The problem was the documents related to the incident were disappearing as fast as I went looking for them. Coroner’s inquests and court documents that had been in the local court house for years suddenly weren’t there anymore. The way the county tracked land records in the community where the lynching took place changed right after the incident and all of a sudden certain things just could not be found. Plat maps of the time could be found nowhere. Inquests over the bodies of other dead Blacks from this timeframe were also gone. Being a huge fan of the tin foil hat, I immediately smelled something fishy. And I kept digging.

Almost all of the county court records for the decade before and after the lynching were absent from the courthouse. They had been sent to the state for microfilming and I was assured that when the state was finished the original documents would come right back to the courthouse. Boxes and boxes and boxes of records did come back, but two cases in particular relating to the lynching, and a man involved with it, did not. One of these case files contained the inquest over the body of the murdered white girl that sparked the lynching. These included eye witness accounts of what happened the day of the murder and the next day when the lynching occurred. I searched through dozens of boxes looking for this one case. I hounded the state, the county, local organizations looking for this one case file. It never turned up. Word got out and another local historian who had taken an interest in the lynching had managed to copy this case file years ago. He generously gave me his copies and I finally had some answers.

Just looking for old county court records is an exercise in the forensic sciences. The old court vault is a massive walk-in closet lined with monstrous books and old metal boxes that contain the original case files. You must start with an index book that weighs about fifty pounds and looks something like Santa’s list if he were to have it bound. It is so big that the court vault has a special table in it just to use the book.  I’ll call it Index #1. Index #1 is organized by plaintiff (or petitioner) in some cases and by defendant (or respondent) in others. So unless you are very familiar with Index #1 you basically have to crawl on top of this massive table and inside this massive codex and turn a couple hundred musty, dusty pages until you find the case that you are looking for. Then Index #1 gives you a super secret code which sends you to another series of books in order to find the individual case numbers. I’ll call this Index #2.

Index #2 is a series of books that are just as large as Index #1. Index #2 runs from book “A” through book “Z,” then “AA” through some other odd letter depending on the year of the case. Index #2 is organized alphabetically and by year in the individual books, which should theoretically make the cases easy to find. Oh no! Do not allow yourself to be fooled. Index #2 may or may not provide you with an individual case number or box location; it all depends on the year the case was tried. Fortunately, some county court clerk from the distant past decided that he would simplify the filing system by adding yet another index and redoing the box number filing system. So, Index #2 will either yield a case number which sends you to Index #3, or a box number that is absolutely wrong and sends you to Index #3 hoping that the case number is accurately recorded. If all else fails, you go back to Index #1 and find cases that were tried around the same time as the case that you are looking for. Then you reference Index #2 and Index #3 getting a box number and then start digging through the box; all the while hoping that the history gods are smiling down upon you.

Looking for one case file would involve a stack of books that, should they topple, would make you the historian version of Stephen Hawking for the rest of your life. If you survived the Index gauntlet then you had to climb a wooden ladder that was custom built in 1900 seven to ten feet in the air to get the steel case boxes down. These were heavy, to say the least.

Achieving peace in the Middle East is an easier, less stressful goal to accomplish. Historical research can be a full-contact sport in certain circumstances. On days when I would go to the court house I would hug my children extra long and tell them that I loved them before I left. I feared I wouldn’t make it out alive or with my sanity intact. Mommy is going to the courthouse now and Mommy loves you very much.

On the upside, I became intimately familiar with the county court’s old filing system. So when the county moved the court to a new center and announced that they were auctioning off the old shelving and boxes, I knew that I had to own one. Even if it was just to put in the garage and beat the hell out of it when I was feeling frustrated.

This morning was the auction. All of the metal shelving and boxes and filing systems were stacked upon the courthouse parking lot, their duty done. Over 100 years of local history had lived within their grasp and now they were to be sold to the highest bidder. They looked like metal apothecary cabinets with brass and copper handles and gilded painting. The county had left the original paper labels on the front of each box. I bought one at choice, and just randomly picked one that wasn’t too banged up.

When I went to load it into the truck I took the boxes out of it because it was ridiculously heavy. I noticed for the first time which one I had purchased. I stopped dead in my tracks. I had one of those Twilight Zone moments where everything ceased to exist and I felt myself sucked into the vortex of time itself. The labels on the boxes were listed by Index #3 numbers, which as I mentioned earlier I was intimately familiar with. The case number is seared permanently in my gray matter.

The missing murder case that I had spent years searching for belonged in the third box from the right, on the second row of boxes, of the cabinet that I had purchased. It is sitting in my garage waiting to be cleaned up so that I can use it somewhere in the house. I have decided not to beat the hell out of it. I think that I will put copies of the case file into the box where it belongs.

In 1862 Abraham Lincoln signed into law The Homestead Act. Some have hailed this as one of the most important pieces of legislation in American history. Its purpose was to turn vast amounts of public land over to private citizens. Its methods were simple. All that was required was for a person to be over the age of twenty one, head of household, pay the filing fee, build a house, and make improvements on the land. For approximately $18, anyone who met these criteria could “prove up” on and own 160 acres of “free” land. Sounds like the epitome of the American Dream, doesn’t it? A little luck, a little help from Uncle Sam, and some hard work was all it took for Jefferson’s dream of an agrarian America to be yours. And if you act within the next thirty minutes we’ll send you this amazing food chopper free!

But was the Homestead Act really that simple? Note the date it was signed into law—1862. It was a manifestation of the Northern ideology of giving away public lands. The South was quite happy with their system and opposed this idea. The Free-Soil Party from the 1840s and 1850s was a huge proponent of free land. They saw it as a means to end the expansion of slavery. Most Free-Soilers were absorbed into the Republican Party by the 1860 election. Once the Southern states had seceded there was little opposition and the Homestead Act passed Congress with hardly any dissent. Even if the South would have won the Civil War, the Act guaranteed that slavery would stay contained in the Confederacy.

Once the War ended many Americans packed up and moved west. But those pesky Indians were living on land that Uncle Sam had given to settlers and something had to be done. Besides that, there were a lot of displaced army officers who desperately needed a job. Andrew Johnson was too incompetent and Ulysses S. Grant was too drunk to pass any kind of soldier New Deal, so fighting Indians was the next best thing.

The frontier was pushed west as the tribes were pushed out. In less than thirty years the 1890 Census declared the frontier closed—the country’s population had risen high enough per square mile to blur an official line of frontier settlement. As a result, future Census would not keep track of western migration. The 1890 Census also noted that the Native American population had dropped by almost half since the 1850 Census.

What is traditionally considered the American West was once known as the Great American Desert. Everything west of Missouri was considered at one time to be uninhabitable and too arid for farming. This explains the inconsistent settlement of the western U.S with California and Oregon being settled before the Great Plains. Settlers at one time went through the traditional West to get to the Pacific Coast. However, the Homestead Act and a series of wet years turned the Great American Desert into a farming utopia. People actually migrated east as well as west to get their “free” land.

The problem was, these wet years came in cycles on the plains. It was boom or bust for most homesteaders, assuming they could break the sod up enough to plant successful crops. At first homesteading was a lonely and hard business to be in. They were quite isolated and had very limited supplies. Until the railroad came most homesteaders had only what they could carry in their wagons. Can you imagine trying to break through tough prairie grass with a small, wooden plow? What about seed? How much seed could you carry in your wagon along with your family and all of your worldly goods?

The coming of the railroad was a mixed blessing. States gave millions of acres to railroad companies as incentives to build lines. So much land was given that the railroad companies actually ended up being the largest landowners in the West. They were also given the best land, especially along track routes. This meant that most settlers had to settle miles away from a community where they could actually sell their crops.

In order to compete, newly invented equipment was required—threshers, harvesters, seeders, etc were needed for farming to be more efficient. This large equipment also meant that large loans were needed. When drought, or grasshoppers, or blizzards, or any manner of natural disaster that was quite common on the plains occurred, foreclosures and homestead abandonment were right behind them. Financial panics during the latter decades of the nineteenth century put the final nails in the coffins for many homesteaders.

Several social organizations and political groups arose out of the hardships of homesteading. The Grange started out as a social group to combat loneliness and isolation but eventually became a political group that opposed the power of railroads and eastern banks. The Populist Party wanted to restructure the nation’s entire economy to make it more “farmer friendly” during the 1890s.

What eventually happened was that railroad companies and land speculators with the money to purchase large amounts of acreage were the only ones to truly succeed under the Homestead Act of 1862. Many, many families packed up and returned east. Many farms failed because of drought and financial crisis. Census data from the early twentieth century shows a decline in the western population. Even the most famous of homesteading families failed as farmers. The Ingalls family of “Little House” fame never made a living on their homestead. Once the land had been “proven up” upon, The Ingalls family moved to town (De Smet, South Dakota) where both Ma and Pa died.

Millions of acres were granted to private citizens under the Homestead Act. Many families did make a go of it. However, many more didn’t. In later years the Act was modified to allow larger acreage, taking into account actual precipitation amounts and geographical conditions. Once again, it was land speculators and industry that took advantage of it. As a result, I would argue that it is one of the reasons that the western U.S. is the most urban part of the country. More people live in urban areas than in rural areas west of the Mississippi.  The American dream of an agrarian society, one of independence and self-sustainability as a landowner, was not the end result of the Homestead Act.

I wanna play too! And I don’t want to be a prostitute or a bean cooker. I already mentioned my aversion to hoop skirts. I also have already mentioned my utter fascination with fires and blowing stuff up. Frankly, I think that I would be outstanding with some black powder and the means to make it go “BOOM!”

On New Year’s Eve my partner in crime, Lisa, and I were discussing this shameful prohibition imposed on the female half of the species. We came up with an idea that would not only prove a point and raise awareness of American History, but would be fun and socially irresponsible all at the same time. We need to crash a Civil War reenactment. Obviously we can’t just show up and crash a reenactment. A bunch of people dressed in modern clothes carrying protest signs on a smoke-covered field of battle would not blend in well. It would just be dumb. We have to beat them at their own game. We have to raise an artillery regiment complete with uniforms, flag, drummer boy/girl and, well, artillery. Then we will show up, unannounced, and proceed to shoot at anything that moves.

We decided that to get people’s attention we needed to shoot live rounds. However, there are a couple of problems with this idea. First of all, Civil War replica fieldpieces are expensive and hard to come by. Second, it is illegal to shoot live rounds from a cannon at people without an official declaration of war. I really don’t think that we are ready to go that far just yet, maybe next year after we declare ourselves a sovereign nation. So we came up with the idea to build a potato cannon that looks like a Civil War fieldpiece and shoot spuds at people in the name of equal rights.

We put our thinking caps on and came up with all kinds of ideas. Should we pull out all of the stops and build a watermelon gun, or would that be considered racist? Should the drummer boy/girl use a non-traditional instrument in keeping with our theme? Lisa suggested the French horn but even I thought that was a bit much. What should our uniforms be? What should our flag say? What about a slogan? Perhaps “hos before bros” if we clarify that we are not polygamists. What would we call ourselves? I suggested “Boobknobbers,” but so far that has been black-balled.

We made entire scenarios up. We would shoot Yukon Gold potatoes until our supply lines were cut off and then we would switch to plain old russets. If we got successful maybe the U.S. government would declare martial law in Idaho in an attempt to stop us. Can’t you just imagine the look on some guy’s face as a spud exploded on the ground in front of him splattering mashed potatoes on his homespun uniform? Of course, if one of us fell in battle we would send them off with a twenty one spud salute.

I took this idea to a few of my fellow graduate students. Almost all of them seemed enthusiastic at the prospect as well as somewhat leery of felony charges. The question was asked if this type of thing would fall under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. I suggested only if we were drunk, smoking pipes and packing real heat. The first two are a definite possibility so we would need a requisition officer to handle that. The suggestion was made that we all wear converse tennis shoes.

However we decide to pull this off, I think it is a great idea. No one would see it coming, like Canada invading Turkey; it would be completely unexpected. No one, least of all Civil War reenactors, would expect an artillery regiment with a French horn, some potato cannons, Converse tennis shoes, and a guy holding up a boom box blaring “Seven Nation Army” ala John Cusack style to crash their party to make a political statement. So, if anyone has ANY ideas I would love to hear them. When I go, I go all out. I always say to aim high—don’t rob the convenience store, rob the bank.

I end every semester the same way. I put all of my research papers off until the last day or two and then write like a crazy person. It is stupid that I do this to myself. I usually have plenty of time; I just put the writing off until I am a walking ball of stress that could explode at the slightest provocation. The trouble is once I start to write I have to keep writing until I am finished. If I start a paper and then walk away from it I have a hard time getting my groove back.

I can read and research with no problems. In fact, that is my favorite part of the whole process. I rarely take notes because I have this bizarre ability to remember just about everything I have ever read. I throw myself into the process, absorbing everything I can on whatever the topic is. This leads to an unanticipated problem; I become obsessed with my topic. I live it, breathe it, and dream about it in my sleep. I walk around mumbling under my breath like a crazy person and have actually frightened small children and the elderly in grocery stores. 

My friends and family say that I am hard to live with when I get this way. When I was an undergrad I did a research paper on the Black Death, a.k.a. the Plague. I was horrified by what I read. Massive percentages of the population wiped out; dead bodies rotting in the street because there weren’t enough people to bury them. Can you imagine the smell? Unfortunately I got sick in the middle of my research and managed to convince myself that I actually had the plague. My poor friend, Lisa, bore the brunt of that. I actually stuck my armpits in her face and demanded that she check for buboes. Luckily I was bubo-free, but it was weeks before I believed I wasn’t going to drop dead.

When I wrote The Plague Paper I was at the peak of insanity. I had read things that would make Stephen King suck his thumb and look for a “happy place.” I actually thought I had the plague. I was so sleep deprived from horror and imagined illness that I was hallucinating. When I sat down to write I looked like a mannequin that had ridden out a category four hurricane. My hair was matted, my skin was pasty, my eyes were bloodshot, I stank, and I was so jacked up on Mountain Dew that I communicated in a high-pitched shriek. Everyone just evacuated the building. My poor children, their college funds are probably going to pay for therapy.

My latest research project was an analysis of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books in comparison to Frederick Jackson Turner’s 1893 Frontier Thesis. I know your eyes just glazed over. I read the entire Little House series as well as over a dozen books on Wilder and Turner and consulted census data, railroad data, insect data, weather data, data data, you name it. So when it came time to write I had all of this crap scattered all over my office. My desk is a hand-me-down dining room table. I have yet to find a desk that is big enough to handle my research explosion. I like to literally surround myself with data so that my footnotes go over the top. I am a huge fan of footnotes, by the way; my own as well as those written by other people. Cite those sources because plagiarism is a bitch.

I spent weeks reading and mumbling about Laura and her stuck-up sister, Mary. I lost sleep, I ate poorly and I changed my caffeine addiction from Mountain Dew to coffee. My office got thoroughly trashed with papers and books strewn about like an academic explosion. My hair stuck out like Einstein’s, my eyes looked like a road map, I lost my voice and I started to growl at people if they suddenly approached me. I sat down to write the stupid paper just as I reached the precipice of total insanity, with only two days until it was due. For forty eight hours I moved only to refill my cup and go to the bathroom.  When the paper was finished I went to class and turned it in. Then I took the final and went to a drag show ($2 drinks!!) with friends to decompress.

I got an “A” on the paper. However, I shaved about five years off of my life. When I think of the many end of semester writing fits I have put myself through, I fear I shall not live to see old age. I’m getting too old for this crap. I need to find a better method as well as a better spell check. The older I get the worse my spelling gets. Without a good spell check program my sintenses luk lik thiis.

Viva la winter break!

I am in a traditional male-female marriage. I have children. My sexual orientation is straight as an arrow; although I once considered lesbianism as a wayward teenager just to piss of my parents. But even adolescent rebellion wasn’t enough of an incentive. I just don’t have it in me. There is, however, one woman who could woo me into a tryst of girl-on-girl action. I’ll be honest; there would be no wooing necessary. I would simply fall at her feet and beg her to love me.

I would switch sides for a chance at Eleanor of Aquitaine.

Who did you expect, Angelina Jolie? It only stands to reason that History Chick would have a girl crush on a woman that lived 850 years ago. Her stats are awesome: queen of two nations, duchess of one of the largest duchies in Europe, led her own army into battle, etc, etc. And, rumor has it she was hawt!

Eleanor of Aquitaine was born in 1122. Unlike other medieval girls, she was educated and multi-lingual, and recognized as the heir of Aquitaine after the death of her older brother. At the age of fifteen she married Louis VII, and was crowned Queen of France at age sixteen. Eleanor was no dummy, prior to her marriage she insisted that the Duchy of Aquitaine remain outside the French realm and therefore within her control until she bequeathed it to her heir. Aquitaine was larger and more populous than the French holdings. Eleanor could raise a larger army than the King of France and had more resources at her disposal. Louis VII was somewhat of a nimrod when it came to politics and evidence exists indicating that Eleanor was running the show.

When Louis agreed to join Conrad III of Germany on the Second Crusade, he depended heavily on Aquitaine military force. Eleanor agreed but on one condition, she would ride as the head of her Aquitainian army. (I like to think that she didn’t do it sidesaddle.) After many disagreements over military command (including a maneuver by Eleanor that saved Conrad’s ass) and a rumored affair, Eleanor and Louis returned to France via different routes.

Soon after that Eleanor requested that her marriage to Louis be annulled. The reason….well she told the Pope that she was sexually unsatisfied. The Pope insisted on watching the royal couple to see for himself. Apparently he agreed with Eleanor that Louis was lacking in that department so he granted the annulment after the birth of the couple’s second daughter.

Twelfth Century Europe was a dangerous place for women, even women of Eleanor’s position. It was the Dark Ages after all and those pesky serfs just wouldn’t stay put sometimes. Actually the nobility was more dangerous. Two attempts were made to kidnap Eleanor. Eleanor ordered, she did not request or asked politely, but ordered Henry II Duke of Normandy and heir to the English throne to marry her. Henry was about 12 years younger than Eleanor. He showed up at once and married her. Within two years Eleanor became Queen of England.

Henry and Eleanor had an interesting relationship. He tried to gain control of Aquitaine and she threatened to go to war with England. Apparently she was more satisfied with Henry than with Louis, she gave birth to at least eight children. Eventually she got tired of Henry’s philandering and packed her stuff up and went back to Aquitaine. When Henry flaunted one mistress Eleanor got even by helping three of her sons provoke a rebellion against their father. Henry imprisoned her in various abbeys for several years after that but she still maintained control of her duchy and her sons.

When Henry died Eleanor’s son, Richard the Lionhearted, ascended the throne. His first official act was to free Eleanor. His next official act was to split for the Third Crusade and leave Eleanor in charge as regent. Take that Henry! Richard was absent from England for most of his ten year reign. Eleanor did a bang-up job of ruling in his stead. In fact, she rescued Richard when he was captured and held for ransom by Leopold of Austria when returning from the Holy Land.

When Richard died, Eleanor’s son, John, became king. Poor John is known as the worst king England ever had. Part of the problem was he just wouldn’t listen to his mother. Eleanor had always taken care of her subjects during times of hunger and drought. She was a master politician and when diplomacy wouldn’t work, she threatened war. John bypassed all of this and went straight for stupid. The nobility of England responded and forced John to sign the Magna Carta; a document that was eerily similar to a code of conduct for noblewomen that Eleanor had been pursuing during the later years of her life.

During her lifetime Eleanor defied the cultural norms for her gender. She did what she pleased, when she pleased, and encouraged other noble women to do the same. She had bigger stones that most of the men in her life. She promoted music, poetry and art. She ruled two kingdoms and one duchy. She mothered the kings and queens of several European nations. She had her finger in almost every political pie of her day. And she was HAWT.

Any woman who tells a medieval pope to get her out of her marriage because her hubby needed Viagra is all right in my book. Any woman who could sit in her castle and thumb her nose at the men of Europe and have an army to back her–well that just melts my crayons. Eleanor of Aquitaine was a bad-ass to end all bad-asses. Gloria Steinem ain’t got nothing on my girl Eleanor.

I have a serious girl crush and I need a time machine.

“I was a Fellow at Snob University.”

“Well I received the My Nose Pokes Higher in the Air than Your Nose Does Award for my work on the northern transcontinental railroad.”

That’s all fine and good, but can they balance their checkbooks or find their way around an old-school card catalog?

I’m all about education and reaching one’s potential. I am all about academic debate and professional camaraderie. But I hate the snobbery of publishing in the “right” journals, attending the “right” schools, and tearing one another’s research apart just to maintain your place on the academic totem pole. I’m all about love of the craft and history for history’s sake.

One of my advisors burst my happy History Chick bubble this week by asking a simple question: What are you going to specialize in? To be honest I have never given it much thought. In the past I have researched local topics because I had access to primary source documents and didn’t have to depend on some faceless archivist in some distant land. My interests are varied and I can run with just about anything that catches my fancy. I have never considered a specialty because it is too hard for me to decide on one field.

I have already received approval for my research topic. I want to study the social impact of guerrilla warfare on the trans-Mississippi west during the Civil War. I never once considered the fact that this topic would put me into a narrowly defined field; I just wanted to know what happened. My advisor advises that Civil War historians are a dime a dozen. If I want to make any money publishing, or be considered for academic employment, I will have to do what I absolutely hate to do and play the academic snobbery game. Well shit.

To add insult to injury I am almost halfway done with the program and registration for the spring semester starts next week. I need to look NOW at what I want to do. This means rearranging my schedule and finding a new research topic that fits within the parameters of the available seminars and pro-seminars and the faculty specialties. I also have to bear in mind the doctorate program I wish to pursue and whether or not I need to move to go to a school that offers my specialty. Nope, I’m not feeling any pressure or anything to make this kind of decision in less than a week. Did I mention that this bomb was dropped on me in the middle of two mid-terms, three papers and two book reviews?

Oddly enough an alternative appeared within hours of my meeting with my advisor. This new alternative would give me the opportunity to work on topics that are very personal to me. Even better, it could possibly put me at a school that I had considered before, in a location that I have always dreamed of living. History is a funny thing and now I need to see how my future in history will play out.

“Blacks would have NEVER voted for Lincoln’s party. There are no black Republicans.”

“Of course Obama is a Southern Democrat, he’s black.”

 “That Jim Crow guy sure passed a lot of laws.”

 “So THAT’S who John Brown is!”

Um, yeah.

Up until a few years ago, the area lacked racial diversity. Most people are ethnically Anglo-Saxon or Scotch-Irish, with a few pockets of Germans and Scandinavians. Religiously this area is protestant, but diversely protestant – we have First Baptists, Second Baptists, Primitive Baptists, Union Baptists, Anabaptists, Southern Baptists, Methodists, several different kind of Pentecostals (although none of the Steve Irwin types that I have ever seen), Presbyterians, and a few Lutherans here and there. The biggest difference that I can see falls along Calvinist lines and determines the missionary status of the various churches. Non-Calvinists are all about the mission whereas Calvinists won’t waste their time and energy because God has already decided our fate. If God has decided that your elevator is going down, well that’s just too damn bad. However, Jesus loves you anyway.

There were a series of lynchings and resulting black diasporas in the early twentieth century that dropped the African American population significantly. To the best of my knowledge, there has never been a sizable Jewish presence until recently. However, several white supremacist groups call the Ozark Mountains home and I am sure this had contributed to the consistency of the population.

The racial and religious diversity, or lack thereof, was the topic of discussion in class this evening. Apparently a sizeable community of Georgian Jews has sprung up in a mid-sized town in the mountains. Not Scarlet O’Hara Georgia, former Soviet Block Georgia. The population is large enough that the local school district has hired Russian interpreters. This is interesting considering the extreme lack of diversity and the lack of economic opportunity in this town. What was the magnet that drew this group of people here? It’s not like the Ozarks are overrun with Russians or Jews for that matter. And one would think that the presence of hate groups would certainly be a deterrent to immigration. The annual KKK convention is held in the Ozarks and no one shows up to protest.

One of my classmates, a Pentecostal missionary from extreme southeast Missouri, provided what be believed to be the obvious answer: these aren’t regular Jews; these are “Jews for Jesus.” Of course all discussion came to an abrupt halt as we all tried to figure out what he meant. My first thought was, are they like Bikers for Jesus, because I think I gave them money once for their annual toy drive. The professor asks, do you mean Messianic Jews? And my classmate replied, YES! These are Jews for Jesus.

Allow me to insert a question here. Isn’t Messianic Jew a veritable contradiction in terms?

So what exactly is a “regular” Jew? There are Hasidic Jews, Orthodox Jews, Reform Jews, Sephardic Jews and Messianic Jews to name a few. Judaism is just as diverse as the mountain Baptists and I still have no idea what a “regular” Baptist is. Needless to say the whole “regular” Jew thing really threw me off. Especially considering that there are cultural and ethnic Jews who are not religiously Jewish. No matter what kind of “Jewishness” this community represents, it is fascinating that they are here to begin with.

I can see that the gears are grinding in not only my professor’s mind, but the minds of my classmates as well. I realized that while I was still caught up in the Bikers for Jesus mindset, the others were considering more scholarly ideas. Here we have a new, most-likely unstudied, Ozarks demographic that has appeared after two centuries of settlement. Woo Hoo! This is an academic’s dream! This is the kind of stuff that gets published in the best journals on the first submission. You can bet, however, that it won’t be titled “Jews for Jesus in the Ozark Mountains.” It will be something more dignified like, “Messianic Judaism in the Ozarks Highlands and Post-Soviet Global Immigration.” It’s got to sound good. For example, you don’t point out trailers or mobile homes in the mountain south, the official term is Post Modern Appalachian Architecture.

So be sure and check out next year’s issues of the Journal of Southern History. This could very well be the hottest trend in American Southern History in 2010. And remember, History Chick called it first.

Usually a month into the semester I have my professors pegged; whether they will be tough or easy, fun to joke around with, things like that. Well this semester I have one professor that I can’t get a handle on. He is in his sixties, very proper, and rarely smiles but comes across as kind. He looks like Gary Busey with a comb-over in a tweed jacket. His lecture style is very Ben Stein-esque, except instead of saying, “Bueller? Bueller?” he says, “Anyone have any questions or comments?” He is as deadpan as a poster child for steamed broccoli.

We were discussing the role of the fur trading companies in the American West. Some people are aware that the famous Astor fortune was founded in furs and the Pacific Fur Company. John Jacob Astor was a German immigrant who became America’s first multi-millionaire and founder of one of the richest dynasties in the world. He was also some sort of pimp, because according to my professor, he “made his money selling beavers.”

Astor launched dual expeditions, one by land and one by sea, to Oregon in 1811 to establish a fort as the hub of his beaver business. Fort Astoria was constructed at the mouth of the Columbia River. However, there were some political problems; Spain, England, the United States and Russia all laid claim to the Pacific Northwest. An American company with a permanent post would legitimize the United States’ claim so Astor’s ambitions had presidential blessings.

Since the other nations had a fur trapping presence on the Columbia River, Astor came up with a brilliant plan to drive the competition out. He sent his best trappers into the wilderness to “trap dry” a perimeter around the competition. He wanted to create a “beaver-free” zone. His strategy was simple, when the “foreign” men couldn’t find any beaver, they would do what most men do when they can’t find beaver and just go home.

The plan may have worked except for two problems that Astor could have never have foreseen. One was the outbreak of war with England in 1812. Another was the arrival of two Kootenai (a tribe from the Oregon interior) women. A Two-Spirit (you can Google that) woman named Kaúxuma Núpikawho, (translation Man-Like Woman) and her wife showed up requesting military protection. Apparently Kaúxuma Núpikawho had prophesied massive death from smallpox and the Natives blamed her. She may also have been a spy for a rival fur company. Weakened from Indian attack, Fort Astoria was seized in 1812 when a British warship arrived. Astor gave up and went back to New York City.

Nothing will ruin a man’s beaver expedition like lesbian prophets and redcoats.

Throughout the entire lecture, my professor only used the term “fur” in relation to fur companies. He never said “beaver fur,” he only said, “beaver.” Astor made his fortune in beaver. Astor wanted to create a “beaver-free” zone to discourage the competition. Fort Astor was successful in its beaver dealings until the arrival of the Two-Spirit woman and her wife, despite the fact that these women told them where to find more beaver. Then the British arrived and destroyed Astor’s dream of becoming the “beaver king.”

Our relatively quiet classroom became a profusion of coughs and snorts and other obnoxious noises. Despite the disruption, our deadpan, Gary Busey look-alike professor kept professing about Astor and his plan to keep the beaver all to himself. The room full of adult graduate students dissolved into a bunch of twelve-year-olds in a matter of seconds. Professor Busey kept droning on in his signature monotone and we kept trying really hard not to let it be known that were, in fact, twelve-year-olds. You know how when something is really funny and you can’t laugh, it gets even funnier? This got painful. Choking back multiple snorts does some kind of damage to your sinuses that may require surgical correction.

In order to maintain decorum I refused to look at any of my classmates. I knew that if I made eye contact and recognized a kindred pre-teen soul I would instantly lose control, and all semblance of dignity would be gone. So I zoomed in on Professor Busey and tried to maintain a look of casual interest on my face and hoped he wouldn’t notice that I was trembling. For the briefest of moments, Professor Busey and I made eye contact across the heads of my fellow classmates. I saw the barest of twinkles in his eye and I realized deep in my soul that he was messing with us. The mundane monotone of classes past was like a tractor beam, sucking us into lethargy. He had lulled us into bored submission and then struck with the beaver lecture when we least expected it.

At one point he paused and asked his usual question, were there any questions or comments? One brave soul spoke up and stated that Astor must have learned his lesson in Oregon because a beaver-free zone would have never been profitable in New York City. To which Professor Busey replied, probably not since beaver headwear was all the rage among fops and dandies. Luckily class ended at that moment and I could leave, avoiding further damage to my sinuses.

Next week’s lecture covers the concept of Manifest Destiny. I’m not sure how I feel about that.

When I was an undergrad I took a class on Native American issues. It was one of my favorite classes. However, it had one drawback, a fellow classmate that was dubbed “Birdgirl” because she adamantly professed an unreasonable hatred of birds during the first class. What this had to do with Native American issues I will never know. But I do know that Birdgirl was, well, dumb. I don’t mean uneducated dumb, I mean how does she balance her checkbook and function in society dumb. Forrest Gump had more usable brain cells than she did. Birdgirl was prone to blurting offensive and ignorant statements at the most inappropriate times in class. Our professor was a Yakima tribal member and Birdgirl always referred to all Native Americans to him as “your people.” She lumped the Aztecs in with Pacific Northwest tribes and considered them one big happy family.

So my joy knew no bounds when I discovered that I had a “Karmagirl” in my Southern History class on the very first day. The professor started a discussion by asking why the South seemed to have been economically and socially behind the rest of the country since the Civil War. Karmagirl responded, “Karma, they got what they deserved.” I laughed, thinking that she was making a joke. After all this is a graduate level class and a certain amount of evidence-based discussion is expected. She turned to me and asked if I thought that what she had said was funny. I said that I did and she informed me that she was quite serious; which, of course, I thought was even funnier.

So, last week we begin to examine the affects of the Enlightenment and the Great Awakening on eighteenth century Southern culture. We read an article on tidewater planters’ religious attitudes towards their slaves. The author made the intriguing argument that their attitudes were quite paternal in nature; that it was their duty to care for and spiritually guide their slaves. However, evidence exists that many held the belief that they would be equal to their slaves in Heaven; that the slaves were suffering for the “sins of Ham” in this lifetime and would be rewarded in the next. This idea is very similar to the idea that women suffer for the sins of Eve.

Poor Karmagirl just could not wrap her brain around the fact that these people could own someone and think that they would be equal in the afterlife. She kept harping on it and harping on it until she created a real disruption to the class. Finally I said that the context of the times had to be considered, that attitude was the reality of the culture. Then Karmagirl more or less called me a racist. That was when History Chick puffed up, pulled the big words out and went off a little.

However, Karmagirl unknowingly brought up an excellent point about historians and the study of history. One of the biggest mistakes an historian can make is to apply modern morality, or modern standards, to the past. The past must be viewed on its own terms. Our standards simply do not apply. Everything changes and morphs and what is applicable now was not applicable 100, or even 1000 years ago. We just don’t live the same way. We can see this between the modern generations. How many of us look at some of the things our parents do (or did) and come to the conclusion that they are bat-shit crazy? If it only takes a couple of decades to show an inherent difference, then there is no logical way that we can apply modern standards to events that happened long ago.

To really study the past and to really understand it we have to examine the events and the people as they really were, not how they would be today. We have to try and put together a clear picture of the environment, attitudes, experiences, and previous history in order to truly understand the events and people of the past. We have to give the past the honor of being what it was. This doesn’t mean that we have to condone it; it means that we have to accept its reality in order to put it into perspective.

By today’s standards eighteenth century tidewater planters were racist thugs. However, according to their contemporary standards they were the norm. These men were heavily influenced by the religious attitudes of the time and their lifestyle shows this. They were men trying to survive and thrive in an agrarian economy that depended on slave labor. They based their businesses and their daily decisions on the reality of their times. Right or wrong, this was just the way it was.

Think of it like this, how many people sent money to Jimmy Swaggart before his blubbering “I am a sinner” confession? Right or wrong, people believed in him and sent him millions hoping to help him do the right thing. Or consider Hitler’s breathtaking rise to power. Were all Germans racist imperialists looking to dominate the world? Of course they weren’t. But Germany was still reeling from the affects of WWI, a crippled economy and lost sense of national identity. Hitler showed up just at the moment when Germans needed something to believe in. He was one smooth talker and charming to boot. People didn’t realize he was crazy until they were swept away in the tide of the Third Reich. That was just the way it was.

Understanding the past is far more important than judging it. We can do more to prevent atrocities by recognizing the patterns. Screaming out “Karma!” won’t keep slavery from happening again. Understanding how and why it happens will.