Unsettling Memoryscapes

I have just finished taking notes on a couple of books I recently read to understand more of the context of my ancestral entanglements with Native Americans of the northeast. The books are Memory Wars: Settlers and Natives Remember Washington’s Sullivan Expedition of 1779 , by A. Lynn Smith (2023) and Memory Lands: King Philip’s War and the Place of Violence in the Northeast by Christine DeLucia (2018). Both books examine place, memory, and commemoration following two distinct violent events, namely the scorched-earth campaign in 1779 ordered by Washington against the Haudenosaunee peoples of Western New York, and the hugely destructive King Philip’s War in 1675 in New England. Memory Wars focuses on the monuments that were placed throughout Pennsylvania and New York starting in the late 19th century to commemorate the Sullivan Expedition. Memory Lands considers local history and memory of several sites of trauma from the war, namely Deer Island in Boston Harbor, the Great Swamp in Rhode Island, the Connecticut River Valley in Western Massachusetts, and Bermuda. The two books treat place and memory from the perspectives of both the white settlers and Native Americans.

A couple thoughts from reading these books. Memoryscapes operate in parallel and different people in different communities will bring different meanings to a place and its history. And there is always a history behind monuments and markers. Who were the people who placed them? What were their values, and what sort of power was behind them?

(The photo shows a marker from the Native American Contemplative Garden in the UC Davis Arboretum.)