Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Catholic
A Visit With Colonial History

A Visit With Colonial History

Last updated on: December 1, 2018 at 1:48 am by Mary Pezzulo

A Visit With Colonial History 2018-12-01T01:48:42-04:00 Mary Pezzulo

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Rosie and I went down to the Nutcracker Village and Advent Market, which was great fun, and I’ll write a lighthearted post about that fun later.

Toward the end of our trip, though, I found myself sad.

This year, the historic Federal Land Office is open to the public free of charge during the hours that the Advent Market is open in the Nutcracker Village. I’d never seen it before. It’s a tiny log cabin on the grounds of Fort Steuben Park, built in 1802, and it was the home and office of David Hodge, who was sent by President Adams to sell off the land that is now Ohio to white settlers. The city has done a good job setting it up as a small museum– I pointed out to Rose the fireplace with its cooking implements, the antique furniture and clothing, the chamber pot and wash basin. It was fun to see.

It also made me sad, for the people who used to live here before the white settlers decided the land was theirs to keep, by virtue of their wanting it.

We went in the museum that stands in front of Historic Fort Steuben as well. The fort isn’t open to the public this time of year, but the museum is. While the Advent Market is working, the museum is full to bursting with lavishly decorated Christmas trees, and I like that. It’s great fun. But if you look hard, you can see the museum’s other displays in between the Christmas things. There are antiques from the 50s when Steubenville was a boomtown. There are mannequins displaying settlers and soldiers in their historic costume, and a case of Native American artifacts as well. And, in the gift shop, there’s a similar spread: Christmas ornaments and crafts spread out among toy muskets and toy bows and arrows, coloring books of American history, cookbook with pioneer recipes… and a table full of faux Native American memorabilia. Just as in every gift shop I’d ever seen, in museums of that sort. Nothing wrong with that.

But I was sad again.

There were small stuffed buffalo, an American bison, for sale with the other Native American knickknacks. I like buffalo, as I’ve mentioned before.

There are no buffalo in Ohio anymore, but there used to be, just as there used to be Native Americans and now there are not.

My bad cousins and I used to play “Cowboys and Indians,” when we met for reunions in West Virginia. I don’t know where we got the idea that all cowboys were male and all Native Americans were female, but that’s how the game was played: the girls on one side, making that irritating bwah-bwah-bwah noise with a hand in front of the mouth, sometimes speaking in broken English like Tonto from The Lone Ranger. The boys on the other side, with lariats and imaginary horses. Invisible arrows against invisible guns, equally matched, in conflict for no discernible reason, in front of a genuine CCC log cabin in a state park in the Appalachian mountains. It always ended with both sides making peace and smoking an imaginary pipe together, and then it was time to go in for supper.

One day I grew up and realized history was nothing at all like that.

The United States of America wasn’t what it billed itself to be. The United States of America was something else altogether.

The opposite and antagonist of “Indians” isn’t “Cowboys.” The opposite and antagonist is us– the United States, my government, the culture I belong to now even though my ancestors were in Ireland and Wales at the time. The conflict wasn’t a nice even match with an understandable quarrel on each side, and it didn’t end with peace and going in for supper. What the United States did to Native Americans isn’t really different from what Leopold II did to the people of the Congo or what Hitler did to the Jews. Eventually, Hitler was defeated, but nobody defeated us, so here we are. We sell arrowheads, dreamcatchers and cheap beaded jewelry in museum gift shops, next to replica muskets and pioneer toys.

I found myself hugging one the stuffed buffalo and praying. Lord, have mercy. Kyrie Eleison. Hospodi Pomilui.

I prayed for the intercession of Venerable Nicholas Black Elk.

When Christ appeared to Black Elk, calling Himself the One Who Makes Live and the Son of the Great Spirit– if I recall correctly, I think in that vision He appeared with a buffalo’s head. If it wasn’t that vision, I’m sure there was another vision of Black Elk’s where there was a man with a buffalo’s head. I keep thinking about that image lately. Buffalo was the staple food for Plains Indians. When they couldn’t find buffalo, they starved. That was why the United States government ordered the killing of so many buffalo, after all: to try to starve the Plains Indians so settlers could take the land. A buffalo for the Native Americans was something as significant as a lamb for the Jews in Judea two thousand years ago.

Christ is the Lamb of God, the Food without Which we die, the Food by Whose death we live.

There’s no reason an American Bison is not a symbol of Christ, the way the lamb, the grape vine, the gryphon and the pelican are.

Maybe if all American Catholics were really committed to what we say we are– and many have been through the years, but if all of us really acted as though we were One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, universal, with no kingdom in this world– there would be churches decorated with buffalo imagery all over the United States.

Of course, if all the Christians in America had been faithful to the Truth they professed, the history of the United States would surely have been totally different. Of course many did, but far more didn’t. If they had, I don’t know what the history of the United States would have looked like, but it wouldn’t have been like this. Perhaps I wouldn’t have played Cowboys and Indians with my cousins in Appalachia; we’d have completely misunderstood some other part of history. Perhaps there wouldn’t be a Land Office in Steubenville at all– perhaps we’d have an historic log cabin museum for a different sort of building. Perhaps, somehow, there’d still be real Native American communities in Ohio, and real live buffalo as well. Perhaps I’d still have been hugging a stuffed American Bison in front of a display of appropriated Native American kitsch in a museum gift shop, but I might not have been sad about it. I might have been praying a different prayer than Lord, have mercy.

It’s so easy to write it off as something inevitable. Conquest and colonization are what people do. America isn’t really different or less guilty than anywhere else, in that way. Powerful people kill people who aren’t powerful and put their remains in museums; that’s the history of the human race.

But it did’t have to be.

We could have chosen to live like followers of Christ, and we didn’t, and that’s tragedy. That should make us deeply ashamed.

We could choose right at this moment to live like followers of Christ instead of what we’ve been, however, and that gives me hope.

Through the intercession of Black Elk, by the mercy of the One Who Makes Live, we could repent of ours sins and start today.

Advent is a perfect time to begin.

(image via Pixabay)

preferential option for non-violence

Public face of Catholicism

Historic Fort Steuben

Previous Post

November 30, 2018

What are you Doing for Advent?

Next Post

December 1, 2018 Your Redemption is at Hand

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category abortion Abuse Advent America American Christianity angel angels Annunciation Appalachia apparition apparition chaser apparition chasers apparition culture art art review babies baby baby Jesus Bad Lip Reading bad statue contest bath beauty Bible story blog blogkeeping blood book review Brandon Sanderson breastfeeding bus Catholic catholic conspiracy alarmism Catholic Oppositional Disorder Charismatic Renewal Charlie the Cat chastity Christ Christian idenitity Christianity and Judaism Chronic Illness clean clothing COD piece comedy compassion conscience conspiracy theory conversion cop-on-black violence Crucifixion cry of the poor culture Daesh Daily Saints death death penalty devotional diaconate diaper diapers dirty disability Donald Trump Dorothy Day dream drugs Eastern Catholicism Eastern Christianity education election election update Elsewhere on Patheos empathy environment Fear feminism film review fish flashback fluffy buns food Franciscan University of Steubenville Friendship Room fun Gabriel gardening gospel hair-splitting Heaven hell heresy Hillary Clinton history Holly the Witch Holy Spirit holy war Homeschooling homosexuality horror human dignity humor Icon idol immigrants infection inter-religious dialogue Interpretation of Scripture Islam Jesus Jihad Joseph joy laity and lay vocations lamb dinner laundry lent lgbtq literature love manners Mary Medicine and Science Meditation mercy mess milk misogyny Missouri monasticism monster motherhood mourn with those mourn movies movis music mystery nature neurodiversity New Pro-Life Movement news nonsense nostalgia O antiphons obituary objectification Ohio Valley Ordinary Time ordination Ordo Amoris parable paradox Passover peanut butter personal beliefs pets philosophy Planet Charismatic poetry politics polls poop Pope Francis Pope Leo power in the Church prayer prayer request prayers preferential option for non-violence president presidential election priest primary private revelation pro-life prophecy Public face of Catholicism Pure Flix Q and A race racism random rape rape. sexuality reader's request Reckoners refugee religious trauma ressurrection Right to life Saints saints and celebrations same-sex same-sex marriage satire scandal secular feasts seder Seven Joys Seven Last Words sex sexual ethics sexuality silencing six months skid row slavery social justice Speculative fiction spiritual abuse spoon stain story suffering suffrage suffragette Sunday Gospel temple Tenebrae Responsories Terror the exorcist The Friendship Room The New Pro-Life Movement Things I Learned on the Internet tin cup traffic true story tv review Uncategorized USCCB vice and temptation violence Virtue virtue and vice war Way of the Cross whimsy whole life women's ordination work of mercy Year A

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who was the ruler of Egypt during Joseph's time?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Cyrus Nebuchadnezzar Caesar Pharaoh