Collection: Directories and Documents > Tanis Thorne Native Californian & Nisenan Collection

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Title: The Shared Memories of Pioneers by Clyde A. Milner Collection Type: Directories and Documents Collection Name: Tanis Thorne Native Californian & Nisenan Collection # of Pages: 5 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

Date Scanned: 2024-09-03 15:24:51 OCR Software Version #: tesseract 5.4.1 Item Sourced From: PDF First Created: 2025-03-17 05:53:19 Last Updated: 2025-03-17 05:53:19

Original Held At: Searls Historical Library Location: 161 Nevada City Hwy, Nevada City, CA 95959

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99 462 Major Problems in the History of the American West i he shortest time possible only to find that her husband il aa Oe thes accounts reported Mrs. Slade’s great grieving over and, ; ; ine The eubivcleet wutede evident in these recountings of Slade s hanes may reveal that some pioneers saw both the vigilantes and men He Ste le as figures near the social boundary between deviant and acceptable 5 Fi r Whatever the case, the dramatic on of ar sp ed 5 ome . _ ; i variations. In his memoir, T. tire Stade on horteban arriving too late, but Instead of a oe a husband's hanging, “‘she said had she been there she would ate Fh “ him before they could hang him." Ford believed her capable on sacl because she was the “best shot’ in the area and could “take 2 teva i and shoot a chicken Head off every time."* David Bailey wrote a : "5 memoir: “It was said that Slade’s wife, a beautiful woman, a 80 i ors e woman, and an expert shot, dashed into town on her charger i ; trial and demanded her husband's relense."’ Mrs, Slade’s angry pleading i hanging went on. . wee Tooenay to dismiss Ford and Bailey as oldtimers who got the Pasi story of Slade's hanging wrong, Instead, it is more informative to Consider what they have in common with other versions. Each a remat ate characteristics to Mrs. Slade; each remembers her ering rae and cach has Slade hanged despite her stag, any words, each has story as do Sanders and Dimsdale. Ser rameacht won the core of a story may not be a apa! pask ore historian, but it is for a folklorist. Indeed, folklorists often a t marae Variations fa contend are expected ean fete elites, etd oe nt are expected with folk n . 5 wena Macon false, Retlonalized accounts. Factual ae oe be contained in a fotk story just as it may be found in a Bove a me r. Most importantly, the way that folklorists took at narratives remin consider the larger context of the intended audience for whom pioneers’ irs. . ; ee er poe tried to tell a personal story. The ploneer's nlm famlly—grown children and grandchildren—probably made up the p bal audience for that story, but there was also a broader audience of cl 4 pioneers and residents of the local community. Memoirs Higennari a sel conscious valedictory, a reminiscent summing up of a life. ie cally, “ were written during the author's later years. Some of the stories in ". mem may have been told numerous times before they were written down. ere! a they may be the anecdotes and accounts that were most vopelit ant is family, friends, and the local community, the groups on bat ‘at Hi ae . In the case of historical events participated, the chances would increase that the memoir contained rem: iniscences that represented the knitting together of a collectively remembered ' om h eated important aring of collective memories also may have cr ed conarpieat boundaries. Folklorist William A. Wilson believes, “If the story The Popular tmagination 463 depart too far from eck,"* Memoirs may a similar process of interaction with the audience for whom they are ultimately written.. In the memoirs of Montana's pioneers, attitudes toward Indians and accounts of the vigilantes do not Stray far from the same value center, The idea of a value center refers to a shared historical Perception that is based on what is emotionally believed whether it js factually accurate or not. A peopte’s beliefs about its past are what Wilson calls “people's fact.” These beliefs are also part of what historian Cari L. Becker considered “living history.” In his essay, “Every Man His Own Historian,” Becker maintained, “The history that does work in the world, the history that influences the course of history, is living history, that pattern of remembered events, whether true or false, that enlarges and enriches the collective specious present,”* As living history, the memotrs of ploneer Montanans reveated not only whal they believed about their past but also what they believed in thelr present. Stories about Indians on the overfand trails and accounts of murders by road agents and hangings by vigilantes indicate attitudes about outsiders and violence prevatent during the 1890s and later, but Supposedly remembered. from the 1860s. It is worth pondering how such attitudes, which were eapressed in a living history, also had become part of the institutions and dally life of post-1890 Montana. Indians remained outsiders to Montana society, often living as a separate People on reservations, and expressions of personal or even corporate violence could be observed in labor relations and political campaigns. Yet, the value center and living history of Montana's pioneers were cot unique. Other memotrs in other western locations readily present an Beyond their western themes, Montanans' memoirs are indicative of a broadly American process of creating historical identity through an insistence on new beginnings. The American Revolution, the creation of a new nation, and the near cult of the Founding Fathers have been the greatest expressions of this process, In her memoir, Harriet Sanders compared the 1863 arrival as ancestors of her own “tittle band." Instead, she saw each group as an eiample of people who had survived a dangerous Journey. Other pioneers showed the same Inclination. They might present a fimily genealogy or point to historical parallels, but they tet Montana history