19:09.800 --> 0:19:11.840 it's kind of you. 0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:15.000 And they're like going after him the way people go 0:19:15.080 --> 0:19:15.960 after coyote. 0:19:16.040 --> 0:19:18.680 Yeah, exact things like that. It's strange. 0:19:19.040 --> 0:19:26.320 Yeah, I don't know to do about all rearing endorsement. No, listen, 0:19:26.760 --> 0:19:30.040 I am all four. Do you see me pounding this table. 0:19:30.160 --> 0:19:33.199 I'm all for the squirrel Cookoff. I just think that 0:19:33.240 --> 0:19:35.399 it has been. It's from a place. I love that 0:19:35.440 --> 0:19:37.520 it approach the right. Never in my life seeing a 0:19:37.560 --> 0:19:42.159 squirrel and been like, dah, damn it a squirrel. Do 0:19:42.160 --> 0:19:42.760 you know what I mean? 0:19:43.000 --> 0:19:44.720 You need to go down there and enter a pine 0:19:44.720 --> 0:19:46.080 squirrel recipe with Jimmy. 0:19:46.160 --> 0:19:49.600 That'd be great idea. No one else pine squirrel carried away. 0:19:50.640 --> 0:19:52.719 I still like, I'm still mad at my mother for 0:19:52.840 --> 0:19:54.640 cutting some of the oak trees down in her yard 0:19:55.640 --> 0:20:00.159 because of squirrels, squirrel damage, the squirrel habitat uh. We 0:20:00.160 --> 0:20:02.800 recently had an episode where we were with the founder, 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:05.520 the creator of the Merlin app at Cornell. Someone had 0:20:05.560 --> 0:20:11.920 a hot tip about the Merlin app. Get a bluetooth 0:20:11.960 --> 0:20:14.880 speaker and play back bird songs. This is very effective. 0:20:16.240 --> 0:20:18.320 I wish would have brought it up. I don't know 0:20:18.320 --> 0:20:20.080 if they do. They frown on it. Maybe they frown 0:20:20.119 --> 0:20:21.560 on it at Merlin. We'll have to see if they 0:20:21.640 --> 0:20:28.840 write in meaning it works. It's very effective to call 0:20:28.920 --> 0:20:32.840 in birds. In fact, we would so the over day. 0:20:32.840 --> 0:20:34.520 I'll sitting there with my boy in a little pop 0:20:34.600 --> 0:20:36.880 up blind. I'm gonna pull this up. I got a 0:20:36.920 --> 0:20:39.399 gripe with the Merlin app too, Just and I know 0:20:39.480 --> 0:20:44.960 they listened to the show it. This is the only 0:20:45.000 --> 0:20:47.000 bird I never they It does not pick up a 0:20:47.160 --> 0:20:49.480 It won't pick up a grade. JA listen to this. 0:20:49.880 --> 0:20:52.520 So here's from my Merlin app. I'm gonna turn it up. 0:20:53.240 --> 0:20:59.240 This is a recording I made this weekend. So that's 0:20:59.240 --> 0:21:04.560 a pine squirrel. Okay, but listen to them again. I 0:21:04.640 --> 0:21:08.880 hit him again and again and again with Merlin. Listen, 0:21:08.960 --> 0:21:14.879 care for the that's a great jay. Listen. It doesn't 0:21:14.880 --> 0:21:19.119 get it. It registers it. You see it show up. Obviously, 0:21:19.440 --> 0:21:22.640 it will not identify that thing. It's the only failure 0:21:22.640 --> 0:21:23.400 I've ever seen Merlin. 0:21:23.480 --> 0:21:25.399 I wonder if it's too short of no. 0:21:25.560 --> 0:21:31.000 He was going boom boom boom, and there's probably other vocalizations, 0:21:31.000 --> 0:21:32.960 but it will not detect that vocalization. 0:21:33.440 --> 0:21:37.800 That squirrel is really really upfront and loud. 0:21:38.520 --> 0:21:41.879 I wonder if it's like yeah that and it's audio. 0:21:41.960 --> 0:21:43.720 Clashing with a lot of the frequencies. 0:21:44.200 --> 0:21:45.359 Is my guest, you think so? 0:21:45.640 --> 0:21:46.080 I think so. 0:21:46.160 --> 0:21:47.719 It comes from an audio engineers. 0:21:48.000 --> 0:21:49.760 Here's my kids. Here's what you want to hear my 0:21:49.840 --> 0:21:51.159 kid criticizing. 0:21:50.680 --> 0:22:01.359 Me ursus, you're so what. 0:22:01.800 --> 0:22:05.159 You're so slow. He didn't like when we go to 0:22:05.240 --> 0:22:07.320 pick off a bird. He didn't like how long it'd 0:22:07.359 --> 0:22:10.399 take me to activate the app. It was frustrating. He 0:22:10.400 --> 0:22:12.320 thought you would just like let it run for hours 0:22:12.320 --> 0:22:13.879 on end, and I didn't like that approach. 0:22:13.880 --> 0:22:16.440 I mean, it seems like if you're playing on a 0:22:16.480 --> 0:22:19.240 bluetooth speaker, if there's someone else in the area using 0:22:19.240 --> 0:22:21.560 the Merlin app, that it could cause a feedback loop 0:22:21.600 --> 0:22:22.680 where all of a sudden there's a. 0:22:24.600 --> 0:22:29.879 Merlin's too smart. I've played bird, I've played recordings, and 0:22:29.920 --> 0:22:32.399 I haven't done it much. I've played recordings and something 0:22:32.400 --> 0:22:36.399 g's lost interesting. So if you play, we can do 0:22:36.600 --> 0:22:39.200 I don't know, try it right now, But if you 0:22:39.359 --> 0:22:43.280 play Merlin a recording of a bird, it won't flag 0:22:43.320 --> 0:22:46.280 the bird. I don't know if it's just because things 0:22:46.320 --> 0:22:49.160 are too compressed. If something's like too compressed, Phil probably 0:22:49.200 --> 0:22:51.680 answer that, what do you think of that is? Phil? 0:22:53.040 --> 0:22:56.000 Honestly, that kind of baffles me. I feel like it 0:22:56.000 --> 0:22:57.320 should be able to pick it out. 0:22:57.520 --> 0:22:57.760 Yeah. 0:22:58.800 --> 0:23:03.119 However, we have a called the Bird Song Bible, and 0:23:03.240 --> 0:23:06.320 you type in bird calls and it's going through like 0:23:06.320 --> 0:23:09.040 a little chintzy little there's like a speaker baked into 0:23:09.040 --> 0:23:12.320 the book and it might be that that speaker just sucks. 0:23:12.359 --> 0:23:17.080 I don't know, but Merlin won't identify those birds. But 0:23:18.080 --> 0:23:20.200 I could run around with this. I could go into 0:23:20.280 --> 0:23:22.800 any area with pine squirrels. And we did it for 0:23:22.920 --> 0:23:25.000 we were just messing around this weekend. We would just 0:23:25.040 --> 0:23:28.159 walk into a spot and play that squirrel and just 0:23:28.600 --> 0:23:30.840 no sooner he shut up alst in the woods just 0:23:30.880 --> 0:23:37.760 come alive with like squirrels replying to it. Years ago, 0:23:37.800 --> 0:23:42.399 I was reading a thing where they they're working on 0:23:42.480 --> 0:23:47.280 his study with vervet monkeys who they have these different 0:23:47.280 --> 0:23:52.240 warning calls. These researchers realizing that they had that they 0:23:52.240 --> 0:23:54.200 have a warning call for a threat on the ground, 0:23:55.040 --> 0:23:57.119 and then they have a warning call for a threat 0:23:57.640 --> 0:24:00.760 from an avian predator, and they seem to have a 0:24:00.760 --> 0:24:04.320 different noise they make on the ground in the air. 0:24:05.320 --> 0:24:10.919 And they would record the calls and play it and 0:24:11.040 --> 0:24:15.160 monitor what evasive actions they took. If it's a thread 0:24:15.160 --> 0:24:18.119 on the ground, they would do one thing like bust 0:24:18.119 --> 0:24:20.520 into the tree. If it's an overhead threat, they would 0:24:20.600 --> 0:24:23.359 respond differently to it to like reduce their risk from 0:24:23.400 --> 0:24:25.399 a harpy eagle or the hell praise on them. I 0:24:25.400 --> 0:24:27.280 don't remember what it was the praise on them. It 0:24:27.320 --> 0:24:29.280 wouldn't be a harpy because that's South America, but these 0:24:29.280 --> 0:24:32.840 I think are Africa. Anyways, you could burn out. You 0:24:32.840 --> 0:24:37.560 could burn them out on a monkey. If you record 0:24:37.600 --> 0:24:41.840 a monkey doing a warning call and then start playing 0:24:41.920 --> 0:24:45.000 that monkey to his buddies all the time. After a 0:24:45.000 --> 0:24:47.600 while his buddies, he loses credibility with his buddies. 0:24:48.320 --> 0:24:49.440 The monkey he had cried eagle. 0:24:49.600 --> 0:24:51.720 Yeah, he's the monkey that cried and he's the monkey 0:24:51.720 --> 0:24:54.879 that cried wolf, and you could play it where everybody's like, oh, Bob, 0:24:54.920 --> 0:25:03.159 he always is doing that. An insurance so I was 0:25:03.280 --> 0:25:07.760 using the term inherent vice, which is one of my 0:25:07.800 --> 0:25:10.480 favorite movies. I like it. It's one of those rare 0:25:10.560 --> 0:25:12.960 instances where a movie is so much better than a book. 0:25:13.720 --> 0:25:17.120 Thomas Pinsion's Inherent Vice was made into a film, which 0:25:17.119 --> 0:25:20.000 was a wonderful movie. And we were talking about when 0:25:20.000 --> 0:25:22.000 we had David grant On. I think that's when we 0:25:22.000 --> 0:25:24.040 had David grant On. We're talking about the concept of 0:25:24.040 --> 0:25:30.119 inherent vice, which is a nautical term. Someone wrote in. 0:25:30.119 --> 0:25:33.720 A guy named Thomas wrote in from He's from an insurance. 0:25:33.760 --> 0:25:40.240 He's a marine insurance specialist got to say his name. Sure, 0:25:40.400 --> 0:25:46.440 he's the president of Alan Armott Agency, Inc. Marine Insurance Specialists. 0:25:47.800 --> 0:25:51.119 He says, Steve refers to inherent vice as things you 0:25:51.160 --> 0:25:58.240 can't control, like getting wet. Inherent vice is the ability 0:25:58.280 --> 0:26:03.560 of a thing to destroy itself health, fruit can rot, 0:26:03.800 --> 0:26:06.760 marijuana can actually light itself on fire, metal can rust. 0:26:07.960 --> 0:26:12.080 Getting wet would not be under inherent vice. Getting wet 0:26:12.160 --> 0:26:13.399 is an external. 0:26:12.920 --> 0:26:17.159 Factor caused by an external factor. 0:26:16.920 --> 0:26:19.280 Caused by an external factor. So like the idea of 0:26:19.320 --> 0:26:23.400 inherent vice and shipping, if the load gets wet, it's 0:26:23.440 --> 0:26:26.719 not like, Ah, that just happens. Someone screwed up when 0:26:26.720 --> 0:26:29.680 he gets wet. Then he goes on to say, never 0:26:29.720 --> 0:26:32.560 thought I would be the type to email a correction. 0:26:36.520 --> 0:26:36.639 Uh. 0:26:38.600 --> 0:26:41.600 Someone else rode in with another one. When we had 0:26:41.600 --> 0:26:44.560 the writer David Grant on about the wager, we talked 0:26:44.560 --> 0:26:50.280 about sayings that come from naval, the naval world. He says, 0:26:50.320 --> 0:26:52.600 you guys fell down a rabbit hole on ship terms 0:26:52.720 --> 0:26:55.280 and sayings on the podcast with David Grant. Here's another. 0:26:56.720 --> 0:26:57.480 Do you believe this? 0:26:58.080 --> 0:26:59.720 I'm wondering, I'm looking it up. 0:27:02.680 --> 0:27:03.480 I didn't look it up. 0:27:03.560 --> 0:27:08.560 He's saying that the word ship comes from the old days. 0:27:08.800 --> 0:27:15.680 I think he's off. You look it up origin Old English. 0:27:16.240 --> 0:27:18.159 I don't know how to how to pronounce it. S 0:27:18.160 --> 0:27:21.520 c I T t E of Germanic origin. 0:27:22.600 --> 0:27:27.000 Maybe bags of manure. Maybe maybe our maybe our steam 0:27:27.040 --> 0:27:29.600 guests has heard of this, bags of manure. 0:27:30.840 --> 0:27:32.320 I'm dealing it a lot, Okay. 0:27:33.800 --> 0:27:36.280 If you stored bags of manure within the depths of 0:27:36.320 --> 0:27:41.320 a ship, they could get seawater on makes them unusable. 0:27:42.680 --> 0:27:45.600 They would write s h I T on bags of 0:27:45.680 --> 0:27:47.800 nerve store high in transit. 0:27:49.760 --> 0:27:51.800 I don't know that sounds fake. Do you think it 0:27:52.320 --> 0:27:52.760 sounds fake? 0:27:52.880 --> 0:27:55.320 I've heard that before, but I don't. I mean the 0:27:55.320 --> 0:27:59.640 the etymology. 0:27:57.840 --> 0:28:00.560 Yeah it doesn't. It doesn't match up with but the 0:28:00.600 --> 0:28:01.840 google because. 0:28:01.520 --> 0:28:03.000 The German is shi. 0:28:03.520 --> 0:28:08.560 Yeah, the Germans were using that word for us words. 0:28:08.560 --> 0:28:11.959 Ship first originally appeared around one thousand years ago and 0:28:12.040 --> 0:28:15.919 can be traced back to the old Norse origin skit 0:28:16.640 --> 0:28:18.960 skeeta skeeters. 0:28:19.880 --> 0:28:22.440 I'm just saying, there's like this gate. 0:28:22.600 --> 0:28:25.080 This guy might be wrong, but I kinda like this 0:28:25.960 --> 0:28:26.400 should feel. 0:28:26.440 --> 0:28:31.240 Pull it out of the show, leave it. Someone wrote 0:28:31.240 --> 0:28:32.800 in out that Krin likes this one. I don't know. 0:28:33.800 --> 0:28:34.520 Well, if you. 0:28:34.480 --> 0:28:37.879 Were tasked with the decision of picking four American authors 0:28:37.920 --> 0:28:40.000 to be etched into the side of a mountain. Who 0:28:40.000 --> 0:28:45.240 would they be. I'll just leave that one hanging for 0:28:45.240 --> 0:28:45.920 for listeners. 0:28:46.960 --> 0:28:49.240 Elliott West and rand. 0:28:52.600 --> 0:28:52.760 Oh. 0:28:52.840 --> 0:28:56.960 I was gonna tell you, yeah, uh, did you know 0:28:57.000 --> 0:29:00.280 that Randall reviewed your work? Hemagined they I. 0:29:00.200 --> 0:29:02.720 Did tell him that. 0:29:03.480 --> 0:29:06.320 Let's start with that. Randal set the scene for us. Well. 0:29:06.440 --> 0:29:11.800 I was in a graduate seminar taught by Dan and 0:29:13.200 --> 0:29:16.440 each week, each week you had to review a book 0:29:16.640 --> 0:29:20.400 and from a different period of time or I think 0:29:20.560 --> 0:29:21.920 some of them were probably thematic. 0:29:22.320 --> 0:29:24.440 Each week, yep, you read. 0:29:24.520 --> 0:29:27.200 So everybody in the seminar reads a book and reviews it, 0:29:27.280 --> 0:29:30.160 and then you get together on Monday or Tuesday or 0:29:30.200 --> 0:29:34.160 whenever the classes and you just explain your book and 0:29:34.240 --> 0:29:37.880 Dan kind of pieces them all together and explains how 0:29:37.920 --> 0:29:40.120 they're in conversation with one another. And that was kind 0:29:40.120 --> 0:29:43.160 of the structure of those seminars. But one week I 0:29:43.200 --> 0:29:48.040 had the pleasure of reviewing The Last Indian War, probably 0:29:48.080 --> 0:29:51.480 two years after it came out, and stuck with me. 0:29:51.800 --> 0:29:54.240 So, I would you like to share a passage with us? 0:29:54.720 --> 0:29:54.880 Mm? 0:29:56.120 --> 0:29:57.800 I mean, you proposed this to me didn't you that 0:29:57.840 --> 0:29:58.800 you'd share as. 0:30:00.200 --> 0:30:00.800 The passage. 0:30:01.520 --> 0:30:03.160 There's just there are a lot of things that are 0:30:03.160 --> 0:30:06.000 attributed to me in the course of a conversation having 0:30:06.040 --> 0:30:09.760 to do with my educational background that really have never 0:30:09.880 --> 0:30:11.040 once escaped my mouth. 0:30:11.160 --> 0:30:15.120 So but yeah, Crin, if you'd like to know, I'm 0:30:15.160 --> 0:30:17.920 gonna deny his Montana PhD license plate. 0:30:18.000 --> 0:30:18.160 Now. 0:30:22.440 --> 0:30:25.800 Yeah, it's a memorable book. I think there are a couple. Uh, 0:30:26.360 --> 0:30:30.560 I just I appreciated. I always appreciate books that make 0:30:30.600 --> 0:30:33.280 a story that you think is a story about one 0:30:33.320 --> 0:30:37.160 thing speak to bigger stories and bigger narratives. And so 0:30:37.560 --> 0:30:39.680 that was one of those books that kind of opened 0:30:39.680 --> 0:30:44.800 my eyes to how the past is all and you know, 0:30:44.880 --> 0:30:47.400 different parts of the past during conversation with one another. 0:30:48.360 --> 0:30:49.040 Well, thank you? 0:30:49.120 --> 0:30:50.520 Yeah, do you have it pulled up? 0:30:50.920 --> 0:30:51.080 No? 0:30:51.160 --> 0:30:51.440 Don't? 0:30:52.360 --> 0:30:55.680 Should should read it? How long is the passage? 0:30:55.920 --> 0:30:59.640 It's I just shared. I don't need to read any 0:30:59.680 --> 0:30:59.880 of this. 0:31:00.120 --> 0:31:01.440 No, no, you don't. You know what you don't need 0:31:01.480 --> 0:31:04.800 to Randall? Was it a negative review, No, No, it 0:31:05.560 --> 0:31:06.520 was quite complimentary. 0:31:06.560 --> 0:31:11.040 I actually I only sent along the the excerpt excerpts 0:31:11.080 --> 0:31:13.600 from it because I I thought you might find them 0:31:13.680 --> 0:31:16.120 useful in preparation for our conversations. 0:31:16.120 --> 0:31:16.920 Why you shared them? 0:31:16.960 --> 0:31:20.479 Yeah, yeah, No, it wasn't a show and tell. If 0:31:20.520 --> 0:31:22.120 it was, I would have had a I would have 0:31:22.200 --> 0:31:24.600 had a photo of the original with the sticker at 0:31:24.600 --> 0:31:24.960 the top. 0:31:25.160 --> 0:31:27.320 But yeah, I thought you might find it. 0:31:27.560 --> 0:31:30.120 Oh you're trying to help me out as a host. Yeah, yeah, 0:31:30.200 --> 0:31:30.960 I appreciate that. 0:31:31.200 --> 0:31:34.280 Instead, I just put another great, big target on my back. 0:31:34.320 --> 0:31:48.520 I guess. So, elios, let's start out, how many when 0:31:48.560 --> 0:31:52.040 you look at your career as a historian and you've 0:31:52.080 --> 0:31:54.280 been in you've been in the biz, how long fifty 0:31:54.360 --> 0:31:58.600 years do you do you measure it? Do you measure 0:31:58.640 --> 0:32:02.320 your career as a historian in terms of how many 0:32:02.400 --> 0:32:03.320 books you've written? 0:32:04.320 --> 0:32:04.360 Like? 0:32:04.560 --> 0:32:05.719 You know what I mean? Like, how do you how 0:32:05.760 --> 0:32:06.920 do you sum it up? Right? 0:32:09.000 --> 0:32:12.520 Well, that would be one way I think. I think 0:32:12.560 --> 0:32:15.720 I think more in terms of teaching. Okay, how many 0:32:16.520 --> 0:32:18.960 teaching the public University of State university, so you have 0:32:19.040 --> 0:32:23.080 big classes. I tried to figure out. In fact, I 0:32:23.120 --> 0:32:26.440 dedicated a book of a few books ago to my students, 0:32:26.440 --> 0:32:28.400 and I said, I and figured out it's probably had 0:32:28.760 --> 0:32:32.960 somewhere between ten and twelve thousand students. Really, in terms 0:32:33.000 --> 0:32:34.120 of I've also worked. 0:32:34.160 --> 0:32:36.840 That's a lot of influence, that's a lot of you 0:32:36.920 --> 0:32:38.520 have them for a lot of hours. 0:32:38.760 --> 0:32:38.960 I do. 0:32:39.040 --> 0:32:46.400 Indeed, they would confirm that yes, captive, Oh my god, 0:32:46.440 --> 0:32:48.800 it's like I ever shut up, you know. But he 0:32:49.440 --> 0:32:51.640 also I try to work. I've tried to work a 0:32:51.640 --> 0:32:56.200 lot with public school teachers to encourage, you know, better 0:32:56.240 --> 0:32:57.480 teaching of American history. 0:32:57.720 --> 0:32:58.120 Is that right? 0:32:58.200 --> 0:33:01.360 I've had one hundred of them over the years, and 0:33:01.400 --> 0:33:03.440 they've had, of course, each one of them has said, 0:33:04.720 --> 0:33:06.480 hundreds of thousands of students. 0:33:06.760 --> 0:33:09.040 How do you think, how do you interact with public 0:33:09.040 --> 0:33:10.960 school teachers in what capacity? 0:33:11.080 --> 0:33:14.200 Well, there are different programs. One that I continue to 0:33:14.200 --> 0:33:17.960 work with the Guilder Laherman Institute in New York. It's 0:33:17.960 --> 0:33:21.520 a wonderful institute to encourage a good teaching of American history. 0:33:21.600 --> 0:33:26.200 And they sponsor seminars over the years, and I've done, 0:33:26.480 --> 0:33:30.040 oh gosh, probably ten or fifteen of those. And you 0:33:30.120 --> 0:33:32.760 meet with a week for a week with school teachers 0:33:32.800 --> 0:33:36.120 from all around the country, since some from abroad, and 0:33:36.160 --> 0:33:40.080 you choose a topic. I taught one I was mentioning 0:33:40.080 --> 0:33:42.640 a moment ago. Taught one in Missoula for four years 0:33:42.640 --> 0:33:45.440 on Lewis and Clark. So you have teachers come from 0:33:45.480 --> 0:33:49.080 all over the country, all over the world, and you 0:33:49.160 --> 0:33:50.960 try to have the seminars and in the place that 0:33:51.000 --> 0:33:54.320 you're teaching about, you know. So we would talk about 0:33:54.400 --> 0:33:57.120 Lewis and Clark and sort of pick that expedition apart, 0:33:57.120 --> 0:33:59.080 and then on a Wednesday, we'd go up a little 0:33:59.080 --> 0:34:02.440 low pass to the uh you know, to travelers Rest, 0:34:02.480 --> 0:34:03.840 and then up to the old Pass and then back 0:34:03.880 --> 0:34:05.680 and sort of around the country. So it's a it's 0:34:05.680 --> 0:34:09.000 a great way to encourage students to identify, not just 0:34:09.040 --> 0:34:11.480 in terms of new material, but you know the place itself, 0:34:11.480 --> 0:34:14.440 because you really can't, especially Western history, you can't understand 0:34:14.480 --> 0:34:16.960 the story if you don't don't know the place. You know, 0:34:17.000 --> 0:34:18.800 if you can't go there. 0:34:19.280 --> 0:34:21.600 What do you what do you think is wrong with 0:34:21.640 --> 0:34:24.799 how American? You know? If you said to be to 0:34:24.840 --> 0:34:28.320 do better at teaching American history, where do people fall 0:34:28.360 --> 0:34:31.240 short in teaching American history in your in your view. 0:34:31.880 --> 0:34:35.000 Well, until fairly recently, of course, you leave out a 0:34:35.000 --> 0:34:38.000 lot that's pertinent. Uh. I think we need to bring 0:34:38.040 --> 0:34:41.399 in more areas like environmental history, the kind of thing 0:34:41.440 --> 0:34:45.600 that your podcast deals with a great deal beyond that, 0:34:45.640 --> 0:34:48.439 I think you need to the you need to talk 0:34:48.480 --> 0:34:51.920 about the larger contexts, you know, to take something to 0:34:52.000 --> 0:34:55.240 Lewis and Clark. It's a fascinating story. It's an American epic, 0:34:55.320 --> 0:34:59.920 you know, it's like an American creation story. Almost You're 0:35:00.040 --> 0:35:03.080 caught up in this sort of a mythic pattern where 0:35:03.120 --> 0:35:06.319 you think this is an absolutely unique event, but in fact, 0:35:06.360 --> 0:35:09.000 you know, this is part of global exploration, you know, 0:35:09.080 --> 0:35:12.560 and something that was happening all over all over the 0:35:12.560 --> 0:35:16.879 planet Earth. And these were just two guys among many 0:35:17.200 --> 0:35:20.040 who we're doing this. You didn't understand in terms of 0:35:20.080 --> 0:35:24.240 what what does the expedition teach us about Indian peoples 0:35:24.360 --> 0:35:27.280 at that time? What does it teach us about science 0:35:27.600 --> 0:35:28.200 of that time? 0:35:28.360 --> 0:35:28.560 You know. 0:35:28.640 --> 0:35:31.400 So it's a big story. It's a big story. It's 0:35:31.440 --> 0:35:35.440 a distinctly American story. And the journals, of course are 0:35:35.600 --> 0:35:39.799 a masterpiece of American literature. So it's our story, but 0:35:39.840 --> 0:35:42.520 it's also the world's story, and I think it helps 0:35:42.560 --> 0:35:46.200 to put all of American history in that larger context 0:35:46.200 --> 0:35:46.680 if you can. 0:35:47.320 --> 0:35:49.960 You know, earlier I mentioned there's two areas where I 0:35:50.000 --> 0:35:54.600 had kind of the main two areas where I brushed 0:35:54.680 --> 0:35:58.640 up against your work over the years. Is years ago, 0:35:58.680 --> 0:36:00.279 I was going to write a book. I wanted to 0:36:00.280 --> 0:36:03.560 write a book about the nets Person War. Oh really yeah, 0:36:04.640 --> 0:36:07.040 Well I started working on it, my little what I 0:36:07.120 --> 0:36:10.480 was doing, and I got going on it. I was 0:36:10.520 --> 0:36:14.799 just going to walk that whole well, I use my packcraft. 0:36:15.200 --> 0:36:17.319 I just had a backpack with packraft in and I 0:36:17.360 --> 0:36:19.520 got started on it. I was going to walk and 0:36:19.560 --> 0:36:23.560 pack raft that whole route, and I got going on it, 0:36:23.600 --> 0:36:27.000 but just the the time, commitment and other things prevented me. 0:36:27.040 --> 0:36:28.719 So I read your book at the time, your book 0:36:28.760 --> 0:36:31.080 on the nets Pers War the other area, and this 0:36:31.120 --> 0:36:32.440 is kind of where one of the areas where I 0:36:32.440 --> 0:36:36.120 want to jump in talking to you. I talked about 0:36:36.160 --> 0:36:40.960 it on the show. Even you had an essay. It 0:36:41.040 --> 0:36:45.000 was collecting one of your books. It was one of 0:36:45.000 --> 0:36:46.920 your books that had like there was a collection of 0:36:47.000 --> 0:36:51.520 four or five bigger pieces. You had an essay about 0:36:52.520 --> 0:37:01.600 how old European involvement and influence on the Great Plains, 0:37:02.160 --> 0:37:06.360 how far back that went right? And in it you 0:37:06.440 --> 0:37:07.880 make the point and this kid just kind of I 0:37:07.920 --> 0:37:09.640 guess maybe I was aware of it but hadn't thought 0:37:09.640 --> 0:37:13.160 about it just blew my mind you're like when Lewis 0:37:13.160 --> 0:37:17.560 and Clark stepped down into the Great Plains, there were 0:37:17.840 --> 0:37:22.520 Native Americans on the Great Plains at that time who 0:37:22.560 --> 0:37:26.000 had been to Europe and met the King of France 0:37:26.040 --> 0:37:30.160 and came back home again on the Great Plains at 0:37:30.200 --> 0:37:33.160 the time Lewis and Clark, and in the American imagination, 0:37:33.280 --> 0:37:35.239 it's like that they it was just that they went 0:37:35.280 --> 0:37:40.520 into this place, this untouched, unhistoried. Yeah, and then you 0:37:40.600 --> 0:37:43.920 got into just the I think it was hundreds of 0:37:44.000 --> 0:37:46.879 years if you go back to people like these kind 0:37:46.880 --> 0:37:50.279 of like offshoots of the Coronado Expedition, that they were 0:37:50.320 --> 0:37:54.799 coming into an area that had been deeply influenced. 0:37:54.320 --> 0:37:59.680 Right, Yeah, they what you were talking about, these Indians 0:37:59.719 --> 0:38:02.600 from the Kansas area. Actually Kansas in Missouri had been 0:38:02.640 --> 0:38:05.759 to the court, the Court of France course of the 0:38:05.760 --> 0:38:09.600 fifteenth Now that was a but that was in seventeen twenty, 0:38:09.680 --> 0:38:12.200 seventeen twenty five, seventeen twenty six. This is a long 0:38:12.239 --> 0:38:17.200 time before Willison Clark. So the image I love to 0:38:17.480 --> 0:38:22.080 imagine might have happened was that at the time that 0:38:22.120 --> 0:38:26.640 we the American you know, the East West Frontier was 0:38:26.760 --> 0:38:29.960 edging its way into the interior. That's what Lewis and 0:38:30.000 --> 0:38:32.879 Clark would you'll be part of if you go back 0:38:32.880 --> 0:38:36.560 to when that when this was seventeen twenties. Yeah, there 0:38:36.600 --> 0:38:41.920 was a governor, territorial governor of coinial governor of Virginia, 0:38:42.200 --> 0:38:45.120 you know, who had a group of people he called 0:38:45.160 --> 0:38:49.319 a the the Knights of the Golden Horseshoe, and they 0:38:49.360 --> 0:38:52.319 would they loved to go explored the far west, right 0:38:52.440 --> 0:38:54.320 and they and he would come back with this reports 0:38:54.320 --> 0:38:57.040 of this this magnificent river they had found in this 0:38:57.200 --> 0:39:02.359 beautiful valley that was the it was a shin of door, 0:39:02.719 --> 0:39:04.360 you know. And these are people who were you know, 0:39:04.400 --> 0:39:06.920 they were just south of Washington, d C. And they 0:39:06.960 --> 0:39:10.360 were talking about, you know, penetrating deep into the American interior. 0:39:11.760 --> 0:39:14.040 At the very time that they would be doing that 0:39:14.120 --> 0:39:16.040 and talking about going back home, you know, I'm sitting 0:39:16.040 --> 0:39:20.120 around drinking, drinking port smoking cigars at the very times 0:39:20.120 --> 0:39:23.600 that they're talking about going to the far West, there 0:39:23.680 --> 0:39:30.440 might well have been Indians in central Kansas reminiscing about Paris. 0:39:34.080 --> 0:39:39.640 The Women's So it's so that's that's the kind of 0:39:39.680 --> 0:39:42.320 thing that I'm talking about. The larger the larger context 0:39:43.560 --> 0:39:46.600 Lewis and Clark were not entering this plate of Lewis's 0:39:46.640 --> 0:39:48.200 famous quote, you know when they set off, and that's 0:39:48.320 --> 0:39:51.160 from the Mandan villages, you know, the and where the 0:39:51.160 --> 0:39:56.000 foot of civilized man has never trodden. No, there's been 0:39:56.040 --> 0:39:58.080 a lot of trotting going on before that. 0:39:58.800 --> 0:40:01.359 What do you think was the biggest at the time 0:40:01.480 --> 0:40:06.760 Lewis and Clark were encountering on the northern plains, tribes 0:40:06.800 --> 0:40:11.320 and and you know, in all fairness, they encountered people. 0:40:11.640 --> 0:40:16.160 They encountered people who hadn't directly interacted with euro Americans 0:40:16.200 --> 0:40:17.760 or Europeans. 0:40:17.760 --> 0:40:20.640 Person example, and this person listen, Clark with the first 0:40:21.200 --> 0:40:23.280 white people the this person had. 0:40:23.160 --> 0:40:29.360 Met yet they had horses. So what what do you 0:40:29.400 --> 0:40:34.640 think was the biggest prior to the actual arrival of 0:40:35.440 --> 0:40:38.000 what was use Europeans. I guess, prior to the rival 0:40:38.000 --> 0:40:41.160 of Europeans, this thingy iwa think about we had these 0:40:41.440 --> 0:40:45.680 there's these three huge impacts that that that preceded the 0:40:45.719 --> 0:40:53.799 actual presence of Europeans would be horses, metal and disease, right, 0:40:54.040 --> 0:40:56.680 I mean, would you is that a fair statement? And 0:40:56.760 --> 0:40:58.719 of those which do you think when when Lewis and 0:40:58.760 --> 0:41:04.279 Clark was a contact people. Which of those influences was 0:41:04.400 --> 0:41:08.920 most was probably most impactful in shaping what they experienced 0:41:09.040 --> 0:41:10.279 as you. 0:41:10.239 --> 0:41:12.600 Know Native America at that time. 0:41:12.719 --> 0:41:17.880 Yeah, at that horses horses, like they were seeing something 0:41:17.920 --> 0:41:18.960 different than what had been. 0:41:20.400 --> 0:41:24.479 That's right, well, and disease, you know, Lewis and Clark 0:41:24.560 --> 0:41:27.320 arrived when they when they go up through North Dakota 0:41:27.360 --> 0:41:31.440 what's today North Dakota, they talked about coming across these 0:41:31.480 --> 0:41:37.879 abandoned villages, a place called Double Ditch today. Well, those 0:41:37.880 --> 0:41:43.760 were abandoned because of smallpox that had appeared seventeen eighty, 0:41:43.840 --> 0:41:46.279 you know, twenty years more than twenty years before they 0:41:46.320 --> 0:41:50.080 were there devastated. There is, twenty thousand Indians in the 0:41:50.120 --> 0:41:54.400 Pacific Northwest died of smallpox because of it. That epidemic 0:41:55.160 --> 0:42:00.200 this started in the east, highly influential with the of 0:42:00.280 --> 0:42:02.359 the revolution. One of the reasons that we were able 0:42:02.400 --> 0:42:04.960 to hold off against the English is the English troops 0:42:04.960 --> 0:42:09.360 are devastated, you know, by malaria and by smallpox. So 0:42:09.440 --> 0:42:12.600 that was a great influence that preceded that preceded them. 0:42:13.160 --> 0:42:16.799 But so of course is maybe at least as much. 0:42:16.840 --> 0:42:20.000 In fact, there's a connection there. Smallpox, of course have 0:42:20.080 --> 0:42:21.759 been in the western hemisphere for a long form, the 0:42:21.880 --> 0:42:25.320 very early period, from the period of period of Cortez, 0:42:27.080 --> 0:42:29.239 and it made its way all the way under the 0:42:29.280 --> 0:42:32.719 American Southwest quite early. And so the sept peoples of 0:42:32.760 --> 0:42:36.040 the Southwest, Comanches and Apaches and Navajoes and others, have 0:42:36.080 --> 0:42:42.920 been devastated by smallpox for decades, decades before Lewis and Clark. 0:42:43.880 --> 0:42:48.520 But in seventeen eighty it swept up from the south 0:42:48.560 --> 0:42:50.520 out of Mexico and went from the east coast down 0:42:50.560 --> 0:42:54.279 to Mexico and then up into up into the Americas, 0:42:55.400 --> 0:43:01.440 and it hit the southwest again. But then then it 0:43:01.520 --> 0:43:03.719 goes all the way up the Missouri Valley, it goes 0:43:03.719 --> 0:43:07.000 all the way in the Pacific northwest, devastating, devastating the 0:43:07.000 --> 0:43:14.919 Indians there. Why why then, and not before horses courses smallpox. 0:43:15.640 --> 0:43:19.960 When you catch smallpox, we have about ten days to 0:43:19.960 --> 0:43:24.320 transmit it to another person. So when it arrived first 0:43:24.320 --> 0:43:29.880 in the Southwest early on, people's natural response was to panic, 0:43:30.480 --> 0:43:34.239 run away, run away, right, But it's literally running. They're 0:43:34.280 --> 0:43:37.360 on foot, and they by the time they reach these 0:43:37.920 --> 0:43:40.040 you know, virgin soil. By the time they reach people 0:43:40.080 --> 0:43:45.520 who have never been infected by this they're dead or 0:43:46.000 --> 0:43:49.520 they can no longer pass it along. So it was 0:43:49.560 --> 0:43:53.600 the slow movement of these people out of the southwest 0:43:54.080 --> 0:43:58.000 that that allowed the people farther north to be free 0:43:58.000 --> 0:44:02.160 of it. Then they came than the horses. Yeah, horses 0:44:02.600 --> 0:44:06.880 spreading first, that are around sixteen eighty, But by seventeen eighty, 0:44:06.920 --> 0:44:09.560 seventeen eighty, the horse cultures had flourished all the way 0:44:09.560 --> 0:44:11.720 had developed and flourished all the way across what's today, 0:44:11.760 --> 0:44:13.120 you know, the far away with the great planes in 0:44:13.120 --> 0:44:16.360 the Pacific Northwest. And so people now when they panic 0:44:16.440 --> 0:44:19.000 and they flee, they're doing it on horseback. And the 0:44:19.040 --> 0:44:24.000 horses allowed the transmission of smallpox and other diseases in 0:44:24.080 --> 0:44:27.200 ways that had never been before. So the horse, in 0:44:27.239 --> 0:44:29.040 that sense, you know, one on the one had a 0:44:29.080 --> 0:44:33.880 great benefit to these people, allowed them to revolutionize their life, 0:44:34.000 --> 0:44:37.440 you know, to this huge burst of power and creativity 0:44:37.760 --> 0:44:42.320 and expansion. But it also killed them. 0:44:42.640 --> 0:44:44.320 You know what I'm thinking about as you talked about 0:44:44.320 --> 0:44:49.040 that is the COVID exactly, COVID in the airplane. 0:44:49.080 --> 0:44:50.960 That's exactly right, you know, exactly right. 0:44:51.320 --> 0:44:54.440 You could have an epidemic go from isolated to global, 0:44:54.480 --> 0:44:55.440 and I don't know month. 0:44:55.880 --> 0:44:59.680 Weeks really in thinckt I've I've written a recent article 0:44:59.719 --> 0:45:03.440 on that, comparing uh the covid epidemic today to the 0:45:03.560 --> 0:45:06.640 cholera epidemics in the in the nineteenth century and making 0:45:06.719 --> 0:45:09.759 exactly that exactly that point. So this is really what 0:45:09.840 --> 0:45:12.080 I was talking about a moment ago about the horses 0:45:12.120 --> 0:45:15.400 in smallpox. That's really one step in what has of 0:45:15.400 --> 0:45:20.239 course become increasingly a fact of life. We're talking about 0:45:20.239 --> 0:45:24.200 the shrinkage, the effective shrinkage of the world through transportation. 0:45:24.840 --> 0:45:27.600 Horses were an important part of that. But that shrinkage 0:45:27.640 --> 0:45:31.640 of course continues. So these poor folks in Wuhan, China 0:45:32.640 --> 0:45:35.959 catch this disease, however they got it, uh three weeks 0:45:36.000 --> 0:45:41.839 later it's in uh it's in the seattle. Yes, it's 0:45:41.880 --> 0:45:44.200 just really quite astonishing, and you see it, of course 0:45:44.280 --> 0:45:48.520 over and over over West Nile virus just you know, 0:45:48.960 --> 0:45:52.279 name a disease that just hit this country in the 0:45:52.320 --> 0:45:55.560 last one hundred and fifty years, and that's how it 0:45:55.600 --> 0:45:56.080 got here. 0:45:56.520 --> 0:45:59.920 Mm hmm. Yeah, it's an interesting point. The way the 0:46:00.200 --> 0:46:03.439 horses did that. Do you think that we've talked about 0:46:03.440 --> 0:46:11.040 this in the past, that the way so horses being 0:46:11.040 --> 0:46:16.359 introduced by the Spanish. Was in your view, was that 0:46:16.680 --> 0:46:22.880 incident the Pueblo Revolt? Was that really in your mind? 0:46:23.080 --> 0:46:26.440 Was that really sort of the beginning of the spread 0:46:26.480 --> 0:46:30.360 of horses to all the nomadic what would become the 0:46:30.400 --> 0:46:34.719 nomadic bison, you know, the equestrian buffalo hunting tribes of 0:46:34.760 --> 0:46:38.040 the of the Great Plains. Like do you think if 0:46:38.040 --> 0:46:40.840 the Pueblo Revolt hadn't happened, would that have been delayed 0:46:40.880 --> 0:46:43.600 significantly by one hundred years? Or it seems like a. 0:46:43.680 --> 0:46:46.360 Very tidy, Yeah, neat and tidy explanation. 0:46:46.680 --> 0:46:50.960 Yeah, it is. It isn't it isn't It clearly had 0:46:50.960 --> 0:46:54.560 a very important impact that there had been the spread 0:46:54.560 --> 0:46:57.960 the horse. Horses had spread before sixteen eighty, but it 0:46:58.000 --> 0:47:02.000 was very localized command you said, Nava holes had them 0:47:02.000 --> 0:47:04.560 and used them very effectively, rating on the web levels 0:47:04.600 --> 0:47:09.239 and in the in the Spanish, So there it had 0:47:09.440 --> 0:47:11.240 sort of I think it was sort of a leakage. 0:47:11.360 --> 0:47:14.440 You know, the Spanish worked really hard to try to 0:47:14.480 --> 0:47:17.680 control those horses because they knew what they were. The 0:47:18.440 --> 0:47:21.160 horses allowed people kind of mobility and the power to 0:47:21.480 --> 0:47:24.879 maneuvering that they had never had before, and they could 0:47:24.880 --> 0:47:27.359 be used very effectively against the Spanish, and so they 0:47:27.400 --> 0:47:29.520 were you know, it was it was a capital offense, 0:47:30.000 --> 0:47:34.120 the capital offense to sell a horse to an Indian. 0:47:34.640 --> 0:47:36.759 Yeah, yeah, i'd read that. But ever i'd read that 0:47:36.800 --> 0:47:40.480 they had tried that they really wanted to control information 0:47:40.560 --> 0:47:43.680 about horses and control dissemination of horses. 0:47:43.719 --> 0:47:46.560 Yeah, that's absolutely true. But they you can, of course, 0:47:47.400 --> 0:47:52.160 by the time possible, But go ahead sixteen eighty. It's 0:47:52.320 --> 0:47:55.239 very clear. You know, the record shows very clear, very 0:47:55.280 --> 0:48:00.080 clearly that after sixteen eighty, horses spread very rapidly to 0:48:00.160 --> 0:48:03.160 the north, and they follow exactly those trading routes that 0:48:03.400 --> 0:48:07.320 the preseed Columbus. It's just just traditional trading routes that 0:48:07.440 --> 0:48:11.080 go up to first up through the Rockies incidentally interestingly, 0:48:11.920 --> 0:48:14.480 then into the Pacific Northwest. Nes Purse, you know, the 0:48:14.560 --> 0:48:18.440 Shoshotes and nis Purse had horses within thirty years of 0:48:18.480 --> 0:48:22.319 the Weber revolt. Thirty years, that's incredible. And then they 0:48:22.360 --> 0:48:25.799 spread from there out onto the plains. So so within 0:48:25.880 --> 0:48:28.880 one hundred years you go forward from sixteen eighty to 0:48:29.000 --> 0:48:32.480 seventy and eighty, horse cultures have developed everywhere in the 0:48:32.560 --> 0:48:35.520 West that they eventually would. It's done. It's a done 0:48:35.640 --> 0:48:37.320 deal in one hundred. 0:48:37.120 --> 0:48:40.560 Years by the time for that they made the horses 0:48:40.719 --> 0:48:45.799 made it up here to say Montana, what like, how 0:48:45.880 --> 0:48:48.719 did the tribes here? What was their understanding of where 0:48:48.840 --> 0:48:51.520 they came from? Like what was like they had to 0:48:51.600 --> 0:48:56.040 have some story or history about where these things that 0:48:56.120 --> 0:48:57.560 had never been there before. 0:48:57.920 --> 0:48:58.120 Yeah. 0:48:58.640 --> 0:49:04.560 Yeah, they're also the traditionals develop of course about where 0:49:04.640 --> 0:49:08.479 they are and quite often not universal, but quite often 0:49:08.480 --> 0:49:11.520 it's sort of a gift from God. And they're described 0:49:11.560 --> 0:49:17.400 as things like uh uh, like elk dogs, elk dogs 0:49:17.680 --> 0:49:23.960 because like an elk, they're big and powerful, right like 0:49:24.040 --> 0:49:27.200 a dog. They're domesticated. That's so I say, elk dog. 0:49:27.480 --> 0:49:32.480 Yeah, but there was there is no knowledge of them 0:49:33.280 --> 0:49:36.960 coming into some other culture, some other place. 0:49:37.680 --> 0:49:40.560 Just eventually there were It's quite clear where they're coming from. 0:49:40.680 --> 0:49:43.880 You once once it develops Lewis and Clark when they 0:49:44.000 --> 0:49:46.920 meet the Shoshone, that famous meeting, you know, where Chicagoya 0:49:47.920 --> 0:49:51.840 meets her brother and they're starving for horses. They have 0:49:52.000 --> 0:49:54.960 to have horses. They gone with canoes up the Missouri, 0:49:55.239 --> 0:49:59.560 you know, and to the to the to the what 0:49:59.680 --> 0:50:01.680 to get down the other side. They've got to have horses, 0:50:01.760 --> 0:50:04.400 and so the Shoshones were obvious sources and once they 0:50:04.520 --> 0:50:08.080 met them. But if you read those journals, during their 0:50:08.120 --> 0:50:13.160 meeting with the Shoshonees, they report seeing Spanish brands on 0:50:13.280 --> 0:50:18.919 some of the world. These are horses that notre live 0:50:19.080 --> 0:50:23.440 from the They weren't simply descendants of horses that have 0:50:23.520 --> 0:50:27.960 been spread northward. They had they had those particular horses 0:50:28.040 --> 0:50:31.239 had come from New Mexico. Seriously, Yeah, so this is 0:50:31.280 --> 0:50:34.000 a you know, it's a very vigorous vigorous Uh. 0:50:35.520 --> 0:50:37.600 That's so weird. I've never I feel like that'd be 0:50:37.680 --> 0:50:40.160 like am that'd be like a real talked about aspect 0:50:40.239 --> 0:50:42.040 of Lewis and Clark. I never heard that. 0:50:42.600 --> 0:50:45.040 It's true. Just read read the journalis Yeah. 0:50:45.600 --> 0:50:48.319 Spanish brands horses, horses up there. 0:50:48.520 --> 0:50:51.280 Ye huh in this case Montana. 0:50:52.280 --> 0:50:55.200 You know, I want to stay on a little bit 0:50:55.200 --> 0:50:57.239 of this. I want to talk to you. You've written 0:50:57.239 --> 0:50:58.960 a lot about mining. I want to talk about gold 0:50:59.040 --> 0:51:01.120 rushes and mining too, but I want to stay on 0:51:01.239 --> 0:51:05.200 this theme for a minute here. And you have a 0:51:05.239 --> 0:51:09.160 new book out which I have where is it sitting 0:51:09.200 --> 0:51:13.360 right in front of me? Continental Reckoning, huge book. It 0:51:13.560 --> 0:51:17.799 is yeah, the American West and the age of expansion. 0:51:18.560 --> 0:51:22.600 I make a habit, unlike most hosts. I make a 0:51:22.680 --> 0:51:24.440 habit of saying I read it, or I didn't read 0:51:24.480 --> 0:51:31.920 I haven't read it. However, I read the index and 0:51:32.000 --> 0:51:34.399 then use that to go in and check little certain 0:51:34.480 --> 0:51:41.719 things out. And I got to last that I was 0:51:41.760 --> 0:51:46.160 land never reading some passages you had about the Indian 0:51:46.239 --> 0:51:53.360 Wars in the West, and you kinda you treat it 0:51:53.480 --> 0:52:00.640 as victory there for the victory there for America was 0:52:00.840 --> 0:52:04.520 just a certainty. And not only that, but we talked 0:52:04.520 --> 0:52:09.400 about what we spent on the Indian Wars relative to 0:52:09.520 --> 0:52:14.000 other military endeavors. The human cost of the Indian Wars 0:52:14.120 --> 0:52:18.760 relative to other military endeavors really puts into perspective, meaning 0:52:19.080 --> 0:52:22.480 we you know, the Union, I can't remember what you had. 0:52:22.560 --> 0:52:24.759 I should find I should have taken a better note. 0:52:24.840 --> 0:52:28.600 But I mean the Union in a day in the 0:52:28.680 --> 0:52:33.440 Civil War, would I think that maybe this is how 0:52:33.520 --> 0:52:36.960 this support whatever you use. There were certain days during 0:52:37.000 --> 0:52:39.319 the Civil War the Union lost more soldiers and they 0:52:39.360 --> 0:52:41.560 were going to use than they were going to lose 0:52:41.600 --> 0:52:42.680 in the Indian Wars of the West. 0:52:42.760 --> 0:52:46.200 That's right, and Tetam of course which is the bloodiest 0:52:46.239 --> 0:52:48.720 battle of the Civil War, the bloodiest battle in American 0:52:48.760 --> 0:52:51.640 history in terms of losses. Now, this is strict, this 0:52:51.760 --> 0:52:54.000 is just on the Union side. Just didn't We're not 0:52:54.080 --> 0:52:58.200 talking about the Confederates. The Union lost more men in 0:52:59.440 --> 0:53:03.760 in this two square mile area over about nine hours. 0:53:04.520 --> 0:53:09.720 Then they lost over thirty years and two million acres 0:53:12.160 --> 0:53:14.120 square miles in the far West. 0:53:14.680 --> 0:53:17.520 That it just blows mica the amount of mental energy 0:53:17.600 --> 0:53:21.759 I have spent on the amount of mental energy I've 0:53:21.800 --> 0:53:24.439 spent on how Coster managed to get a couple couple 0:53:24.560 --> 0:53:26.840 hundred guys killed one day, and then you go and 0:53:26.920 --> 0:53:30.799 look at the Antietam like that'd be like a better 0:53:30.880 --> 0:53:34.839 place to spend your time. It's like, not how did 0:53:34.880 --> 0:53:36.520 a guy lose a couple hundred, but how do you 0:53:36.600 --> 0:53:38.640 lose thousands of people? 0:53:39.000 --> 0:53:42.279 Yeah, that's right in a blink of an eye. 0:53:42.480 --> 0:53:47.920 Yeah, but really it does it occupies this like I 0:53:47.960 --> 0:53:50.200 don't know. I mean, I know they're big Civil War buffs, 0:53:50.239 --> 0:53:53.840 but just it's see, I guess because it went on 0:53:54.000 --> 0:53:57.320 so long. But you tell me, you kind of painted 0:53:57.440 --> 0:54:00.560 like it was sort of a light lift and ere 0:54:00.600 --> 0:54:03.560 that you get into. No, I mean just because the 0:54:03.880 --> 0:54:06.200 numbers like I didn't realize you were saying. You had 0:54:06.239 --> 0:54:07.920 to think that by the time some of the I 0:54:08.000 --> 0:54:09.640 think it was by the time a little Big Horn 0:54:09.800 --> 0:54:12.239 or by the time of the Nez Perce War in 0:54:12.320 --> 0:54:17.799 the Pacific Northwest, whites outnumbered Indians sixty to one. I mean, 0:54:17.880 --> 0:54:20.960 it was just I guess some of these statistics put 0:54:21.000 --> 0:54:24.000 in the perspective that it was probably not a thing 0:54:24.160 --> 0:54:26.560 like will we win. It's just like how quickly will 0:54:26.640 --> 0:54:30.320 we do this? Like how quickly will we perform this 0:54:30.440 --> 0:54:32.680 thing where we've set out to do? Yeah, you know, 0:54:32.880 --> 0:54:35.000 and it wasn't a when you just look at the 0:54:35.080 --> 0:54:38.239 numbers of people moving into the west, it was just overwhelming. 0:54:38.600 --> 0:54:40.959 That's that's the point of course that I was trying 0:54:41.000 --> 0:54:44.640 to make there. Indians in the Far West were defeated. 0:54:46.480 --> 0:54:48.480 The military came in, you know, when things got really 0:54:48.560 --> 0:54:51.040 nasty and they had to step in. There was any 0:54:51.080 --> 0:54:54.040 other way to avoid it, to control this particular group 0:54:54.080 --> 0:54:56.440 of Indians. Most of of course didn't resist, like the 0:54:56.560 --> 0:54:59.640 Lakotas or commanities, realtives. Most just sort of, you know, 0:54:59.760 --> 0:55:02.520 saw riding on the walls. Okay, you know, we'll deal 0:55:02.560 --> 0:55:08.080 with it. But if you look at in those terms. 0:55:09.360 --> 0:55:13.680 Indian wars are just I like I use a metaphor 0:55:13.800 --> 0:55:18.040 of an Indian war. Indian wars were like a period 0:55:18.120 --> 0:55:22.400 at the end of a long paragraph. Wasn't the paragraph? 0:55:22.640 --> 0:55:27.880 The paragraph was this this juggernaut of settlement that comes. 0:55:27.719 --> 0:55:31.360 In, Yeah, and then like like you mentioned the disease issue, 0:55:31.480 --> 0:55:35.440 and then I was just like depopulating people and taking 0:55:35.560 --> 0:55:40.840 and eliminating cultural structure, eliminating cultural memory, and then you 0:55:40.960 --> 0:55:44.600 have this fragment that just gets overwhelmed by immigration. 0:55:44.920 --> 0:55:48.000 Right, that's right. And I think I mentioned before the 0:55:48.120 --> 0:55:50.959 need to put this in the larger context of environmental history, 0:55:51.560 --> 0:55:54.600 because what this was in these years, the period that 0:55:54.640 --> 0:55:56.560 I cover here, which is about eighteen forty eight or 0:55:56.600 --> 0:56:03.279 fifty two, about eighteen eighty was the greatest environmental transportation transformation, 0:56:03.680 --> 0:56:08.799 uh convulsion by far in American history. And I would 0:56:08.920 --> 0:56:12.280 argue that there are very few times in world history, 0:56:12.560 --> 0:56:15.320 you know, when an area that large have been so 0:56:15.600 --> 0:56:21.719 completely transformed, so so massively trans environmentally transformed. And that 0:56:21.840 --> 0:56:24.239 means of course that the whole, the whole way of 0:56:24.360 --> 0:56:28.080 living that Indians had had before that, you know, was uh, 0:56:28.920 --> 0:56:30.000 the legs were cut out from it. 0:56:30.160 --> 0:56:30.319 Root. 0:56:31.000 --> 0:56:33.720 You can't if you're if you're a hooting gathering people 0:56:34.520 --> 0:56:35.560 in California, just. 0:56:35.560 --> 0:56:36.680 The environmental destruction. 0:56:36.840 --> 0:56:40.279 Sure, sure, we just remake it. And you know we uh, 0:56:40.360 --> 0:56:43.360 the elimination of the bison and replacement of the replacement 0:56:43.480 --> 0:56:46.800 by by cattle, by ranching. You know, that's that's an obvious, 0:56:47.120 --> 0:56:49.520 dramatic example of it. But that could be that story 0:56:49.560 --> 0:56:51.239 could be told over and over and over and over 0:56:51.680 --> 0:56:55.680 throughout the throughout the far West. We simply transformed. We 0:56:55.840 --> 0:57:00.120 we remake the world environmentally when they come in, not 0:57:00.239 --> 0:57:03.160 just a number of people, it's this you make a 0:57:03.239 --> 0:57:06.520 new world. And this world is not the world that 0:57:06.640 --> 0:57:11.000 Indian people's had had been living in for generations, uh 0:57:11.239 --> 0:57:13.440 and knew how to deal with and how to support themselves. 0:57:14.200 --> 0:57:14.600 It's over. 0:57:14.840 --> 0:57:17.840 You know, what are you going to do? There's there's 0:57:17.920 --> 0:57:18.560 nothing you can do. 0:57:18.960 --> 0:57:22.000 Yeah, I see your point, even outside of the US 0:57:22.120 --> 0:57:25.880 military involving themselves in certain issues like what really can 0:57:26.000 --> 0:57:26.320 be done? 0:57:26.920 --> 0:57:30.200 Nothing? Yeah, we've had to be overwhelmed. 0:57:30.240 --> 0:57:30.280 You. 0:57:30.560 --> 0:57:32.720 We've had Dan Florees on the show a couple of times, 0:57:35.320 --> 0:57:39.200 and he made a point about wildlife. Wildlife in the 0:57:39.200 --> 0:57:42.360 West specifically, which he spends a lot of his energy 0:57:42.440 --> 0:57:46.280 on and career, on and and telling the story about 0:57:46.320 --> 0:57:53.040 the destruction, He'll say, I've looked for it globally and 0:57:53.240 --> 0:57:57.400 and globally, I can find nothing that compares to the 0:57:57.480 --> 0:58:00.480 destruction of wildlife. That's right, and that occurred in the 0:58:00.520 --> 0:58:01.000 American wise. 0:58:01.080 --> 0:58:03.320 Yeah, this wonderful new book of dance, of course, wild 0:58:03.400 --> 0:58:05.520 New World. He makes that point over and over and over. 0:58:05.640 --> 0:58:06.960 Yeah, and I've looked. 0:58:07.120 --> 0:58:10.280 It's not there, not there, It's just And that's that's 0:58:10.440 --> 0:58:12.680 an aspect of what I what I was just talking about. 0:58:12.760 --> 0:58:20.120 Yeah, what, uh is it fair to say that you're 0:58:21.000 --> 0:58:23.920 that's first book the last? The Last Indian War? Is 0:58:23.920 --> 0:58:24.640 that the name of the book? 0:58:24.720 --> 0:58:24.880 Yes? 0:58:25.040 --> 0:58:28.120 I remember that, right, I read it years ago. Uh, 0:58:29.800 --> 0:58:32.040 lay that out for us. Why why do you feel that, 0:58:32.280 --> 0:58:35.400 you know, why that name? What's the significance of that 0:58:35.520 --> 0:58:36.360 as the last one? 0:58:38.520 --> 0:58:42.680 I should start by saying that I am terrible coming 0:58:42.760 --> 0:58:47.440 up with titles, absolute absolute worst. 0:58:47.320 --> 0:58:50.720 You know, so I make titles for things don't even exist. 0:58:54.600 --> 0:58:59.320 I bet they're better than my uh my editor at 0:58:59.360 --> 0:59:02.000 the Oxford guar To Press came up with that. I thought, oh, yeah, 0:59:02.120 --> 0:59:05.280 that's a good I called it. First of all, because 0:59:05.320 --> 0:59:07.240 I think it was. If you think of a war, 0:59:07.560 --> 0:59:13.720 you know, as a as an ongoing conflict between massed forces, 0:59:16.120 --> 0:59:18.320 it was, but there was no other Indian war in 0:59:18.320 --> 0:59:22.880 the far West like that that fits said definition, because. 0:59:22.600 --> 0:59:24.480 The feeding eighteen seventy seven, is that right. 0:59:24.440 --> 0:59:27.080 Eighteen seventy seven. Yeah, it fighting goes on, of course, 0:59:27.400 --> 0:59:29.760 like in the southwest of the Apaches. You know, they're 0:59:29.800 --> 0:59:33.720 not defeated until eighteen eighties. But is that a war? 0:59:34.320 --> 0:59:36.440 You know, it's more like a police action. You know, 0:59:36.520 --> 0:59:40.520 they're they're like gangs, right, They fight for a while 0:59:40.520 --> 0:59:42.840 and they come back into the reservation, rest up, You'll 0:59:43.200 --> 0:59:45.360 get some food, fathen their horses, and they go. 0:59:45.400 --> 0:59:47.080 Back out just small groups. 0:59:47.160 --> 0:59:49.520 And yeah, yeah, the next Perst War, you know, if 0:59:49.560 --> 0:59:51.880 you if you've forget about it, h you know, it 0:59:52.040 --> 0:59:58.280 was this ongoing, concerted effort over many months included sort 0:59:58.320 --> 1:00:02.240 of that also both sides, you know, engaging each other 1:00:02.680 --> 1:00:02.840 like in. 1:00:02.880 --> 1:00:07.800 Any seasoned civil war generals. That's right. Yeah, getting defeated. 1:00:09.200 --> 1:00:12.600 This purse just given I just kicked his rear. He 1:00:12.760 --> 1:00:16.480 was he was wounded severely wooted twice in his career. 1:00:17.960 --> 1:00:22.240 Once was at Seminary Ridge at Gettysburg. He was up 1:00:22.240 --> 1:00:23.760 there at that angle. You know, he was with the 1:00:23.800 --> 1:00:25.720 group you know that met the Confederates coming up and 1:00:25.760 --> 1:00:28.920 pick his charge, shot on the shoulder, and then he 1:00:29.080 --> 1:00:31.760 was severely wounded at the Battle of the Big Hole 1:00:32.880 --> 1:00:34.400 against the against the purse. 1:00:34.680 --> 1:00:37.120 Can you lay out how that? Can you lay out 1:00:38.600 --> 1:00:40.400 what that war was, how it started? I mean, you 1:00:40.440 --> 1:00:42.160 could do the big version of how it started. But 1:00:42.240 --> 1:00:44.760 then also it kind of had they had a beginning 1:00:45.360 --> 1:00:46.320 one day, right. 1:00:46.720 --> 1:00:49.160 Well, I think the first thing to say about it 1:00:49.480 --> 1:00:53.960 is that, as I mentioned a moment ago, Lewis and 1:00:54.000 --> 1:00:57.520 Clark were the first white people, the first your your 1:00:57.600 --> 1:01:01.880 Americans for them ever to meet, and in their own minds, 1:01:02.400 --> 1:01:07.800 they they formed a treaty with the Americans, and they 1:01:07.920 --> 1:01:09.840 promised to keep the peace with them. They promised to 1:01:09.880 --> 1:01:15.000 fight on our side against any any common enemies, and 1:01:15.120 --> 1:01:18.000 in their own minds they kept that treaty from that 1:01:18.280 --> 1:01:20.320 on that point will be eighteen o six. 1:01:21.160 --> 1:01:24.560 I mean they they came to an agreement with Lewis 1:01:24.600 --> 1:01:27.200 and Clark, like there was an exchange of gifts, and 1:01:27.680 --> 1:01:30.600 they came to be like, Okay, we're good. 1:01:30.520 --> 1:01:31.160 We got a deal. 1:01:31.320 --> 1:01:33.400 Yeah, that's right, of course, Lewis and Clark had set 1:01:33.440 --> 1:01:34.640 out there. One of the things they were told to 1:01:34.720 --> 1:01:36.760 do is to make these sorts of arrangements to them 1:01:36.760 --> 1:01:39.480 to open up trade and to sort of pacify the 1:01:39.920 --> 1:01:42.760 pacify the Pacific Northwest, which will allow the flow of 1:01:42.840 --> 1:01:45.480 trade up there. So they approached it with this and 1:01:45.600 --> 1:01:47.640 they said, this is what we'd like to do, you know, 1:01:48.840 --> 1:01:51.520 and the new persaid, great, that's great. Well, they don't 1:01:51.520 --> 1:01:56.120 have exchange gifts. The news person to this day are 1:01:57.000 --> 1:02:02.439 will tell you that there was a child produced out 1:02:02.440 --> 1:02:05.920 of that treaty arrangement from William Clark, a man who 1:02:05.960 --> 1:02:10.800 grew up named Daytime Smoke, who ended up fleeing with 1:02:11.440 --> 1:02:16.080 Chief Joseph h and dying in Oklahoma. William Clark's son, 1:02:16.560 --> 1:02:18.760 did he Yeah, yeah, I didn't know. 1:02:18.840 --> 1:02:23.360 So Clark's son was in Clark's son was present for 1:02:23.440 --> 1:02:24.200 the Nesberust War. 1:02:25.400 --> 1:02:28.720 They just per se that that that's right, and they 1:02:29.240 --> 1:02:30.680 argue that, you know it's part. 1:02:30.520 --> 1:02:31.920 Of it, you know, that would put him in that 1:02:31.920 --> 1:02:33.080 will put him in the seventies. 1:02:33.280 --> 1:02:37.240 That's right, that's right, old man. And as was true 1:02:37.280 --> 1:02:40.360 of virtually what was that old man's name, Daytime Smoke. 1:02:41.040 --> 1:02:44.200 Mm hmmm, and he had light colored hair. 1:02:44.280 --> 1:02:48.919 Right, yeah, he said he had light light colored hair. 1:02:49.160 --> 1:02:49.280 Uh. 1:02:51.160 --> 1:02:54.720 I'm a little doobie about that because, uh you know, well, 1:02:55.000 --> 1:02:58.080 you know Clark had red hair, and so the point 1:02:58.320 --> 1:03:00.880 was that this was and theer make a big point 1:03:00.880 --> 1:03:03.360 of that, Well, this guy had hair just like well, 1:03:03.960 --> 1:03:07.400 red hair of course is a recessive gene. So you 1:03:07.480 --> 1:03:09.960 only get red hair if both of your parents have 1:03:11.880 --> 1:03:14.240 that in their genes. Right, how in the world did 1:03:14.640 --> 1:03:16.760 this this woman have red hair? 1:03:17.000 --> 1:03:17.200 God? 1:03:18.320 --> 1:03:19.240 So anyway, it's. 1:03:21.640 --> 1:03:25.160 Okay, you're questioning in questioning the hair color, are you 1:03:25.240 --> 1:03:26.240 questioning the whole premise? 1:03:26.400 --> 1:03:30.320 No, I think there's something to it. This is a 1:03:30.440 --> 1:03:32.360 standard arrangement, you know, when you make a deal like that. 1:03:33.040 --> 1:03:35.840 Uh you it's like it's like royal houses in Europe. 1:03:35.960 --> 1:03:39.560 You know, the prince prince from this house marries a 1:03:39.640 --> 1:03:42.640 princess in that house because you're sealing this deal between them. 1:03:43.040 --> 1:03:47.440 And this is the standard standard procedure among Indian peoples. 1:03:47.960 --> 1:03:50.640 And we know, you know, in terms of producing children. 1:03:50.800 --> 1:03:50.920 Uh. 1:03:51.360 --> 1:03:53.680 Wellim Clark really got down to business once he got back. 1:03:55.080 --> 1:03:57.520 I had a bunch of kids, so he was he 1:03:57.640 --> 1:04:04.920 was right. But anyway, so I think the point to 1:04:04.960 --> 1:04:08.280 make here is that in the nest perseise, they kept 1:04:08.320 --> 1:04:11.640 this friendship, this treat all the way, all the way 1:04:12.040 --> 1:04:16.000 from eighteen o six up until eighteen seventy six and 1:04:16.040 --> 1:04:16.640 seventy seven. 1:04:17.280 --> 1:04:18.760 Never waged war against the US. 1:04:19.040 --> 1:04:22.000 Never did, never did. There is no record that I 1:04:22.040 --> 1:04:25.280 could find any of a ness person killing a killing 1:04:25.320 --> 1:04:28.960 a white person. There are plenty of records of White's 1:04:29.080 --> 1:04:33.720 murdering nes Purse. Didn't do it, didn't do it. And 1:04:33.880 --> 1:04:38.160 yet they were the other side of the Last Indian War. 1:04:39.160 --> 1:04:42.280 The Last Indian War was against those people who had 1:04:42.320 --> 1:04:47.160 the longest friendly kept their word longer than any other 1:04:47.240 --> 1:04:50.520 Indian group in the entire or west. That's what makes 1:04:50.560 --> 1:04:54.200 this to me a very compelling and a very heartbreaking story. 1:04:55.080 --> 1:04:56.920 The reason they did it, the reason happened, was that 1:04:57.040 --> 1:05:02.680 they were forced by Oliver Howard Uh to leave there. 1:05:03.160 --> 1:05:04.880 He's a civil war guy, right, He's a civil war 1:05:05.480 --> 1:05:05.720 he was. 1:05:06.880 --> 1:05:08.440 Was he to doe with one arm, He was the 1:05:08.440 --> 1:05:11.960 one of one arm metrized. He was well. He was 1:05:12.000 --> 1:05:16.280 a Uh. He was a dedicated abolitionist. He resigned his 1:05:16.520 --> 1:05:20.000 position teaching up in Buden College to a fight for 1:05:20.080 --> 1:05:22.920 the war to end a slavery Oliver Howard was the 1:05:23.200 --> 1:05:24.280 head of the Freedman's Bureau. 1:05:24.800 --> 1:05:24.920 Uh. 1:05:25.520 --> 1:05:30.480 After the war, he founded what is today Howard University, 1:05:30.640 --> 1:05:32.480 you know, the leading African American university. 1:05:32.720 --> 1:05:36.880 That's that's that's him, yeah, huh. 1:05:37.160 --> 1:05:39.280 And so after the Civil War Howard went out went 1:05:39.320 --> 1:05:42.640 out to the west. The next person were divided, of course, 1:05:42.680 --> 1:05:44.000 into various bands. 1:05:44.760 --> 1:05:44.840 Uh. 1:05:45.400 --> 1:05:49.480 Some of those bands, two of them, I think, in 1:05:49.600 --> 1:05:55.200 eighteen sixty three, had made a treaty with the US, 1:05:55.400 --> 1:06:01.200 agreeing to a much smaller reservation using the tribal holdings 1:06:01.560 --> 1:06:04.720 by ninety percent. But this is only one one or 1:06:04.760 --> 1:06:08.600 two bands. One band really. The other bands had never 1:06:08.680 --> 1:06:11.360 agreed to it. They had left the treaty negotiations, and 1:06:11.480 --> 1:06:14.840 you had the government said everybody, all of these bands 1:06:15.040 --> 1:06:18.320 were bound by this treaty. They let it go. In fact, 1:06:18.360 --> 1:06:22.640 Howard at some point said, leave alone. You're not bothered anybody. 1:06:23.040 --> 1:06:25.760 They're living in this country, the Wallava. You know where 1:06:25.800 --> 1:06:27.800 the Walala is. Yeah, they were living in the Walla, 1:06:27.840 --> 1:06:32.400 which is a beautiful, beautiful country, but very isolated. So 1:06:32.520 --> 1:06:35.440 there was no pressure to open this up to settlement. 1:06:35.600 --> 1:06:39.320 So Howard says, you know, let it go. And then 1:06:39.960 --> 1:06:45.440 in eighteen seventy six seventy seven, the government said, no, No, 1:06:46.640 --> 1:06:49.720 that's it. This treaty holds. You've all got to come in. 1:06:49.760 --> 1:06:52.080 You've got to give up your home within within six weeks. 1:06:53.200 --> 1:06:56.560 You've got to get rid of all your cattle. You've 1:06:56.560 --> 1:06:59.840 got to leave your homeland. You've got to get all 1:07:00.080 --> 1:07:03.400 your people together, everybody, and you've got to come into 1:07:03.440 --> 1:07:07.280 this come into this reservation. This Why they did that 1:07:07.480 --> 1:07:08.640 is an interesting question. 1:07:18.320 --> 1:07:22.440 You another passage I read in your new book, Continental Reckoning, 1:07:22.640 --> 1:07:26.959 you talk about this, You explore this theme you're getting 1:07:26.960 --> 1:07:31.680 to right now, which is an inability or a lack 1:07:31.760 --> 1:07:37.320 of willingness on the part of US negotiators to understand 1:07:38.400 --> 1:07:44.080 the structures of tribal peoples and trying to impose on 1:07:44.360 --> 1:07:49.440 them this order of that you have a that you 1:07:49.640 --> 1:07:53.800 have this sort of like this president like figure that 1:07:53.960 --> 1:07:57.880 I will talk to and they'll agree, and then that 1:07:58.520 --> 1:08:03.280 that sort of covers me on all of these peoples 1:08:03.360 --> 1:08:07.680 that we imagine being under this leadership structure, to the 1:08:07.720 --> 1:08:10.280 point where I know that in the Ohio River country, 1:08:12.080 --> 1:08:17.200 the US government once bought a chunk of ground from 1:08:17.240 --> 1:08:21.880 a tribe that didn't occupy the chunk of ground oh, yeah, 1:08:21.920 --> 1:08:22.400 I'll sell you. 1:08:25.520 --> 1:08:25.880 That's right. 1:08:26.320 --> 1:08:28.040 And then yeah, and then try to hold them to 1:08:28.120 --> 1:08:29.679 it and they're like, well, hold it, but we didn't 1:08:30.200 --> 1:08:32.960 the people that were there right, well we didn't agree 1:08:33.000 --> 1:08:34.840 to that. Well no, but we bought it from these 1:08:34.880 --> 1:08:36.040 other people. They said, they knew you. 1:08:39.000 --> 1:08:39.639 Exactly right. 1:08:39.840 --> 1:08:42.960 But again and again like that that failure, you know, 1:08:43.000 --> 1:08:46.400 I'd say, like a lack of It's probably not that 1:08:46.439 --> 1:08:48.519 they didn't understand it. It's probably they just didn't care. 1:08:49.439 --> 1:08:52.080 I think it was a bit of both. Uh. You 1:08:52.120 --> 1:08:56.920 gotta think from the from Washington's point of view, are 1:08:56.960 --> 1:09:01.040 we really these are treating You know, a treaty with 1:09:01.080 --> 1:09:03.800 an Indian tribe is like a treaty with France, a 1:09:03.880 --> 1:09:05.640 treaty with Germany or whatever, and it has to go 1:09:05.720 --> 1:09:08.280 through the same procedure. You have to get negotiate, it's 1:09:08.280 --> 1:09:11.000 got to be examined. But the Senate desk to approve it. 1:09:11.040 --> 1:09:14.120 Of course, are we really going to go through that 1:09:14.200 --> 1:09:19.840 whole procedure with every band in the Far West? That 1:09:19.920 --> 1:09:23.920 will work? And so I think in a very practical way, 1:09:24.040 --> 1:09:29.960 very cynical way, they said, okay, we'll just we'll just 1:09:30.120 --> 1:09:34.080 say that you have a governmental and a structure of 1:09:34.760 --> 1:09:39.479 collective authority like ours. We got a president. You got 1:09:39.520 --> 1:09:41.960 a president. We'll call him the head chief. 1:09:42.760 --> 1:09:44.880 And if you don't, if you don't find one, will 1:09:44.920 --> 1:09:45.479 find one. 1:09:45.400 --> 1:09:48.600 Will and will appoint one. And that happened over and 1:09:48.960 --> 1:09:51.040 over and over and over against and that's that is 1:09:51.120 --> 1:09:55.400 what that's what's going on within this perse Joseph uh 1:09:56.920 --> 1:09:59.400 used an argument exactly like you were just saying. He 1:09:59.520 --> 1:10:02.120 uses horse. He says. It's like coming in and you're 1:10:02.160 --> 1:10:07.640 saying saying to me, we just bought your horse. No 1:10:07.760 --> 1:10:10.760 we didn't. You didn't give me way. We paid that 1:10:10.880 --> 1:10:13.679 guy over there. Well it's not his horse. 1:10:13.840 --> 1:10:18.280 Well yeah, the way it goes, right, Yeah, So. 1:10:18.320 --> 1:10:21.040 At any point in eighteen seventy seven, then they forced 1:10:21.080 --> 1:10:25.479 them to move into this small reservation, to give up 1:10:25.520 --> 1:10:31.640 their homes, be crowded into this this small space, and 1:10:31.720 --> 1:10:34.519 then we're going to do it. They did it, and 1:10:34.640 --> 1:10:36.840 they came across the salmon. There's a rough this is 1:10:37.360 --> 1:10:39.560 late spring. Salmon was up and running, you know. But 1:10:39.640 --> 1:10:41.679 they got all the people across, they got what cattle 1:10:41.720 --> 1:10:46.479 they could across there, and they were camped near the 1:10:46.560 --> 1:10:50.240 reservation on the edge of the reservation. Literally the day 1:10:50.880 --> 1:10:55.439 before they were required to come onto the reservation. At 1:10:55.520 --> 1:10:59.559 that point, it finally snapped and a few young men 1:10:59.640 --> 1:11:05.160 wore who had grudges against a merchant and a couple 1:11:05.200 --> 1:11:08.320 of other whites would settle there in the in the valley, 1:11:09.600 --> 1:11:13.760 took off killed him. And that then was that just 1:11:13.840 --> 1:11:16.400 sort of like a you know, the match to tinder, 1:11:16.680 --> 1:11:17.160 But it was. 1:11:17.560 --> 1:11:19.200 I don't want to say what's interesting about it, but 1:11:19.320 --> 1:11:24.760 it's it's noteworthy that it was people that knew each other. Yep, 1:11:25.800 --> 1:11:28.240 like you're saying, I went to those sites, you know, 1:11:29.360 --> 1:11:34.080 but uh, it was, uh, they set out to get 1:11:34.840 --> 1:11:37.120 It was sort of like riding to this strange land 1:11:37.280 --> 1:11:42.439 and like invading strangers because they they settled grudges with 1:11:42.640 --> 1:11:44.960 people they had interacted with, of course, and in one 1:11:45.000 --> 1:11:48.560 case had some physical disputes with I think. But the 1:11:48.640 --> 1:11:53.120 fact that that would trigger not a police action, right, 1:11:53.680 --> 1:11:55.840 not like arrest warrants, Well, I guess they tried to 1:11:55.920 --> 1:11:57.600 do something like that, didn't they They tried to like 1:11:57.720 --> 1:11:58.680 arrest the people. 1:11:58.720 --> 1:12:02.120 And well, you know, like I say, when these young 1:12:02.200 --> 1:12:03.960 guys came back and it was clear what they had done, 1:12:03.960 --> 1:12:06.519 they were boasting about it, you know. Uh. At that point. 1:12:07.040 --> 1:12:11.120 Then a lot more men took off and it was nasty. 1:12:11.160 --> 1:12:12.840 It was a nasty bit of business. They killed a 1:12:12.880 --> 1:12:14.519 lot of folks, that raped a lot of women. It 1:12:14.680 --> 1:12:16.120 was an ugly, ugly thing. 1:12:16.680 --> 1:12:16.760 Uh. 1:12:17.479 --> 1:12:21.120 And at that point the leadership the the council, these 1:12:21.200 --> 1:12:23.920 leaders who had argued for peace, said look, we're not 1:12:24.000 --> 1:12:24.360 gonna win. 1:12:25.240 --> 1:12:25.920 We got to go in. 1:12:27.040 --> 1:12:30.160 At that point they said, well that's it. It will 1:12:30.200 --> 1:12:32.799 have to be war. Name of one of my chapters. 1:12:33.840 --> 1:12:35.600 It was a quote from one of these councils. They 1:12:35.640 --> 1:12:36.360 will have to be war. 1:12:36.760 --> 1:12:37.120 This is it. 1:12:37.800 --> 1:12:40.760 And then they went all after it. And as you said, 1:12:40.800 --> 1:12:44.280 they just kicked their ear. And in several places. 1:12:45.880 --> 1:12:49.559 It seems so so when you're looking at the country, 1:12:49.680 --> 1:12:52.120 it correct me if I'm messing this up. When you're 1:12:52.120 --> 1:12:57.120 looking at the country, like you imagine settlement starting in 1:12:57.200 --> 1:13:02.320 the east and sort of going like a wall to 1:13:02.400 --> 1:13:06.200 the west coast to the Pacific. But it actually did 1:13:06.240 --> 1:13:10.000 that to a sense. But it also skipped this chunk, 1:13:11.439 --> 1:13:15.240 you know, skip the great planes to some measure. So 1:13:15.280 --> 1:13:17.240 when the nets person get in this fight with the 1:13:17.360 --> 1:13:24.360 US army, they had east. They're going east to escape 1:13:24.640 --> 1:13:26.600 the army because they feel if they get out on 1:13:26.640 --> 1:13:27.479 the Great Plains. 1:13:27.960 --> 1:13:28.639 They're home free. 1:13:28.840 --> 1:13:30.920 No one's gonna care about them anymore. Because they used 1:13:30.960 --> 1:13:33.880 to go out there. They had for quite some time 1:13:34.080 --> 1:13:37.400 gone out there to hunt buffalo, and so they were 1:13:37.520 --> 1:13:40.880 sort of going what you'd imagine as going east. You'd 1:13:40.880 --> 1:13:42.720 imagine them sort of going into the eye of the 1:13:42.840 --> 1:13:46.760 storm of the US. But in their mind they would 1:13:47.000 --> 1:13:48.879 move east to get away from the US. 1:13:48.800 --> 1:13:51.720 That's right. And they were long time allies with the 1:13:51.800 --> 1:13:55.840 crows Absorba people, and they what they thought was, if 1:13:55.880 --> 1:13:57.479 we can get to the crows, if we can get 1:13:57.520 --> 1:14:01.040 out of here, they'll leave us alone. We'll get over 1:14:01.120 --> 1:14:02.880 the crow with our friends, and the crows will take 1:14:02.920 --> 1:14:04.320 us in and we'll let things settle down, and then 1:14:04.360 --> 1:14:08.000 we'll go back home. One of the fascinating aspects of 1:14:08.080 --> 1:14:11.040 his story is how the nest pers, on the one hand, 1:14:11.640 --> 1:14:16.360 were so beautifully adapted to the white presence there. This 1:14:16.520 --> 1:14:18.280 is in contradiction to what I said a moment ago. 1:14:18.680 --> 1:14:21.040 Their their environment was just fine for them, and they 1:14:21.080 --> 1:14:24.920 adapted to it beautifully. They were They were very prosperous, 1:14:24.960 --> 1:14:29.960 successful ranchers. Uh they were, you know, when they took 1:14:30.000 --> 1:14:33.599 off in this cattle cattle ranchers on this long retreat, 1:14:34.320 --> 1:14:38.400 they cashed a lot of their their their valuables, including 1:14:38.920 --> 1:14:44.920 silver tea sets. Yeah they were, yeah, they were. They 1:14:44.960 --> 1:14:47.240 were wealthier than the whites in the area. You know, 1:14:47.320 --> 1:14:50.519 they had lots of resources, had lots of money, and 1:14:50.840 --> 1:14:54.719 they have become very savvy in dealing with the whites 1:14:55.439 --> 1:15:01.000 in terms of economically economically, So the 's you've got 1:15:01.080 --> 1:15:04.280 that on the one hand, and yet on the other hand, 1:15:04.479 --> 1:15:08.559 in this larger perspective, they had this astonishingly naive view 1:15:09.800 --> 1:15:14.000 of larger white society, what of what they were really 1:15:14.120 --> 1:15:16.760 up against. Mmmm, there's this uh. 1:15:18.280 --> 1:15:20.000 You mean, it's just a naive view that you would 1:15:20.040 --> 1:15:22.240 somehow get out of this a lot or. 1:15:22.479 --> 1:15:25.719 Even beyond that, you know, uh, what are we dealing 1:15:25.720 --> 1:15:28.440 with here? One of the one of the counts, their transcripts, 1:15:28.439 --> 1:15:30.479 of course, of all of these negotiations with Howard and 1:15:30.560 --> 1:15:34.799 these others, and one of the uh Nesbur's banned leaders 1:15:35.840 --> 1:15:41.080 nat Ju. At one point you first read it, you 1:15:41.160 --> 1:15:43.960 think he's he's being facetious, he's being he's being uh, 1:15:44.080 --> 1:15:46.519 you know, he's being sarcastic. But I don't think so. 1:15:46.800 --> 1:15:51.000 He said, what is this? Who is who is this? Washington, 1:15:51.600 --> 1:15:54.439 you keep talking about. You keep saying. Washington says that 1:15:54.520 --> 1:15:56.360 you have this treaty, you got to do. Washington says, 1:15:56.360 --> 1:15:59.639 you go to who is that? Is it a person? 1:16:00.280 --> 1:16:02.160 Is it a house? He said, is it a house? 1:16:03.040 --> 1:16:06.160 So they, you know, on the one hand, they're so 1:16:06.520 --> 1:16:09.880 beautifully adapted to their aion environment. In the larger U, 1:16:10.680 --> 1:16:13.040 they've never the first time they become aware of the 1:16:13.120 --> 1:16:18.400 telegraph that existed was during the retreat over Lolo Pass. 1:16:18.800 --> 1:16:21.240 Was it really? Yeah, they had. The first time they 1:16:21.280 --> 1:16:25.920 ever saw or got onto a train was after the 1:16:25.960 --> 1:16:28.880 surrendery when they were taken they were taken over to 1:16:29.040 --> 1:16:31.080 the Fort Leavenworth. 1:16:31.320 --> 1:16:33.840 That was their first contact with the Yeah, experience, they 1:16:34.720 --> 1:16:37.559 know what they were. And so when they split, they 1:16:37.600 --> 1:16:40.080 had what about twelve hundred people about that and then 1:16:40.439 --> 1:16:41.920 five six thousand horses a. 1:16:41.960 --> 1:16:42.639 Bunch of horses. 1:16:42.720 --> 1:16:47.799 Yeah, and they run this rolling gunfight and keep whipping, 1:16:48.840 --> 1:16:53.720 repeatedly whipping Civil War generals in like battles. And then 1:16:53.760 --> 1:16:57.720 one of the craziest things about sort of the one 1:16:57.720 --> 1:17:02.880 of the craziest collisions that you have this this semi 1:17:03.000 --> 1:17:07.600 nomadic tribe of hunter gatherers moving across the landscape and 1:17:07.680 --> 1:17:10.880 the lateness is they get to Yellowstone National Park, which 1:17:11.120 --> 1:17:16.280 is a park, try and get into a shootout at 1:17:16.360 --> 1:17:18.519 Mammoth Hot Springs with tourists. 1:17:20.160 --> 1:17:23.680 It's just like it blows your mind. It's they're just 1:17:23.800 --> 1:17:26.680 such a bizarre story. It's like it reminds me. You 1:17:26.720 --> 1:17:29.160 don't reminds me of Uh did you ever see the 1:17:29.200 --> 1:17:30.280 movie Blazing Saddles. 1:17:30.320 --> 1:17:30.439 Oh? 1:17:30.520 --> 1:17:32.200 Yeah, kidding the very. 1:17:35.320 --> 1:17:38.400 The very end of it, when there's a big fight 1:17:38.880 --> 1:17:42.720 uh in the in the town and somebody pumps up 1:17:42.720 --> 1:17:44.320 against this you know what turns out to be. 1:17:44.560 --> 1:17:48.400 Uh scenery, Yeah, and then falls over. 1:17:48.880 --> 1:17:51.160 Well no, no, and then they break through and it's 1:17:51.200 --> 1:17:54.080 another movie going on next door, dom Delui know. 1:17:57.360 --> 1:18:01.160 Yeah, yeah, you know something about that fighting over Intohigh ninety. 1:18:05.080 --> 1:18:07.120 And that's what this feels like. You know. It's like 1:18:07.439 --> 1:18:09.519 it's like these two stories that come together in this 1:18:10.800 --> 1:18:14.719 strange ways. One of the things there, you know William Sherman, 1:18:15.800 --> 1:18:17.599 who was head of the army in the West at 1:18:17.600 --> 1:18:21.120 that time. Uh, and of course the man who arguably 1:18:21.240 --> 1:18:24.439 was most influentially ending the Civil War, he ends up 1:18:24.479 --> 1:18:28.479 in charge of Indian policy out in the West. He's general, 1:18:28.520 --> 1:18:30.479 He's the general of the Army. He is the highest 1:18:30.560 --> 1:18:33.280 ranking military officer in the United States at that time. 1:18:34.280 --> 1:18:39.360 He's on a vacation in the Yellowstone Park. So William 1:18:39.479 --> 1:18:44.400 Sherman was at the time at the time that the 1:18:44.479 --> 1:18:48.599 nest person came in. So and somebody, you know, said, 1:18:48.640 --> 1:18:51.639 oh my god, you've got these Indians coming in here 1:18:52.000 --> 1:18:55.040 who had just been, you know, just been killing our 1:18:55.080 --> 1:18:56.640 soldiers over there, and all of a sudden, they're going 1:18:56.680 --> 1:18:58.720 in here. So they rushed to tell him, and he 1:18:58.800 --> 1:19:01.360 gets out just a day ors before they come right 1:19:01.439 --> 1:19:05.800 through there. So what if that hadn't happened. No, you know, 1:19:06.120 --> 1:19:09.479 Billy Sherman, you Winnam Sherman sitting around a you know, 1:19:10.280 --> 1:19:14.240 sipping whiskey and frowed trout. You know, some chief also 1:19:14.280 --> 1:19:14.800 shows up. 1:19:14.760 --> 1:19:16.639 You know, soaking his feet some hot. 1:19:19.960 --> 1:19:23.200 So it's you know, it's just a it's such a 1:19:23.240 --> 1:19:25.880 wonderful story on so many levels, the macro level, you 1:19:25.920 --> 1:19:27.439 know what I'll tell you about what's going on in 1:19:27.479 --> 1:19:29.760 the United States at that time, and then the even know, 1:19:30.080 --> 1:19:32.360 the mini level, you know, the micro level where you 1:19:32.439 --> 1:19:36.519 get these astonishing little stories and quirks. You know that 1:19:36.640 --> 1:19:37.680 things come together like that. 1:19:38.120 --> 1:19:41.080 Have you read have you read. Sorry, I was just 1:19:41.120 --> 1:19:41.559 going to say. 1:19:41.560 --> 1:19:43.840 I think one of the more striking things about it 1:19:44.000 --> 1:19:46.760 is just how sprawling geographically. 1:19:46.800 --> 1:19:47.040 It is. 1:19:47.160 --> 1:19:50.560 Like I can't think of very many sort of episodic 1:19:50.680 --> 1:19:56.240 stories that start where they do and and cross over 1:19:56.320 --> 1:19:58.599 and then they're you know, through the breaks and headed 1:19:58.680 --> 1:19:59.360 up to Canada. 1:19:59.439 --> 1:20:01.200 It's like there aren't very many. 1:20:01.200 --> 1:20:03.280 I mean, there's Lewis and Clark, sure, but that's like 1:20:04.000 --> 1:20:07.800 years and years, you know, But like in terms of 1:20:07.960 --> 1:20:10.680 miles covered, this story. 1:20:11.320 --> 1:20:14.120 Yeah, I think I try to figure out a way 1:20:14.120 --> 1:20:17.559 to illustrate that and think of it this way. At 1:20:17.560 --> 1:20:22.479 the end of the Civil War, there's this community in Virginia, 1:20:23.000 --> 1:20:26.920 central Virginia, and they decide, I don't want to live 1:20:26.960 --> 1:20:29.880 out of Union. Let's get out of here. So the 1:20:29.960 --> 1:20:37.160 whole town gets together and they head west, leaving the 1:20:37.200 --> 1:20:41.040 middle of Virginia. Right. Uh, like the s verse, this 1:20:41.240 --> 1:20:43.760 this was these were just warriors, of course. These are 1:20:44.439 --> 1:20:48.720 the entire men, women and children, old old folks, you know. Uh, 1:20:49.040 --> 1:20:50.560 pick up and move, pick up and go. 1:20:52.000 --> 1:20:52.160 Uh. 1:20:52.560 --> 1:20:54.400 And the army says, no, you got to you gotta 1:20:54.400 --> 1:20:58.400 stay here. So the army's chasing them, this this small 1:20:59.320 --> 1:21:02.240 southern town, right and they're leaving. They're hidden west from 1:21:02.920 --> 1:21:07.599 from central Virginia. If those if if that town had 1:21:08.000 --> 1:21:12.920 had had gone as far as this these as person 1:21:12.960 --> 1:21:16.840 did before they were caught up near the Canadian border, 1:21:17.479 --> 1:21:20.599 they would have gone from the middle of Virginia to Denver. 1:21:21.720 --> 1:21:25.280 Are you serious? Because they did? They did thirteen hundred 1:21:25.320 --> 1:21:26.400 miles or something, didn't they. 1:21:26.640 --> 1:21:28.560 Thirteen to fifteen hundred depending on how you measure it. 1:21:28.640 --> 1:21:32.959 Yeah, I think just engagement after engagement after engagement. 1:21:33.080 --> 1:21:35.760 Yeah, that parallel is almost too good to be true. 1:21:36.680 --> 1:21:39.240 It is true. Unlike many things that I've written, it 1:21:39.360 --> 1:21:40.040 is in fact true. 1:21:40.120 --> 1:21:40.360 I think. 1:21:41.320 --> 1:21:43.800 I think one of the things that I remember from 1:21:43.920 --> 1:21:47.439 your from this book is you make the point that 1:21:48.920 --> 1:21:53.640 ex Confederates and Native people are the only Americans that 1:21:53.800 --> 1:21:56.559 have had citizenship forced on them at gunpoint. 1:21:57.560 --> 1:21:59.320 Oh right, Like there's so many. 1:22:00.240 --> 1:22:02.320 I mean, one of the main points in the book 1:22:02.439 --> 1:22:05.080 is just to understand the Indian Wars as part of 1:22:05.160 --> 1:22:09.800 this bigger project of nation making. And you know, you 1:22:09.880 --> 1:22:14.799 talk about greater reconstruction as eighteen forty five to eighteen 1:22:15.360 --> 1:22:20.040 eighty or so. Could you talk a little bit about that, 1:22:20.280 --> 1:22:25.000 like the the parallels that you see in the Indian 1:22:25.040 --> 1:22:26.760 Wars in the Civil War, because there are a lot 1:22:26.800 --> 1:22:28.720 of interrelated questions. 1:22:28.320 --> 1:22:34.080 And yeah, that was the larger theme of the last 1:22:34.120 --> 1:22:36.880 Indian Wars. It's a great story about it. It's an 1:22:36.880 --> 1:22:41.080 amazing story itself, the whole nes person stories. It is fascinating. 1:22:42.760 --> 1:22:45.400 What I tried to argue in this book because in 1:22:45.520 --> 1:22:47.400 a lot of books written on the war. 1:22:47.720 --> 1:22:51.040 In the person, what I try to one lesson there would. 1:22:50.800 --> 1:22:59.120 Have been it is a long walk. I got tired. 1:22:59.160 --> 1:23:00.120 I just drolled it, you know. 1:23:03.240 --> 1:23:07.720 But the larger point was that this is really a 1:23:07.960 --> 1:23:11.360 very revealing part of what I call the greater reconstruction. 1:23:11.520 --> 1:23:16.200 What I what I argue here is that something really 1:23:16.280 --> 1:23:18.800 important happens in the middle of the nineteenth century. We 1:23:18.840 --> 1:23:22.920 all agree on that in the middle of the nineteenth century, 1:23:23.000 --> 1:23:31.160 the national narrative shifts fundamentally onto a new track that 1:23:31.240 --> 1:23:35.160 will carry us into what we know as modern America. Right, 1:23:35.760 --> 1:23:39.000 we go up before eighteen fifty and look at America 1:23:39.320 --> 1:23:42.000 and look at in America in nineteen hundred. It's like 1:23:42.320 --> 1:23:48.240 it's like a different world. We've become a fundamentally different nation, society, people, culture, whatever. 1:23:49.920 --> 1:23:55.040 Why does that happen? What explains this traumatic shift. Well, 1:23:55.080 --> 1:23:57.519 the usual suspect, of course, and it's absolutely true, of course, 1:23:57.600 --> 1:24:01.519 is the Civil War itself. Civil war typically seen as 1:24:01.640 --> 1:24:04.200 this event, you know, that moves the United States in 1:24:04.320 --> 1:24:09.160 this dramatically, in this new direction. That's obviously, of course true. 1:24:10.000 --> 1:24:16.560 What I argue here is that expansion, the acquisition of 1:24:16.600 --> 1:24:20.840 one point two million square miles in three years eighteen 1:24:20.880 --> 1:24:22.240 forty five to eighteen forty eight. 1:24:22.360 --> 1:24:26.400 Oh, you open your book by saying, this spasm of 1:24:26.520 --> 1:24:31.680 expansion would be like if we right now, within a 1:24:31.720 --> 1:24:38.800 couple of years, the US annexed Mexico, Central America, portions 1:24:38.800 --> 1:24:39.960 of Brazil. 1:24:41.040 --> 1:24:42.599 From Columbia, about half of cour Yeah. 1:24:42.680 --> 1:24:44.559 Right, you're like, okay, so let's talk about how much 1:24:44.680 --> 1:24:46.280 how quickly the US grew. It has to be that 1:24:47.120 --> 1:24:52.840 if between now and three years from now we bought 1:24:53.479 --> 1:24:58.960 one basically everything south of US halfway down into South America, 1:24:59.439 --> 1:25:02.320 halfway halfway through, now we're going to incorporate that. 1:25:03.640 --> 1:25:06.360 Good luck with that, right It's uh and I think 1:25:06.400 --> 1:25:08.960 it's a pretty good I think it's a revealing parallel 1:25:09.160 --> 1:25:12.679 because you know, justice, if you if you drive south 1:25:12.720 --> 1:25:15.200 from mel Paso to the middle of globe, you're going 1:25:15.280 --> 1:25:16.559 to see a lot of people. You're going to see 1:25:16.560 --> 1:25:19.720 different culture, different languages, different traditions, different economies and so forth, 1:25:19.760 --> 1:25:21.759 and somehow we're going to bring all of that together 1:25:21.880 --> 1:25:27.000 into this this one thing the United States. Furthermore, uh, 1:25:28.040 --> 1:25:32.960 within two hundred hours of the signing of the Treaty 1:25:32.960 --> 1:25:37.200 of Wadeloupia Dolgo, which gave us, you know, the Mexico Session, 1:25:38.080 --> 1:25:44.080 two hundred hours before that goal was discovered in northern California, 1:25:44.600 --> 1:25:48.960 which turned out to be the by far, the greatest 1:25:49.680 --> 1:25:53.080 gold strike, most productive goal strike in human history up 1:25:53.160 --> 1:25:53.760 until that time. 1:25:53.840 --> 1:25:54.680 Is that coincidence? 1:25:56.080 --> 1:25:59.240 I think it is. You know, it's it's it's a 1:25:59.320 --> 1:26:05.080 kind of fact that that is born to create conspiracy theories, right, 1:26:05.479 --> 1:26:09.439 Oh really yeah, sure, But I don't see any evidence 1:26:09.479 --> 1:26:12.960 whatsoever that there was anything anything like. It was just pure, 1:26:13.360 --> 1:26:15.920 pure affected. The first chapter of the book I call 1:26:16.000 --> 1:26:19.680 the Great Coincidence. This is the greatest and most influential 1:26:19.760 --> 1:26:22.680 coincidence in American history by far, hands down. 1:26:23.560 --> 1:26:25.439 And they restate that to so people get this. 1:26:27.240 --> 1:26:30.599 I call the first chapter book the Great Coincidence, because 1:26:30.640 --> 1:26:35.040 I would I think it's incontestable that this coincidence of 1:26:35.600 --> 1:26:40.080 nine days within nine days, the United States acquiring California, 1:26:40.200 --> 1:26:41.200 acquiring the Pacific. 1:26:41.360 --> 1:26:41.439 Uh. 1:26:41.960 --> 1:26:44.040 This is part of the end of this three year expansion. 1:26:44.080 --> 1:26:48.439 Of course, within nine days we begin to this area 1:26:48.520 --> 1:26:51.679 begins to be revealed as the richest place on earth. 1:26:52.840 --> 1:26:54.680 It starts at the Gold Rush, but then from then 1:26:54.760 --> 1:26:57.800 all of course we discovered time after time after time 1:26:57.840 --> 1:27:02.120 after time. You know, it's like, you know, gods have 1:27:02.240 --> 1:27:06.400 said you need something, It's there. Yeah, it's there. The 1:27:06.560 --> 1:27:11.320 West is the great treasure house of the Western hemisphere. 1:27:13.520 --> 1:27:15.240 So think of it. 1:27:15.320 --> 1:27:19.400 Then think of the consequences it would follow expansion up 1:27:19.479 --> 1:27:23.880 until let's say eighteen eighty, And you can't tell me 1:27:24.400 --> 1:27:28.080 that those were not as important, is not as consequential 1:27:28.560 --> 1:27:30.519 as the changes it came because of the Civil War. 1:27:31.680 --> 1:27:34.479 So what I'm arguing is that we need to think 1:27:35.000 --> 1:27:38.240 of this great, this shift of the American narrative as 1:27:38.280 --> 1:27:43.120 a result of two things. The Civil War absolutely expansion, 1:27:43.920 --> 1:27:48.320 and what follows from expansion is number two. And those 1:27:48.360 --> 1:27:52.880 two things are their own stories, but they're also interacting. 1:27:53.680 --> 1:27:56.960 They're also interacting, and that's the point I think that 1:27:57.240 --> 1:28:01.200 I try to make. And the Last Newian War, what 1:28:01.360 --> 1:28:04.760 you can see in this story is this effort by 1:28:04.800 --> 1:28:07.920 the government Washington, where there's a person or a house 1:28:08.000 --> 1:28:14.880 or whatever, Washington trying to bring into into coherence, bring 1:28:14.960 --> 1:28:20.679 into a singularity this extraordinary continental nation. 1:28:20.800 --> 1:28:20.960 There. 1:28:21.880 --> 1:28:24.120 They do it beforece if they have to. They do 1:28:24.200 --> 1:28:28.280 it by expanding the role of the federal government. Uh 1:28:28.520 --> 1:28:31.040 and they uh and they do it as well by 1:28:31.200 --> 1:28:36.479 imposing a kind of order on it. Not just physical order, 1:28:36.960 --> 1:28:41.640 but an order of who is an American? Right, what 1:28:41.720 --> 1:28:47.160 do we mean by Americans? Well, in the East, it's emancipation. 1:28:48.000 --> 1:28:52.320 We free one million, four million persons from bondage, and 1:28:52.439 --> 1:28:54.840 we say you're going to be citizens now. Out west, 1:28:55.520 --> 1:29:01.280 it's Indians, right, it's Hispanics, it's it's others out there. 1:29:01.880 --> 1:29:06.560 We're telling them who they are. Yeah, right now in 1:29:06.640 --> 1:29:11.880 the East, Uh, the freed people wanted citizenship. Out west 1:29:12.320 --> 1:29:15.920 not so much. Right. But the government says, Okay, now 1:29:16.120 --> 1:29:19.240 we're going to uh same thing you did with the 1:29:19.280 --> 1:29:22.040 reconstruction of the South. We're going to give you land. 1:29:22.240 --> 1:29:25.519 That is, they're going to make you farmers, right, We're 1:29:25.520 --> 1:29:31.800 going to make you freeholders, independent family freeholders. We're going 1:29:31.960 --> 1:29:37.320 to uh teach your children, We're gonna we're gonna bring 1:29:37.400 --> 1:29:39.160 your children in our schools, and we're going to teach 1:29:39.200 --> 1:29:42.559 them the basics. Uh, starting with the English language. Everybody's 1:29:42.560 --> 1:29:48.200 gonna speak English, teaching the basics, including cultural basics. What 1:29:48.360 --> 1:29:52.519 an American is, right, and this is an important part 1:29:52.520 --> 1:29:57.559 of it. Uh, Christianity. We're going to make you Christians. 1:29:57.560 --> 1:30:02.280 America will be this Christian nation, right, Oliver Howard, you 1:30:02.360 --> 1:30:07.080 know this uh, devoted evangelical Christian. He was doing that 1:30:07.200 --> 1:30:08.920 in the south of the Freeman's Bureau, and when he 1:30:08.960 --> 1:30:11.720 went out west, he did it with Indias. Well you 1:30:11.760 --> 1:30:14.519 say that to the you know, to former slaves, and 1:30:14.600 --> 1:30:18.639 they say, great, we wanty citizens, We want land. We've 1:30:18.680 --> 1:30:21.360 been working your land for a long time. Give us 1:30:21.360 --> 1:30:23.000 a farm, give us forty acres and a mule. 1:30:23.240 --> 1:30:23.360 Right. 1:30:23.960 --> 1:30:27.080 We want you to educate our children. We want to 1:30:27.080 --> 1:30:29.639 send our children at Hampton, you know, and to others. 1:30:29.760 --> 1:30:29.920 Right. 1:30:30.320 --> 1:30:30.439 Uh. 1:30:30.640 --> 1:30:33.120 And we are we are Christians, of course, you know 1:30:33.200 --> 1:30:36.519 there's you know, Christianity was a fundamental part of slave culture. 1:30:37.360 --> 1:30:40.880 So they said, terrific. You go to the miss person, 1:30:41.720 --> 1:30:44.280 we want to make you farmers. I don't think so. 1:30:46.240 --> 1:30:49.120 Or you go to uh, you know, La Cotas and comanches. Uh, 1:30:49.560 --> 1:30:54.640 we get a farm in West Texas could no, we 1:30:54.880 --> 1:31:00.479 want to educate your children. We're already educating our children, right. 1:31:01.680 --> 1:31:04.519 We want you to be Christians? No, I don't think so. Yeah, 1:31:04.800 --> 1:31:08.120 we've got our own religions right. And the government says, 1:31:08.479 --> 1:31:12.600 you don't understand. This is not an offer, this is 1:31:12.640 --> 1:31:18.760 an order. You will become farmers, and we will take 1:31:18.800 --> 1:31:23.040 your children and teach them and you will become Christians. 1:31:24.600 --> 1:31:27.479 That's then the basis of what happens at West when 1:31:27.520 --> 1:31:30.920 the war, when when the military does step in, it's 1:31:31.200 --> 1:31:33.960 it's because the consequences of that, and that's what's going 1:31:34.000 --> 1:31:37.160 on with the with the Ness Purse. It's that final 1:31:37.240 --> 1:31:42.400 moment when Oliver Howard steps up and says, Okay, we've 1:31:42.439 --> 1:31:46.000 been overlooking all of us for a long time, you know, 1:31:46.520 --> 1:31:49.160 no longer. We got to do it. And that's what 1:31:49.439 --> 1:31:50.599 that's the trigger. 1:31:51.520 --> 1:31:54.160 It sets it off with the NETS person was there, 1:31:54.520 --> 1:31:58.960 like we talked about Washington and General Sherman was there, 1:31:59.080 --> 1:32:02.439 like finally a and of urgency to like this, this 1:32:02.640 --> 1:32:05.560 is it, We're done with this, like we need to 1:32:05.760 --> 1:32:10.679 establish control after decades of fighting these wars, it seems 1:32:10.760 --> 1:32:14.240 like it was like well established some stability here and 1:32:14.360 --> 1:32:17.200 then here and then like was it do you call 1:32:17.280 --> 1:32:20.560 it the last war? Because they finally decided like this 1:32:20.760 --> 1:32:23.120 is it, We're done Washington. 1:32:23.640 --> 1:32:27.200 Yeah, yeah, yes, exactly. And that's to me, that is 1:32:28.240 --> 1:32:32.200 a really interesting question. Why these people were no trouble 1:32:32.240 --> 1:32:36.120 to them, They were living in an area that very 1:32:36.160 --> 1:32:39.680 few whites wanted. Why why would you force it in? 1:32:40.240 --> 1:32:40.439 Why? 1:32:41.880 --> 1:32:45.679 The reason, I think an important reason was the little 1:32:45.680 --> 1:32:46.280 big worn. 1:32:47.680 --> 1:32:49.880 You know, Brody lost some relatives that a little big one. 1:32:50.040 --> 1:32:55.360 Is that right, there's a yeah, there's a couple like distant, distant, Yeah. 1:32:55.280 --> 1:32:58.600 Brody's brother, my older. 1:33:01.880 --> 1:33:05.800 Yeah, uh yeah. I think that that of course, was 1:33:06.680 --> 1:33:12.040 this this terrific humiliation for the government. You know, uh, 1:33:12.120 --> 1:33:14.600 the boy general, you know, this the darling of the 1:33:14.720 --> 1:33:22.759 uh uh not only gets killed, but it's it's this defeat, 1:33:23.200 --> 1:33:27.120 this this moment that uh. I think that was the 1:33:27.400 --> 1:33:29.439 that was the key to the government saying Okay, that's it. 1:33:30.200 --> 1:33:35.479 Everybody everywhere, it's gotta get under our knee. You know, 1:33:35.720 --> 1:33:39.360 you've got to You've got to play by the rules. Now, 1:33:39.600 --> 1:33:42.479 these are the new rules. That's the only only way 1:33:42.520 --> 1:33:44.240 I can I can think of because you look at 1:33:44.280 --> 1:33:48.320 the at the record, you know, the government suddenly just pivots. 1:33:49.880 --> 1:33:52.280 Before that, before this, they were saying, oh, well, you know, 1:33:53.320 --> 1:33:55.840 what's the problem. It'll it'll happen eventually. We'll just sort 1:33:55.840 --> 1:33:56.680 of kick the can down the. 1:33:56.720 --> 1:33:57.439 Road and uh. 1:33:58.320 --> 1:34:00.639 But all of a sudden, they all of a sudden 1:34:00.680 --> 1:34:05.000 they send word to Howard, Nope, you gotta do it. 1:34:05.720 --> 1:34:05.880 You know. 1:34:06.000 --> 1:34:06.280 That was. 1:34:07.840 --> 1:34:10.120 I was sorry about all the mental energy I've spent 1:34:10.200 --> 1:34:13.679 on my life on the players who convened that fateful 1:34:13.800 --> 1:34:18.600 you know, June twenty fifth. And I think that a 1:34:18.640 --> 1:34:24.440 lot of historians have are argue now it's it's inescapable. 1:34:24.520 --> 1:34:27.439 It's like it's almost the definition of a pirate victory, 1:34:27.880 --> 1:34:35.719 to the point where after the great victory at Little Bighorn, 1:34:36.520 --> 1:34:41.280 rather than being emboldened and taking the fight to the 1:34:41.360 --> 1:34:47.880 next army, they disband like some people say, the probably 1:34:47.920 --> 1:34:52.160 the greatest gathering of planes tribes it was to ever occur, 1:34:53.439 --> 1:34:56.760 the numerically the greatest gathering to ever occur. The next 1:34:56.880 --> 1:35:01.680 day they disbanded, and they're like, man, it's hell to 1:35:01.760 --> 1:35:06.719 pay now. They disbanded and tried to melt into the landscape. 1:35:06.920 --> 1:35:09.680 Rather than being like, let's take Washington. You know, it 1:35:09.840 --> 1:35:12.680 was just oh, this is not gonna go over well, 1:35:12.920 --> 1:35:13.599 it's not good. 1:35:14.120 --> 1:35:18.080 It's not going to go well. I agree with that absolutely, 1:35:18.400 --> 1:35:21.160 and I think that again comes back to the larger 1:35:21.200 --> 1:35:25.720 point that I was making, that odds against them were 1:35:25.760 --> 1:35:32.240 so overwhelming. If you fight, you're gonna lose. It's gonna happen. 1:35:33.040 --> 1:35:35.479 We caught him at this point just by luck by 1:35:35.560 --> 1:35:41.920 This guy's a regrettable decision by and like you say, this, 1:35:42.160 --> 1:35:47.800 this huge gathering, maybe the Fort Laramie conference, a conference 1:35:47.840 --> 1:35:49.920 at eighteen fifty might have been, might have been larger 1:35:49.960 --> 1:35:53.680 than that. But but that was of course peaceful. As 1:35:53.720 --> 1:35:58.759 far as in the wartime, there's nothing nothing to match this. Okay, 1:35:59.479 --> 1:36:05.080 that's today, right, what now? Well, you know they're going 1:36:05.160 --> 1:36:05.720 to come after you. 1:36:06.880 --> 1:36:07.880 I want to I want to hate you. With a 1:36:07.920 --> 1:36:10.240 couple of details that came out of these is one 1:36:10.240 --> 1:36:14.479 of my favorite things of the perspective of the Native 1:36:14.479 --> 1:36:19.600 American fighters at Little Big Horn. A man named I 1:36:19.640 --> 1:36:23.160 can't remember feels gall one of them said in trying 1:36:23.200 --> 1:36:28.320 to explain the actions of the army, he said, we 1:36:28.520 --> 1:36:32.240 just thought they were all drunk. And the. 1:36:34.000 --> 1:36:34.639 Two men. 1:36:36.160 --> 1:36:39.080 Were asked how long it took? How long that battle 1:36:39.120 --> 1:36:42.280 took that that day, and one of them said, gall 1:36:43.040 --> 1:36:46.599 unk Papa Sue had said it lasted as long as 1:36:46.640 --> 1:36:49.960 it takes a hungry man to eat his dinner. 1:36:50.640 --> 1:36:50.920 Wow. 1:36:51.280 --> 1:36:54.840 Another said, I'm paraphrasing. He said, you know when you're 1:36:54.920 --> 1:36:58.479 laying in your teepee and you're looking out the chimney 1:36:58.520 --> 1:37:04.400 hole and the sun hits one of the poles at 1:37:04.439 --> 1:37:07.240 the top, It took about as long as it takes 1:37:07.360 --> 1:37:12.599 the sun to move past that pole. That was all 1:37:12.720 --> 1:37:17.160 on that fight was And both uh and the later 1:37:17.320 --> 1:37:19.880 people both said, oh yeah, they're both saying it was 1:37:19.880 --> 1:37:24.640 about twenty minutes. Yeah, and probably longer than that, but 1:37:24.760 --> 1:37:28.080 not just they're talking about the hill. The hill hill 1:37:28.120 --> 1:37:30.640 were costers like there were his little gang water. Was 1:37:30.680 --> 1:37:44.880 that that that that portion yellow Wolf the Nez Perse 1:37:45.000 --> 1:37:47.360 He later met that guy. I can't remember who the 1:37:47.400 --> 1:37:50.240 hell he was. Yellow Wolf met some guy that then 1:37:50.320 --> 1:37:53.120 sat like yellow Wolf was one of the participants in 1:37:53.120 --> 1:37:55.400 the Nez Person War. He actually scaped. He's one of 1:37:55.439 --> 1:37:58.400 the very few that escaped into Canada. When they caught 1:37:58.520 --> 1:38:00.960 Chief Joseph near the border. He gave his famous from 1:38:00.960 --> 1:38:02.800 where the sun now stands, I will fight no more 1:38:02.880 --> 1:38:06.040 forever this dude named yellow Wolf had actually slipped out 1:38:06.080 --> 1:38:09.479 of there, made it to Canada, later came back down 1:38:09.600 --> 1:38:10.160 into the US. 1:38:10.400 --> 1:38:12.000 Yeah, there were a few hundred who made it. 1:38:12.320 --> 1:38:17.200 And he later met some guy that not only took 1:38:17.320 --> 1:38:20.880 down his life history, but they went and visited a 1:38:20.920 --> 1:38:24.519 bunch of places, and yellow Wolf takes this guy. He 1:38:24.600 --> 1:38:26.599 might have been German, I can't remember. Anyways, he takes 1:38:26.640 --> 1:38:29.519 this guy to the Little Big Horn battle site, not 1:38:29.640 --> 1:38:31.840 the Little Big Horn, the Big Horn, Big Hole, Big Hole, 1:38:32.000 --> 1:38:34.599 in the sight of the Big Hole battle and tells 1:38:34.680 --> 1:38:38.519 him and even shows him where it happened that a guy, 1:38:38.720 --> 1:38:43.439 a US soldier got shot through the forehead and was 1:38:44.000 --> 1:38:48.360 dead standing on his feet, and they challenged him on it, 1:38:48.520 --> 1:38:51.080 and he's like, no, he was at the end of 1:38:51.160 --> 1:38:56.880 the battle. He was standing dead, locked knees, standing dead. 1:38:58.400 --> 1:38:59.840 And I can never tell if that's true. 1:39:02.080 --> 1:39:04.400 It's it's funny. When I was writing the book, I 1:39:04.439 --> 1:39:07.639 have several stories like that in there in that book, 1:39:08.840 --> 1:39:11.360 and I wrestled with that. In the end, I just 1:39:11.439 --> 1:39:15.639 told it straight on, like what yellow Wolf, yellow Wolf 1:39:15.680 --> 1:39:18.720 and others there were. There were others like that at 1:39:18.720 --> 1:39:23.280 the Big Hole another one earlier on. Well, they were 1:39:23.400 --> 1:39:27.400 maneuvering within their home country. There in Idaho. Uh, they 1:39:29.400 --> 1:39:34.040 came upon a small patrol army patrol. Uh killed them all, 1:39:35.200 --> 1:39:37.519 but they said there was one guy in there who 1:39:38.200 --> 1:39:41.679 they kept shooting, kept shooting, shooting, shooting, but he wouldn't 1:39:41.720 --> 1:39:45.559 die cleaning the head. Instead, what he did was, uh 1:39:46.479 --> 1:39:48.200 sit on the ground and clucked like a chicken. 1:39:48.479 --> 1:39:53.479 I remember that. Yeah, Yeah, I don't know, is that true. 1:39:54.040 --> 1:39:57.160 I don't know whom I say. I wasn't there, right, Yeah, 1:39:57.680 --> 1:39:59.120 it's certainly part of their tradition. 1:39:59.439 --> 1:40:01.800 Yellow Wolf was such an interesting dude. 1:40:01.920 --> 1:40:02.280 He had. 1:40:03.400 --> 1:40:06.520 He explains that he had kind of a personal obligation. 1:40:07.720 --> 1:40:12.120 If he encountered a grizzly, he had a personal obligation 1:40:12.240 --> 1:40:15.559 to mix it up with that bear and kill that bear. 1:40:16.600 --> 1:40:17.559 He was a fascinating guy. 1:40:17.760 --> 1:40:20.439 Yeah, and again he'd be like, oh, brother, here we go. 1:40:21.479 --> 1:40:24.880 He found one he had he had to. 1:40:24.920 --> 1:40:31.200 Go not again. Yeah, he's a fascinating guy. I begin 1:40:31.320 --> 1:40:34.439 and in the book with yellow Wolf, h end with 1:40:34.520 --> 1:40:39.400 his deaths. Yeah, when he tells his family, I'm dying 1:40:39.400 --> 1:40:44.040 tomorrow morning when the sun rises on the horizon, and 1:40:44.160 --> 1:40:46.080 he did, and the last thing he said is, my 1:40:46.160 --> 1:40:48.920 friends have come for me. Oh you see them right? 1:40:49.400 --> 1:40:50.120 Oh he did. I don't know. 1:40:50.520 --> 1:40:56.720 Yeah, but the failure you're talking about. The name Laculis Quarter, Yeah, 1:40:56.800 --> 1:41:00.240 not a journalist Scotland and he was a He was 1:41:00.280 --> 1:41:03.519 a rancher out there and one day this Indian came 1:41:03.600 --> 1:41:08.800 up and his horse had been injured or pumping into 1:41:08.800 --> 1:41:11.320 a fence. I guess a barberar fence cut it badly, 1:41:12.120 --> 1:41:16.200 and so he asked mc quarter, will you take care 1:41:16.240 --> 1:41:23.920 of my horse? But you know, an Indian terms of 1:41:24.000 --> 1:41:26.200 course he will. You know, this is what you do 1:41:27.040 --> 1:41:30.360 if somebody it's not your enemy, says you got an 1:41:30.360 --> 1:41:33.000 injured horse, will you watch after him? And he said, uh, 1:41:33.439 --> 1:41:36.519 he said sure, And he came back the next year 1:41:37.120 --> 1:41:40.080 to claim his horse, and it's just fine. And they 1:41:40.120 --> 1:41:44.880 struck up a friendship and those two men spent the 1:41:44.960 --> 1:41:50.400 rest of their lives reconstructing that story. Oh yellow Wolf 1:41:50.479 --> 1:41:53.559 telling this to back quarter. Mcquarter's papers are at Washington 1:41:53.640 --> 1:41:57.320 State Archives, and I spent a long time in that 1:41:57.520 --> 1:42:02.040 archive going through these papers and it's uh there they're 1:42:02.160 --> 1:42:07.640 just a a treasure because it's the only case I 1:42:07.840 --> 1:42:13.080 know of where you have such a concentrated body of 1:42:13.360 --> 1:42:19.519 native testimony because illowilf of taking these others. Tell him 1:42:19.560 --> 1:42:21.639 your story, tell him your story. So you got all 1:42:21.680 --> 1:42:22.760 of these voices. 1:42:22.720 --> 1:42:27.400 And I think, if I remember right, it's people feel 1:42:27.479 --> 1:42:30.400 like that that there was enough of a friendship in 1:42:30.479 --> 1:42:34.200 the mcwarder, who I couldn't remember his name, mcward was reliable. 1:42:34.479 --> 1:42:39.320 Yes, yes, absolutely, it became his lifelong passion that he. 1:42:39.479 --> 1:42:43.960 Wasn't distorting, I don't think trying to capture well, obviously 1:42:44.280 --> 1:42:46.320 obviously it was very sympathetic. 1:42:48.160 --> 1:42:49.840 I suppose you take that. But most of what he 1:42:49.960 --> 1:42:52.320 has in there is not his words at all. It's 1:42:52.360 --> 1:42:56.240 the words of the nest perse of his uh uh, 1:42:56.560 --> 1:42:59.280 the people who's interviewing. In fact, one of the things 1:42:59.280 --> 1:43:04.240 I ran across, uh stuff is really the collector is 1:43:04.240 --> 1:43:04.920 really kind of a mess. 1:43:05.000 --> 1:43:05.160 You know. 1:43:05.439 --> 1:43:08.280 They worked a long time trying to organize it. He 1:43:08.400 --> 1:43:11.160 just sort of threw stuff in boxes. But I did 1:43:11.280 --> 1:43:16.560 run across this small slip of paper that had a 1:43:16.680 --> 1:43:19.360 thought about something about the war, you know, something just 1:43:19.479 --> 1:43:22.000 sort of came to him and he wrote this thought 1:43:22.040 --> 1:43:25.800 on this little slip of paper, and that was the 1:43:25.840 --> 1:43:28.320 last thing he ever did in his life. He was 1:43:28.360 --> 1:43:31.960 in the hospital dying and this came to him, and 1:43:32.080 --> 1:43:34.360 he wrote this on this slip of paper and then died. 1:43:34.880 --> 1:43:35.920 What was what did he write? 1:43:36.040 --> 1:43:46.240 I don't remember dying thought sorry, but as I remember, 1:43:46.280 --> 1:43:48.800 it wasn't truly consequent. It was just something popping too 1:43:48.840 --> 1:43:51.240 his head. It wasn't any great breakthrough or anything. 1:43:52.320 --> 1:43:54.840 You uh, you spent a lot of your career and 1:43:54.840 --> 1:43:59.080 a lot of your writing about mining, mining town's influence 1:43:59.160 --> 1:44:03.200 of mining. And I'm really paraphrasing, but in your book, 1:44:03.840 --> 1:44:05.640 you know, it kind of more or less says, you know, 1:44:05.960 --> 1:44:09.679 in terms of Native people's if when they find gold it's. 1:44:09.520 --> 1:44:13.720 Old that's right, or silver that's right. Yeah, that's right. 1:44:14.040 --> 1:44:16.560 Yeah, lay that out a little bit like just like 1:44:16.680 --> 1:44:20.120 we're like that, that thirst for gold. Yeah yeah, why 1:44:20.320 --> 1:44:21.840 is that? You know, you hear about gold in the 1:44:21.880 --> 1:44:25.640 Black Hills, California gold Rush, you Alaska gold Rush. Just 1:44:25.840 --> 1:44:29.760 really transformative, really transformative events. Yeah. 1:44:30.400 --> 1:44:33.080 Uh well, a couple of uh, you know, a couple 1:44:33.120 --> 1:44:35.840 of reasons are I think are sourve event when you 1:44:35.920 --> 1:44:42.240 think about it. First of all, there's no greater motivation 1:44:42.600 --> 1:44:48.320 motivator in American history than in a gold discovery. Nothing 1:44:48.439 --> 1:44:53.320 like that can can put people to the action. So 1:44:53.520 --> 1:44:56.960 quickly on such a scale. So for the one thing, 1:44:57.720 --> 1:45:00.839 what you get is thousands of people, you know, racing 1:45:00.960 --> 1:45:06.759 to this this particular place over a very very short 1:45:07.280 --> 1:45:11.200 span of time. Uh. Now, I mentioned before, you know, 1:45:11.439 --> 1:45:15.320 talk about what really defeated the Indians was the transform 1:45:15.520 --> 1:45:22.520 environmental transformation of their homelands. Nothing did that more dramatically 1:45:22.960 --> 1:45:25.880 faster on a greater scale than a gold or a 1:45:25.920 --> 1:45:30.040 silver strike. Thousands of people come into an area that 1:45:30.160 --> 1:45:32.360 has had a fairly small these one hundred gathering people, 1:45:32.400 --> 1:45:35.639 so we're real to be small, uh population up until 1:45:35.680 --> 1:45:39.040 that time that are always on the move. You know, 1:45:39.040 --> 1:45:41.840 they're semi nomadic, and they're on the move because they're 1:45:42.000 --> 1:45:45.760 they've choreographed their their life to be at the right 1:45:45.800 --> 1:45:47.679 place at the right time. You know, we've got to gather, 1:45:48.160 --> 1:45:50.760 got to fish the salmon at this particular month. You know, 1:45:50.800 --> 1:45:53.000 we've got to gather the camas bulbs at this particular 1:45:53.080 --> 1:45:55.400 this particular point we've got this is when the elkmar grat. 1:45:55.439 --> 1:45:58.519 We got to be there, and all of a sudden, 1:45:59.120 --> 1:46:04.439 that world is transformed. Right while the game is hunted out, 1:46:05.439 --> 1:46:08.760 the streams are polluted, the trees are cut, all the 1:46:09.080 --> 1:46:15.320 migration patterns are are totally disrupted. It's devastate, its convulsive. 1:46:15.760 --> 1:46:18.559 Yeah, I want to interrupt you make to clarify another 1:46:18.600 --> 1:46:24.400 point you had said about even these huge areas, the 1:46:24.479 --> 1:46:27.800 specificity of some things that you would need. Meaning here 1:46:27.880 --> 1:46:31.880 you you're you're nomadic people with horses, and you live 1:46:32.160 --> 1:46:34.720 in the northern climates. What do you need in the 1:46:34.760 --> 1:46:41.080 winter right, access to timber, access to water grazing lands, 1:46:42.080 --> 1:46:44.840 which is going to be like big riparian bottoms. And 1:46:44.960 --> 1:46:48.160 you said, if there's a spot like that, everybody knows 1:46:48.200 --> 1:46:48.439 about it. 1:46:48.560 --> 1:46:48.920 That's right. 1:46:49.280 --> 1:46:53.120 It's a real vulnerability, you know. And that's the places 1:46:53.160 --> 1:46:54.040 that other people want. 1:46:54.680 --> 1:46:57.680 If you look at the history of Indian wars, when 1:46:57.840 --> 1:47:01.400 when those conflicts did occur, when the well, those campaigns 1:47:01.520 --> 1:47:04.080 did happen, and those battles did happen, Look at how 1:47:04.160 --> 1:47:04.760 many of them. 1:47:06.200 --> 1:47:10.840 Take place in the winter, right, because I know where 1:47:10.880 --> 1:47:11.120 they'll be. 1:47:12.720 --> 1:47:16.680 And of course turn that around, when when is the 1:47:16.920 --> 1:47:22.200 worst possible time to go up against the Indians. June 1:47:22.240 --> 1:47:29.559 twenty fifth, eighteen seventy six, they attack attract They attacked 1:47:29.840 --> 1:47:30.720 the Indians. 1:47:30.439 --> 1:47:34.080 All these winter massacres that they would the army would conduct. 1:47:34.120 --> 1:47:35.920 But then in the summertime. It's this different games. 1:47:36.200 --> 1:47:39.240 Summertime, they choose, you know, let's let's attack them within 1:47:39.320 --> 1:47:44.280 two days of the summer solstice. Brilliant. It doesn't work. 1:47:45.600 --> 1:47:49.600 So yeah, that's right. It's the environmental angle of that, 1:47:49.760 --> 1:47:51.599 you know that you have to you have to take 1:47:51.600 --> 1:47:55.840 into account. But the other thing about mining rushes is 1:47:58.200 --> 1:48:04.280 most by far. Of course, strikes occur in mountains and 1:48:04.360 --> 1:48:09.360 in very isolated areas, but it's a long way from 1:48:09.400 --> 1:48:14.560 any white settlement. What that does, you know, once you 1:48:15.840 --> 1:48:18.680 let's strike occurs, and if it, if it proves to 1:48:18.720 --> 1:48:22.360 be worth it, what you do is immediately get this 1:48:22.479 --> 1:48:29.120 great movement into those places, which in turn is key 1:48:29.200 --> 1:48:32.680 to opening up the interior west UH to transportation, to 1:48:32.920 --> 1:48:36.880 access of others. So it creates these it's in other words, 1:48:36.920 --> 1:48:40.080 it's not a you mentioned before. The frontier is like 1:48:40.120 --> 1:48:45.280 a moving wall, right, that's the agricultural frontier. It's not 1:48:45.360 --> 1:48:49.360 the way, not the way the mining frontier works. It's 1:48:49.439 --> 1:49:01.600 it's the image I have is artillery shells you and 1:49:01.680 --> 1:49:05.000 then they I think it's a good image because the 1:49:05.280 --> 1:49:09.880 sort of the concussive is the concussive rings move outward 1:49:09.960 --> 1:49:13.360 from that you know, that's what kills them. That's what 1:49:13.520 --> 1:49:16.840 kills them. And what what it starts with with this 1:49:17.280 --> 1:49:24.160 is this, you know, ancient fascination with gold. It's goes 1:49:24.240 --> 1:49:27.360 back a long way. You know the Egyptians, you know, 1:49:27.400 --> 1:49:30.880 Egyptians called the breath of God gold. You know, there's 1:49:30.920 --> 1:49:36.040 something about gold that that that moves people into action, 1:49:36.280 --> 1:49:40.720 in the movement into nothing else, nothing else can. And 1:49:41.360 --> 1:49:43.320 it turns out that we have more of it than anybody. 1:49:43.040 --> 1:49:46.000 Else towards gold. 1:49:46.600 --> 1:49:46.880 You know that. 1:49:47.000 --> 1:49:48.880 What you hear, of course is they didn't care much 1:49:48.880 --> 1:49:50.160 about it. That's not true. 1:49:50.600 --> 1:49:50.720 Uh. 1:49:51.479 --> 1:49:54.800 In fact, there's a one very good a book that's 1:49:54.840 --> 1:49:58.920 being worked all the time. I've been madly uh in California. 1:49:58.960 --> 1:50:01.439 He wrote a book, American Genocide. You know that book. 1:50:02.000 --> 1:50:05.080 I haven't read it, but yeah, about California. And Ben 1:50:05.240 --> 1:50:09.080 is writing now on Indians and the gold rush. Once 1:50:09.200 --> 1:50:12.920 the strikes occur, they jump into it with both feet. 1:50:14.320 --> 1:50:17.120 Before that, I don't know, you know, I think they're 1:50:17.160 --> 1:50:19.559 just sort of sort of curiosity. They knew it was there, 1:50:19.720 --> 1:50:21.760 but they didn't, you know. 1:50:21.840 --> 1:50:25.719 And and Ian Frasier's Great Planes, he tells the story, 1:50:26.000 --> 1:50:27.360 maybe it's an apocryphal story. 1:50:27.360 --> 1:50:27.680 I don't know. 1:50:27.880 --> 1:50:29.640 He tells a story about I think it was the 1:50:29.720 --> 1:50:35.519 Blackfeet finding bags of gold on a keel boat or 1:50:35.560 --> 1:50:39.240 some boat that they catch, they capture it, and they 1:50:39.400 --> 1:50:44.800 like the bags and leave the gold dust laying on 1:50:44.880 --> 1:50:45.479 the gravel. 1:50:45.560 --> 1:50:48.600 Bara, I've read heard that story. Well, I've read the 1:50:48.600 --> 1:50:50.320 book that I don't remember that story anything. 1:50:50.560 --> 1:50:52.559 I'd love to know if that's true. Man, he's pretty 1:50:52.600 --> 1:50:55.800 careful generally, you know. But that's what he said. But 1:50:55.920 --> 1:50:58.720 I got I got a practical gold rush question. I mean, 1:50:58.760 --> 1:51:00.519 I kind of know the answer, but be interested to 1:51:00.560 --> 1:51:02.280 see if you could explore it for a minute. Is 1:51:03.240 --> 1:51:07.000 if you tell me right now that oh so and 1:51:07.120 --> 1:51:11.240 so just found a ton of gold in Nebraska, Okay, 1:51:12.800 --> 1:51:17.599 I would think, oh, well, that's a guy's land. Good 1:51:17.680 --> 1:51:20.120 for him. I wouldn't think I'm gonna run over and 1:51:20.240 --> 1:51:23.160 get a bunch of it. What are the factors that 1:51:23.200 --> 1:51:25.720 it would be that that you could hear about. 1:51:25.479 --> 1:51:29.799 This in wherever the hell you're at, Philadelphia, wherever. 1:51:30.760 --> 1:51:37.120 And and have some plausible idea, like some rational idea 1:51:37.200 --> 1:51:40.599 that you would go there and then that you would 1:51:40.680 --> 1:51:41.840 get to pick some of it up. 1:51:42.240 --> 1:51:42.720 Do you know what I mean? 1:51:42.800 --> 1:51:46.280 Like, how is this in terms of just the land 1:51:46.400 --> 1:51:50.280 ownership and the claiming it, and that the government, you know, 1:51:50.360 --> 1:51:52.560 whether or not they occupy it, the US has a 1:51:52.640 --> 1:51:56.200 sort of claim on it. How is it that you're 1:51:56.320 --> 1:52:00.600 gonna go and get some for yourself advertising? How do 1:52:00.680 --> 1:52:02.639 you get like where does that idea enter your head? 1:52:02.680 --> 1:52:04.920 I would never think if someone said, oh, so and 1:52:05.080 --> 1:52:06.800 so found a bunch of whatever, I would never be 1:52:06.960 --> 1:52:07.840 I'm going to go and take some. 1:52:08.800 --> 1:52:12.280 Well, I'll think, first of all, again with a spansion, 1:52:12.960 --> 1:52:16.400 the idea is, it's not Nebraska, it's not a farm. 1:52:17.280 --> 1:52:20.760 It's this place that we just got, I mean, half 1:52:20.800 --> 1:52:24.960 an hour ago, right, brand new, right, and it's could 1:52:25.000 --> 1:52:28.519 not be farther away from me than and still still 1:52:28.560 --> 1:52:30.439 be the jay in the United States. So I can 1:52:30.520 --> 1:52:36.240 imagine anything whatever I want to happen, that's gonna happen. Right. 1:52:36.640 --> 1:52:36.840 Yeah. 1:52:38.439 --> 1:52:42.240 It's just like such a strange understanding of how you'd 1:52:42.280 --> 1:52:45.320 even get a sense of the spatial characteristics of where 1:52:45.400 --> 1:52:47.960 the stuff is. But to like bet your. 1:52:48.040 --> 1:52:50.880 Life on it, A lot of them did, and some 1:52:50.960 --> 1:52:52.280 of them lost the. 1:52:53.880 --> 1:52:57.680 Was there any government guidance like if you're going this 1:52:57.840 --> 1:52:58.240 is how you. 1:52:58.240 --> 1:53:01.320 Want to do it? Or was it us word of mouth, 1:53:01.439 --> 1:53:03.840 and well you you got to remember it now, Uh, 1:53:04.439 --> 1:53:08.680 the gold rush of eighteen forty eight forty nine. There 1:53:08.760 --> 1:53:11.519 have been over a migration before that at the Oregon 1:53:11.600 --> 1:53:14.920 and to California after the Oregon country out to the 1:53:14.960 --> 1:53:22.320 you know, central Valley, Sutter and so they knew the way, uh, 1:53:22.520 --> 1:53:24.760 and the way it was was well marked. By this 1:53:24.880 --> 1:53:28.200 time they were starting to have the stores along along 1:53:28.560 --> 1:53:32.479 the overland route. So how to get there was not 1:53:32.920 --> 1:53:36.679 it was not really much of a mystery. The mystery 1:53:36.880 --> 1:53:38.960 was once you get there, how do you deal with that? 1:53:39.920 --> 1:53:42.240 How do you how do you mind? Yeah, it's ever 1:53:42.360 --> 1:53:45.680 ever occurred to you? I think is part of the question. Oh, yes, 1:53:45.760 --> 1:53:47.680 you're asking. You know, you're a you know, you're a 1:53:48.680 --> 1:53:53.080 you're a clerk in in Cleveland, Ohio, and you're gonna 1:53:53.120 --> 1:53:55.160 go to California. You're gonna mind gold? Really? 1:53:55.240 --> 1:53:57.480 Yeah, you're gonna be You're gonna be a placid miner. 1:53:57.280 --> 1:53:59.920 Or yeah, you're a tender. 1:54:01.600 --> 1:54:05.960 Reminds me of a Jethro Bodine in the Beverly hillbillage, 1:54:06.400 --> 1:54:08.760 I mean an atomic brain surgeon. He said, you know. 1:54:11.439 --> 1:54:11.960 What you know? 1:54:13.800 --> 1:54:16.400 Well, the people who taught them, of course, were the 1:54:16.479 --> 1:54:21.080 Mexicans in the South Americans. There have been gold gold 1:54:21.160 --> 1:54:26.040 mining in Peru and in Chile, in Mexico. So one 1:54:26.040 --> 1:54:28.000 of the things that I right about in the book, 1:54:28.280 --> 1:54:31.000 I think that most people don't think about are the 1:54:31.080 --> 1:54:37.560 forty eight Know, the discovery was made in late January 1:54:37.640 --> 1:54:41.240 eighteen forty eight. That discovery was not confirmed in the 1:54:41.280 --> 1:54:43.880 East until the following December. 1:54:45.280 --> 1:54:47.200 Got it forty eight. 1:54:47.480 --> 1:54:50.320 So consequently the Great Russias in forty nine. But by 1:54:50.440 --> 1:54:54.320 that time, of course, there were people mining gold out 1:54:54.320 --> 1:54:59.840 there from Mexico, from Chile, from Peru. Yeah, sure, from Australia. 1:55:00.280 --> 1:55:05.600 There were Australians there. There were Tasmanians before the fort 1:55:08.040 --> 1:55:10.680 and so these guys forty nine ers come out there 1:55:10.760 --> 1:55:13.320 and they say, one of the people, you know minding 1:55:13.400 --> 1:55:18.600 our gold, right, you're good. But they learned from him 1:55:19.560 --> 1:55:22.440 and from all the all the evidence of the South 1:55:22.480 --> 1:55:25.560 Americans who were there were very generous showing him how 1:55:25.600 --> 1:55:28.040 to do it, you know. So they learned from the 1:55:28.080 --> 1:55:29.960 forty eight ers, and then they kicked him out. Of 1:55:30.000 --> 1:55:31.879 course they're expelled. 1:55:32.680 --> 1:55:37.640 You know, we had you and I both have some 1:55:38.560 --> 1:55:42.880 lines and safd for interviews and ken Burns's uh, his 1:55:43.160 --> 1:55:48.680 his forthcoming The American Buffalo documentary, and uh, following that 1:55:48.800 --> 1:55:50.680 we had, I had occasion to interview him on this 1:55:50.800 --> 1:55:55.520 podcast along with his colleague Dayton Duncan, who your personal 1:55:55.560 --> 1:56:00.320 friends with. Yeah, And in talking to Dayton Duncan, it 1:56:00.400 --> 1:56:02.120 occurred to me that even though I thought I had, 1:56:02.240 --> 1:56:05.600 I had not watched The dust Bowl. I thought I did, 1:56:05.680 --> 1:56:07.040 but I was like, you know what, I actually didn't. 1:56:07.600 --> 1:56:10.080 So I just recently went and watched The dust Bowl. 1:56:10.520 --> 1:56:17.720 And speaking of human migrations the as much as we 1:56:18.200 --> 1:56:19.840 you know, earlier I kind of talked about there's these 1:56:19.880 --> 1:56:22.840 things in American history that absorble out of mental energy, 1:56:23.200 --> 1:56:27.560 and sometimes our fascination with them makes them seem overplayed 1:56:28.240 --> 1:56:35.960 in terms of actual impact. Perhaps far more people fled 1:56:36.000 --> 1:56:41.080 the dust Bowl, okay, which they in that documentary that 1:56:41.120 --> 1:56:46.040 described as the greatest human cause environmental tragedy in US history. 1:56:47.800 --> 1:56:50.480 Far more people fled the dust Bowl and went to 1:56:50.560 --> 1:56:56.360 California than ever went over the Oregon Trail. But we 1:56:56.720 --> 1:57:03.160 just don't when looking at how the country took shape, right, 1:57:03.760 --> 1:57:06.360 you don't go and look at that. No, No, like 1:57:06.520 --> 1:57:13.080 for that episode of people leaving Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, 1:57:13.640 --> 1:57:14.560 southern Colorado. 1:57:14.800 --> 1:57:15.200 That's true. 1:57:15.360 --> 1:57:21.320 Who got all got billed as Oaki's right, all got 1:57:21.400 --> 1:57:21.920 lomped into? 1:57:22.960 --> 1:57:24.040 Yeah, that's a real canard. 1:57:24.760 --> 1:57:28.200 And and it was it dwarfed the Oregon Trail traffic. 1:57:30.520 --> 1:57:32.360 I hadn't heard that. I did watch that. I don't 1:57:32.400 --> 1:57:35.000 I don't remember that quote, that statistic, but it makes sense. 1:57:35.040 --> 1:57:35.280 Of course. 1:57:35.320 --> 1:57:39.400 The population is a lot of parts about. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 1:57:39.720 --> 1:57:43.080 it was. They're all you know, American history has all 1:57:43.280 --> 1:57:45.920 kinds of stories like that that we don't. We don't 1:57:45.920 --> 1:57:49.400 pay enough attention to the great migration out to California 1:57:49.520 --> 1:57:50.280 in World War two. 1:57:51.360 --> 1:57:53.920 Oh, I've paid zero attention to that. 1:57:54.120 --> 1:57:58.600 Yeah, including among blacks. You know, when you say the 1:57:58.680 --> 1:58:01.440 great migration among afric In Americans, you're. 1:58:01.160 --> 1:58:04.120 You're usually crucially to the industrial north. 1:58:04.320 --> 1:58:08.320 That's right leaving you know, as as cotton cultivation was 1:58:08.480 --> 1:58:12.120 was mechanized, this flight up to the Chicago into the 1:58:12.120 --> 1:58:15.880 area there. But then there was a second one that 1:58:16.040 --> 1:58:19.120 was in the twenties World War two, you know, with 1:58:19.240 --> 1:58:21.960 the uh boom of a defense industries and so forth 1:58:22.120 --> 1:58:24.600 on the on the Pacific coast. You know, jobs are 1:58:24.640 --> 1:58:27.320 waiting and a lot of poor black folks in the 1:58:27.440 --> 1:58:29.040 South you know, and they came out there. So the 1:58:29.080 --> 1:58:32.080 you know, the origins of the black presence presence on 1:58:32.080 --> 1:58:34.240 the Pacific coast. You know, it goes back to World 1:58:34.240 --> 1:58:36.560 War Two. Well, we don't, we don't think about. 1:58:36.320 --> 1:58:41.080 It because I brought that up. Let's close on if 1:58:41.080 --> 1:58:44.960 you don't mind, give me some of your thoughts on uh, 1:58:45.160 --> 1:58:47.480 give me some of your thoughts on on bison and 1:58:48.920 --> 1:58:53.360 the broader story of of you know, the near extermination 1:58:53.480 --> 1:58:55.960 of the bison just like whatever. You know, I know 1:58:56.000 --> 1:58:59.240 it's a huge question. But but areas of that saga, 1:59:00.000 --> 1:59:04.480 meaning the destruction, the recovery, what areas within that long 1:59:04.640 --> 1:59:08.800 story have caught your attention or you know, yeah, where 1:59:08.840 --> 1:59:10.800 have you spent your time in thinking about that animal? 1:59:11.080 --> 1:59:14.440 Well, I think I've written a fair amount on that. 1:59:17.400 --> 1:59:21.080 What really interested me was, once again, the larger context 1:59:21.160 --> 1:59:26.520 of it and the complexity complexity of it. I think 1:59:26.560 --> 1:59:30.840 we are mesmerized by this image of the buffalo hunters, 1:59:31.000 --> 1:59:33.280 of the white you know, high hunters, the buffalo runners. 1:59:33.760 --> 1:59:37.000 Of What we tend to forget was that the bison 1:59:37.120 --> 1:59:41.520 population was to had probably declined something like half from 1:59:41.560 --> 1:59:44.960 the eighteen twenties until eighteen seventy two. Or so when 1:59:45.000 --> 1:59:50.520 that starts and the decline comes partly from an environmental change, 1:59:50.600 --> 1:59:53.280 as I said before, the overland trails which destroyed these 1:59:53.360 --> 1:59:55.240 habitats that the bison had to have in the winter, 1:59:55.560 --> 1:59:57.800 just as just as the Indians did. Part of it 1:59:57.920 --> 2:00:04.480 from Indian people's who eagerly jump into this this global 2:00:04.640 --> 2:00:06.880 market economy selling robes and tongues. 2:00:07.080 --> 2:00:09.560 Me and Randall had an hour long fight about this day. 2:00:09.600 --> 2:00:21.520 Oh yeah, who won. But but the lesson there is 2:00:21.640 --> 2:00:26.400 once again, how the globe is shrinking. These Indian people 2:00:26.480 --> 2:00:29.800 suddenly find, you know, great a lot of money and 2:00:30.040 --> 2:00:34.600 things and stuff because they were able to use this 2:00:34.720 --> 2:00:38.200 skill that they along had in a new way to 2:00:38.320 --> 2:00:42.400 sell these robes to people in uh in the East, 2:00:43.120 --> 2:00:49.080 in London, you know, in Paris there there we're seeing 2:00:49.120 --> 2:00:52.120 there really is this the shrinkage of the globe. The 2:00:52.200 --> 2:00:56.640 shrinkage of the globe and the expansion of modern capitalist 2:00:56.840 --> 2:00:59.720 market economy. You know, that is what that is what 2:01:00.320 --> 2:01:04.880 kills a buffalo, It starts to kill them. With the Indians, with. 2:01:05.000 --> 2:01:09.320 The white hide hunters, was there like a comparable rush 2:01:10.520 --> 2:01:14.240 like you like with the mining towns, like a burst 2:01:14.280 --> 2:01:15.640 of people had a west to. 2:01:15.680 --> 2:01:20.640 Go do this, sure, Uh, not on the numbers or 2:01:20.680 --> 2:01:23.560 the same scale. Yeah, sure, exactly. You know, I think 2:01:23.680 --> 2:01:27.320 Steve was saying before we talk about this, Uh, these 2:01:27.400 --> 2:01:32.680 were not were not you know, uh fly bonn uh 2:01:33.040 --> 2:01:38.840 fly blown Uh monsters. These are just young men on 2:01:38.960 --> 2:01:41.720 the move trying to make a buck, right, and this 2:01:41.880 --> 2:01:42.800 is a great way to do it. 2:01:43.720 --> 2:01:47.920 So sure, sure, yeah. Just like we had talked about 2:01:48.000 --> 2:01:51.920 with the impacts of the Civil War, like a good 2:01:52.360 --> 2:01:54.520 many of the people that got involved in that trade 2:01:54.640 --> 2:01:58.920 were I don't want to call them, maybe not literal 2:01:59.120 --> 2:02:03.320 refugees of the Civil War, but definitely people spun off, 2:02:04.520 --> 2:02:06.360 people spun off by the Civil War. 2:02:06.520 --> 2:02:10.600 Yeah. I mean this country, this country was chaos at 2:02:10.640 --> 2:02:12.560 the end of that war. And if you're a young man, 2:02:13.480 --> 2:02:17.960 you know, living in the South especially or or the 2:02:18.080 --> 2:02:22.840 north and subwly, this opportunity showed itself. Sure he did it, 2:02:23.720 --> 2:02:25.480 and they went on to become one of my early 2:02:26.280 --> 2:02:31.120 m A students wrote a book called thesis called Reconsidered. 2:02:31.160 --> 2:02:34.360 And what he did, Dave Dawson, what he did was 2:02:34.680 --> 2:02:37.480 follow these guys' lives to the extens that you can. 2:02:38.160 --> 2:02:42.120 These buffalo hunters, Oh really, what did they become? Bank presidents, 2:02:43.880 --> 2:02:51.240 the Kansas Historical Society, uh, sheriffs, candy salesman. 2:02:51.680 --> 2:02:51.760 Just. 2:02:53.520 --> 2:02:54.880 Winding up on the end of a rope. 2:02:55.080 --> 2:02:59.760 Yeah, yeah, no, no, that these are perfectly perfectly responsible. 2:02:59.840 --> 2:03:00.920 It which makes. 2:03:05.160 --> 2:03:11.720 Candy businessman. No, it's it's well enough. 2:03:12.880 --> 2:03:15.480 Yeah, but it makes it makes perfect sense. What do 2:03:15.560 --> 2:03:17.640 you think about it? You know they were just they're 2:03:17.680 --> 2:03:19.520 just jumping into something, makes some money and they turn 2:03:19.520 --> 2:03:21.040 around and use the money to do something. 2:03:20.880 --> 2:03:22.560 Else and chasing opportunity. 2:03:23.000 --> 2:03:23.200 Yeah. 2:03:23.600 --> 2:03:27.040 One of the man who claims to have killed more 2:03:27.040 --> 2:03:30.280 bias than anybody else went on to become a cheap 2:03:30.320 --> 2:03:31.440 of police in Oklahoma City. 2:03:32.160 --> 2:03:32.280 Uh. 2:03:32.440 --> 2:03:35.600 And then to an early filmmaker. 2:03:35.320 --> 2:03:37.160 That Jay Wright Moore who was who knows. 2:03:37.840 --> 2:03:43.400 There's another fellow and he and he also raised race 2:03:43.480 --> 2:03:47.720 horses and his favorite name Chance won the Kentucky Derby 2:03:47.880 --> 2:03:48.640 eighteen ninety two. 2:03:48.800 --> 2:03:56.760 Seriously, that's sorry, project, it is I feel like you're disappointed. 2:03:56.120 --> 2:03:59.240 With this, Steve, like you just like. 2:04:02.160 --> 2:04:02.440 It was. 2:04:02.680 --> 2:04:05.320 It was just and I brought it up and I 2:04:05.400 --> 2:04:10.360 do not mean this as well. I think I I 2:04:10.400 --> 2:04:14.400 don't want to put any shade on the Dayton and 2:04:14.520 --> 2:04:17.879 ken Burns, the guys that worked on the Vice documentary. 2:04:17.960 --> 2:04:21.920 But when I was given my chance to comment on it, 2:04:22.000 --> 2:04:27.280 I had a couple factual minor, very minor minor factual thoughts, 2:04:28.280 --> 2:04:30.680 and I hadn't a thing I presented to him as 2:04:30.800 --> 2:04:36.800 I thought that totally respectfully, I expressed that I thought 2:04:36.920 --> 2:04:45.080 that they were really that they dehumanized the hide hunters, 2:04:46.000 --> 2:04:50.560 and that person who was not watching carefully might get 2:04:50.640 --> 2:04:53.800 the sense that they were motivated out, that they were sadists. 2:04:54.360 --> 2:04:57.520 Yeah, that they were doing it purely for the joy 2:04:57.560 --> 2:04:57.960 of killing. 2:04:58.160 --> 2:05:00.880 Yeah, they were like I know, I'm going to dedicate 2:05:00.960 --> 2:05:03.120 my life to is making sure there's no buffalo in 2:05:03.200 --> 2:05:09.600 the future. When it was a job again and again 2:05:09.960 --> 2:05:12.680 you see that that you know, like the the you know, 2:05:12.800 --> 2:05:15.760 you know how you know, like that saying freshet eyes 2:05:15.800 --> 2:05:22.080 always heard that was quite There was another say there's 2:05:22.080 --> 2:05:28.840 another saying. There's another saying that goes, uh, I hate 2:05:28.880 --> 2:05:29.840 the game, not the player. 2:05:30.000 --> 2:05:32.440 That's right, they happen to be I came. 2:05:32.520 --> 2:05:37.000 I came up that too, and and I feel that 2:05:37.160 --> 2:05:40.320 there's in in looking at what we just spent a 2:05:40.360 --> 2:05:42.760 lot of time on the hide, the deer hide, the 2:05:42.880 --> 2:05:45.440 deer skin, you know, the earlier version of the hide 2:05:45.480 --> 2:05:49.440 hunners was the white tailed deer runners of a century earlier. 2:05:51.720 --> 2:05:55.240 That you can look and say, like, man, what those 2:05:55.320 --> 2:06:00.960 guys did was rapacious and wanting. Yeah, But on an end, 2:06:01.120 --> 2:06:05.160 when you get down to the individual level, you know, 2:06:06.480 --> 2:06:09.560 a lot of them have demonstrated a yeah I knew, 2:06:10.600 --> 2:06:14.000 I knew, I knew, but if I didn't But to 2:06:14.080 --> 2:06:16.000 say that, there's this one guy, maybe it was more 2:06:16.080 --> 2:06:18.040 one of these guys that said I woke up in 2:06:18.080 --> 2:06:20.560 the morning now and then and thought, am I really 2:06:20.640 --> 2:06:22.680 going to go do this again today? And he says, 2:06:22.720 --> 2:06:25.400 but I would hear the shooting, right, and if I 2:06:25.440 --> 2:06:26.760 didn't do it, it was getting done. 2:06:27.280 --> 2:06:27.480 Yeah. 2:06:27.480 --> 2:06:30.440 And it's easy to point a finger at them as 2:06:30.480 --> 2:06:33.200 a group because they were the last one standing when 2:06:33.240 --> 2:06:36.360 the bus buffalo disappeared, right, Yeah, So it's like those 2:06:36.440 --> 2:06:38.440 guys they put a real puctuation mark. 2:06:39.400 --> 2:06:46.440 But I do think that that that, yeah, hating the 2:06:46.480 --> 2:06:47.920 game and not the player, because I think a lot 2:06:47.960 --> 2:06:50.600 of these people were just they were just poor, desperate 2:06:50.720 --> 2:06:55.080 people who had no thing. They had no thing, And 2:06:55.160 --> 2:06:55.800 if you look at. 2:06:55.840 --> 2:06:58.880 If you look at miners, yes, you know, miners don't 2:06:58.920 --> 2:07:04.280 get the same judgment, right, And they're also yeah, you know, 2:07:04.360 --> 2:07:07.000 it's more indirect, it's not quite as dramatic. I think 2:07:07.040 --> 2:07:10.400 that's part of it is that like the near extermination of. 2:07:10.400 --> 2:07:11.720 The bison is just such a. 2:07:13.400 --> 2:07:18.520 It's such it's such right material for like a moral story, 2:07:19.400 --> 2:07:23.120 whereas like we don't say, you know, these coal miners 2:07:23.160 --> 2:07:24.760 were just doing it because they loved air pollution. 2:07:25.080 --> 2:07:33.040 You know, Yeah, this is this is a great and 2:07:33.200 --> 2:07:35.400 there's evil people that hated clean air. 2:07:35.840 --> 2:07:40.920 They could have done they could why didn't they stop? 2:07:43.560 --> 2:07:47.840 That's that's absolutely all. That's absolutely true. Your quote that 2:07:47.920 --> 2:07:50.240 you often here and there was used in the documentary 2:07:50.240 --> 2:07:50.840 of Frank Meyer. 2:07:52.320 --> 2:07:52.600 Meyer. 2:07:52.920 --> 2:07:53.960 Yeah, I said, I can figure that. 2:07:54.360 --> 2:07:55.160 I figured. 2:07:57.040 --> 2:08:00.280 A bullllet you know, one shell. It costs me twenty 2:08:00.320 --> 2:08:03.280 five cents. But there's one shell I could I could 2:08:03.560 --> 2:08:05.720 kill this animal and I can get back, you know, 2:08:05.800 --> 2:08:08.400 three to five dollars, he said. So I figured it out. 2:08:08.440 --> 2:08:10.400 I don't figured it out and says I figured that 2:08:11.800 --> 2:08:13.360 I could make more money in a year than the 2:08:13.400 --> 2:08:18.040 president of the United States. That's what did it. It 2:08:18.160 --> 2:08:20.520 was the market that did it, both for the Indians 2:08:20.520 --> 2:08:23.880 and then then for these guys. That's what killed the bison. 2:08:24.480 --> 2:08:26.760 So what are you are you writing right now. This 2:08:26.960 --> 2:08:32.960 is a huge But dude, this is not big, This 2:08:33.080 --> 2:08:37.520 is not generous font I will say this is probably well, 2:08:37.600 --> 2:08:39.280 I mean, what a massive amount of work. 2:08:40.080 --> 2:08:41.040 This is probably. 2:08:42.600 --> 2:08:45.080 Oh gosh, I don't I'll write quite slowly. I mean, 2:08:45.120 --> 2:08:47.760 this took me. That took me twenty twenty five years 2:08:47.920 --> 2:08:49.000 to research and. 2:08:49.080 --> 2:08:52.560 Ow and I feel better. Well, you've done a lot 2:08:52.600 --> 2:08:53.040 of books. 2:08:53.240 --> 2:08:54.200 I've done a lot of books. 2:08:54.280 --> 2:08:57.280 Yeah, this is probably the only podcast in the world 2:08:57.320 --> 2:09:00.400 that has an inside source at the ms u R Hives. 2:09:01.080 --> 2:09:02.080 And so I have word. 2:09:03.040 --> 2:09:05.160 I have a word on good authority that you're still 2:09:06.400 --> 2:09:08.680 I was there, still digging, you're stiffing. 2:09:08.160 --> 2:09:09.000 Around the archives. 2:09:09.360 --> 2:09:10.840 I was there. I was there the other day. 2:09:12.320 --> 2:09:13.240 What are you working on now? 2:09:14.080 --> 2:09:16.360 You know, I'm not sure I'm gonna I know, I 2:09:16.400 --> 2:09:18.560 don't have another book me, at least not right now. 2:09:18.840 --> 2:09:20.960 But I like I like to write short articlests. Right now, 2:09:21.000 --> 2:09:25.000 I'm fascinating with Arctic exploration. 2:09:29.920 --> 2:09:32.040 I mean, I was hoping it's gonna be more ic. 2:09:33.600 --> 2:09:33.920 Anyway. 2:09:33.960 --> 2:09:35.720 This is just a I've just started reading up on 2:09:35.800 --> 2:09:38.720 it a lot. And uh, there was a fellow you 2:09:38.960 --> 2:09:42.480 probably know that was Dome. You know that name he 2:09:42.640 --> 2:09:46.400 was at Fort Ellis UH. He was early with the 2:09:46.520 --> 2:09:51.160 first expedition of Yellowstone, and he was in the Person 2:09:51.200 --> 2:09:56.440 War and Yellowstone, but he also signed on to UH 2:09:56.800 --> 2:09:59.520 as a as a part of a scheme to develop 2:10:00.160 --> 2:10:03.360 a colony up in the Arctic, up into the far 2:10:03.520 --> 2:10:07.840 northern UH near northern Greenland. And so this is his 2:10:08.200 --> 2:10:11.480 handwritten account of this expedition. 2:10:11.720 --> 2:10:12.640 Man, that sounds like a. 2:10:14.280 --> 2:10:17.120 Well, it's all it always seems like it's a coincidence 2:10:17.200 --> 2:10:19.600 that these guys are doing. You know, they have a 2:10:19.680 --> 2:10:22.520 foot in each one of these. But as you're pointing out, 2:10:22.520 --> 2:10:23.800 it's all part of the same project. 2:10:24.480 --> 2:10:27.920 It's all part of the same thing. Yeah. Anyway, I was, 2:10:28.000 --> 2:10:29.880 I was looking at the looking at that very funny, 2:10:31.080 --> 2:10:35.800 really interesting detailed description of that voyage. But the real 2:10:36.880 --> 2:10:40.840 gem of it is is introduction when he says this 2:10:41.000 --> 2:10:44.960 is a total disaster of failure, complete failure. It says, uh, 2:10:46.080 --> 2:10:49.600 we did not convert or kill any Indians in any 2:10:49.720 --> 2:10:54.640 any natives. Uh we We did not challenge the authenticity 2:10:54.720 --> 2:10:59.400 of any findings of anybody else. It's this literable sort 2:10:59.400 --> 2:11:01.480 of tongue in cheek jam the other guys who are 2:11:01.480 --> 2:11:04.040 going up. It's very funny. 2:11:05.320 --> 2:11:10.440 Well, stay tuned for that. And in the meantime, Continental 2:11:10.520 --> 2:11:12.280 Reckon if you want to be the guy in your 2:11:12.360 --> 2:11:15.800 social circle who knows the most about the American West, 2:11:17.480 --> 2:11:21.520 Continental Reckoning, the American West and the age of expansion, 2:11:22.400 --> 2:11:29.680 lifetime work, yep, yeah, yeah, it's it's it's fast moving. 2:11:30.960 --> 2:11:33.080 Well, thank you. Yeah, I try to cover a lot 2:11:33.160 --> 2:11:36.640 of ground. Yeah, well, you know, it was a journalism undergraduate. 2:11:37.480 --> 2:11:41.160 I came out of a journalist newspaper family, and I 2:11:41.320 --> 2:11:43.920 was drilled into My father was a very good editor, 2:11:44.680 --> 2:11:47.400 and he was you try to teach us as well 2:11:47.440 --> 2:11:51.000 as he could my brother's and me. You know, right, right, 2:11:51.080 --> 2:11:56.760 like a talk, right, it's a if you can't, if 2:11:56.760 --> 2:11:58.520 people can't, if you're not drawn to it, if I'm 2:11:58.520 --> 2:12:01.800 willing to read it, then what's the point. Yeah, So 2:12:01.880 --> 2:12:02.960 I try. I try to do that. 2:12:03.720 --> 2:12:05.080 I'd like to see you sit down and do the 2:12:05.160 --> 2:12:06.280 audiobook on that thing. 2:12:11.160 --> 2:12:13.160 It's a been contractor for that, and I thought, god, 2:12:13.320 --> 2:12:14.240 poor guys. 2:12:17.560 --> 2:12:20.600 Yeah, that would be man, that would be a it's 2:12:20.640 --> 2:12:24.760 a it's it's a healthy book. Like I said, as 2:12:24.840 --> 2:12:28.400 I you know, I can't I do it. I'm seriously 2:12:28.440 --> 2:12:30.920 gonna read the book and I'm just in preparation for today. 2:12:31.000 --> 2:12:34.040 Like I skimmed around and by doing that approach of 2:12:34.400 --> 2:12:37.440 looking in the index and finding things and you know, 2:12:38.040 --> 2:12:42.920 bouncing back and forth, uh, and went to a couple 2:12:42.960 --> 2:12:48.680 of areas in Western history that that I know well 2:12:48.760 --> 2:12:55.080 and like to read about. And your ability to what 2:12:55.200 --> 2:12:58.320 I thought was great about is your ability to not 2:12:58.480 --> 2:13:01.520 get bogged down into you know, at eight am at 2:13:01.600 --> 2:13:06.760 nine am, but just to sort of be like, at 2:13:06.800 --> 2:13:10.360 a large scale, where did like, where did this lead? 2:13:10.520 --> 2:13:12.640 What was this coming from? What does this really mean? 2:13:13.120 --> 2:13:13.280 You know? 2:13:13.520 --> 2:13:17.040 And then someone reading it could very easily use it 2:13:17.120 --> 2:13:19.920 as a jump off point to go find a lot 2:13:20.080 --> 2:13:23.080 of areas that they might want to explore, but just 2:13:23.160 --> 2:13:30.320 to get in the idea of how the country acquired 2:13:31.040 --> 2:13:38.000 and acquired and homogenized, maybe like how the country gobbled 2:13:38.080 --> 2:13:40.600 up so much stuff and sort of made it into 2:13:40.760 --> 2:13:44.800 this recognizable idea of America so fast. 2:13:45.040 --> 2:13:48.680 Yeah, yep, that's that is really kind of breathtaking when 2:13:48.720 --> 2:13:50.760 you when you think of it in that larger perspective, 2:13:51.080 --> 2:13:53.960 how much happened so fast and with so many consequences. 2:13:54.520 --> 2:13:56.920 And that's what I'm You can say the same thing, 2:13:56.960 --> 2:13:59.440 of course about the Civil War. I'm saying you can 2:13:59.480 --> 2:14:03.880 say that about both of them together. Together, those events 2:14:04.120 --> 2:14:05.080 remade this country. 2:14:06.360 --> 2:14:09.080 So Elliott West again in the latest book, and he 2:14:09.480 --> 2:14:12.800 has many continental reckoning the American West and the age 2:14:12.800 --> 2:14:14.640 of expansion. Thank you very much for joining us. 2:14:15.000 --> 2:14:17.040 Thank you. It's great, great pleasure. Thank you. 2:14:17.960 --> 2:14:34.720 Oh right on a seal, great shine like silver in 2:14:34.920 --> 2:14:48.960 the sun. Right right on alone, sweetheart. We're done beat 2:14:49.080 --> 2:14:58.240 this damn course today, taking a new one. Ride. We're 2:14:58.400 --> 2:15:03.640 done beat this day, am coarse today, So take a 2:15:03.760 --> 2:15:05.840 new one and ride on. 2:15:14.680 --> 2:15:15.120 Mm hmm.