Analysis Of The Antebellum Era In Dispossessing The Wilderness

The National Park Service was created in 1961 to preserve the natural and cultural aspects of the National Park System. As the way Americans perceived wilderness evolved, the history of the national parks arguably became inaccurate. In Dispossessing the Wilderness, Mark Spence writes about how the Antebellum Era effected the way Americans viewed and defined wilderness, how the redefining of wilderness led to the dispossession of Indians, and how these actions came to change the historical reality of national parks. During the Antebellum Era, the West was frequently thought of as the “Indian Wilderness” as it was uncommon during this era to separate the idea of the wilderness and those who inhabit it. While American Romanticism had quite an

This combination of tourism and Indian reservations inevitably led to the government intervening. In Yellowstone National Park, Philetus Norris “believed ‘the isolation of the park . . . and the superstitious awe of the roaring cataracts, sulphur pools, and spouting geysers over the surrounding pagan Indians, caused them to seldom visit Yellowstone.’” (Spence 60) In Glacier National Park, Indians were treated as a living museum, attracting tourists to see Indians in their “natural habitat,” although these tribes were limited to a very small portion of the national park. Tribes in Glacier were deemed “simply un-American in their lack of appreciation for the national park and almost barbaric in their unwillingness to let go of traditional practices,” (Spence 72) if they traveled elsewhere within the park. In Yosemite National Park, an Indian village was created and “reserved for those with the strongest “moral right” to reside in the valley.” (Spence 126) Through these countless efforts to slowly dispossess Indians from their native land, the government slowly succeeded and began to erase the Indian existence from the parks all

By this definition of wilderness, the Yellowstone, Glacier, and Yosemite national parks are defined as wilderness today. The Indians who once found reservation in the national parks were slowly removed in the best interest of tourism until the parks were no longer the “Indian Wilderness.” The National Park Service who preserves these national parks claims to preserve the natural and cultural resources and values of the national parks; however, the National Park Service subsequently erased the existence of Indians from the history of the national parks. Mark Spence argues that the National Park Service is therefore providing inaccurate history of the nations’ national parks. While the National Park Service successfully preserves the land in which it protects, it fails to be informative on the cultural aspect and how the national parks came