For a large portion of the past year I have been reading every document known that is related to the Bear River Massacre. I have read thousands of pages. I have read first-person accounts of horrible events and outright lies. I have seen half-truths propagated and legends born. I have seen the fall of societies and the birth pangs of the world's first super power.
So what have I learned? Well, that's the point of the book, but there are still some ideas I'd like to share here. History is a finicky thing. It changes depending on who is telling it, why they are telling it, and when they are telling it. Usually this is done with the best of intentions, but the result is still the same. Rather than presenting truth as the facts of what happened writers want to present Truth (with a capital T) and facts become tools in the hands of the writer. This is inevitable, but if the writer is unaware of it or simply careless then "facts" are turned into lies and they do damage to the very ideals they wish to present. Too often our history is written by those with the best of intentions, but without an attitude of reserved judgment.
When this happens history takes on the aura of legend, a dry textbook, a corny television show, a thriller movie, or just a convenient story that fits the agenda of those in power or with an ax to grind (or a book to sell). It loses the feeling of reality that surrounds our everyday events. It is not really believable anymore and seems distant as it turns from memories into moral platitudes and epic stories. Incidents like the Bear River Massacre are by nature surreal to our everyday lives. The thought of standing in freezing temperatures in a remote corner of nowhere watching men, women, and children bleed out onto winter snow is not one we care to relate to. The idea of hearing children screaming in terror and watching men smash their heads against the ground is so foreign to our lives that we do not have a frame of reference to make it real to us. So we allow it to fade into legend.
However, it is real. It did happen. Not only did it happen, but it happened in a world that is not so different from our own and it happened for a reason. It happened with people as real as our coworkers, our neighbors, and ourselves. It happened to families like ours. The question then is how real people could come to a place like the confluence of Beaver Creek and Bear River and slaughter one another? It seems unreal, but somehow at the moment it was real and they felt justified in their actions. How did people get from one to the other? Why did they do what they did? What really happened? Can we even really know? More importantly, can we avoid it in the future?
One of my guiding principles in research is to keep digging for original sources until I have a sense that the events that happened "back then" are as real as those that happen today. Real life is messy and confusing. People, no matter how evil their actions, are not caricatures. They are complex and conflicted. Hitler played with children, Stalin laughed, and Pol Pot was a patriot saying, "Everything I did, I did for my country." Until we understand Hitler as both a psychotic mass murderer and a man who loved children we don't understand the man and his time. Until we can realize how Pol Pot could justify the Killing Fields we cannot understand the rise of extremism in East Asia. More importantly, until we can understand these men and their times we cannot identify the next Hitler, Stalin, or Pol Pot before they murder millions.
It is the job of the historian to dig and dig until enough is found that we can finally say, "This sounds like real life. This sounds like how people really think." The thought of digging into the world and psyche of men like Hitler and Stalin until we understand them is disturbing. It means we have to come to understand monsters and eventually, on some level, identify with them. We have to admit that "There, but by the grace of God, go I." Is it any wonder then that we stop reading history before we get to that point? The idea that we and Pol Pot have anything in common is abhorrent. We gaze upon the killing fields of Cambodia and say, "I'm
nothing like him!" and so we make him into a mythical figure of evil. In doing so we lose the lesson of history - Beware! For there too we may go.
But what about Colonel Connor and his band of California cavalry and infantry volunteers? Were they simply noble soldiers out to tame a land oppressed by renegade Indian chiefs or were they murderous monsters riding on a mission of bloody genocide and rape? Were the emigrants on the Oregon Trail and Mormon settlers victims of depredations or invaders in another people's land? Depending on who you ask you may get completely different answers. However, such broad sweeping descriptions rarely give a true picture of what happened nor the motives of the people who were there. Until we can understand men like Connor, Bear Hunter, McGarry, Pocatello, Brigham Young, and Sagwitch we cannot understand how the world came to such a violent point on January 29, 1863. Until we can make it real again we cannot learn how to identify the next Bear River before hundreds more die in the dead of winter.
In the past few weeks the Bear River Massacre has changed for me. It is no longer a mythical historical event filled with bravado, villains, and heroes. It feels real now. As an artist that was my original goal - to understand the event well enough that when I put paint to canvas I could make history alive. However, what I have come to learn has become so much more complex and far reaching. We are who we are today because of what happened at Bear River in 1863. The effects of that day echo through history and have changed the course of nations. The world pivoted on January 29th in a small corner of Oregon Territory and yet nobody seems to have noticed. The lessons remain unlearned.
This is why this project is so important and why the help of others in the community is critical to its completion. The truth must be told, but more importantly we must come to understand not only what happened, but how we got there and how it led to where we are today.
