Popular in Arts and Humanities

Arts and Humanities

Freedom’s Dominion

Vanderbilt University Jefferson Cowie

Arts and Humanities

Titus Quinctius Flamininus’ “Italian triumph”

McGill University Michael Fronda

Arts and Humanities

Lincoln and the Jews

Brandeis University Jonathan Sarna

Arts and Humanities

Amputations and Convalescence

University of Western Australia Emily Brink

Art

Drawing on the past: Palladio, his precursors and knowledge of ancient architecture

University of Birmingham David Hemsoll

Art

Language, Sound, and Image in Wallace Berman’s Aleph, 1956–1966

University of San Diego Chelsea Behle Fralick

Cast out of Eden

View more insights in Arts and Humanities - Books - History - History of North America and the United States

View more figures from Independent Scholar

View the page of Robert McNally

Read the Study

Next in Arts and Humanities

Election Integrity in a One-Party Dictatorship

David Brandenberger | University of Richmond

The Poverty of Disaster: Debt and Insecurity in Eighteenth-Century Britain

Tawny Paul | University of California Los Angeles

Robert McNally discusses John Muir’s life and work in America’s violent campaigns of Indigenous land dispossession and genocide.

Image courtesy of interviewee. May 30, 2024

Log-in or Sign-up to Faculti
Currently viewing this subject insight as a guest. You have insight(s) remaining for this month. Login to view 8000+ figures on the platform.

Generating Workspace...

Export as PDF

This video discusses the author's research and insights regarding John Muir, often hailed as the father of the American National Park system, and his views towards Native Americans. The author initially became intrigued by Muir's visit to the Modoc War battlefield after researching the Modoc War in California. Muir's writings after this visit were noted for their disparaging descriptions of the Modoc people, leading the author to explore whether these views reflected Muir's opinions of specific events or a broader attitude towards Indigenous peoples.

Throughout the research, the author delves into Muir's extensive writings and journals, uncovering his complex and often problematic perspectives shaped by the racial stereotypes of his time. Although Muir played a crucial role in promoting conservation and the creation of national parks, his vision often excluded Indigenous peoples who historically inhabited these lands. The author critiques Muir's belief that nature and humanity should be separate, which contributed to conservation policies that displaced Native communities.

This video contrasts Muir’s legacy with contemporary movements, highlighting new co-management efforts between Indigenous peoples and federal land managers, illustrated by the example of the Bears Ears National Monument. This video shift reflects an increasingly inclusive vision of national parks, fundamentally different from Muir's. The author emphasizes the importance of recognizing both Muir's contributions and his shortcomings to understand the evolving relationship between environmental conservation and Indigenous rights in the United States today.

Language:

Export as PDF

X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

00:00.605 --> 00:03.055
This book kind of came out in my prior book It was,

00:03.065 --> 00:05.295
which is called The Modoc War,

00:05.295 --> 00:08.335
which is about a seemingly obscure Indian war in California.

00:08.475 --> 00:10.095
It ended in 1873.

00:10.915 --> 00:14.015
And in the course of doing the research, I just, just kind

00:14.015 --> 00:18.055
of chanced upon the discovery that John Muir, the father,

00:18.345 --> 00:19.815
often referred to as the father

00:19.815 --> 00:21.335
of the American National Park system,

00:22.035 --> 00:25.455
had visited the Modoc war battlefield about a YA year

00:25.545 --> 00:27.335
after, the war was over.

00:27.435 --> 00:28.775
And that just intrigued me.

00:29.075 --> 00:31.775
And so I started digging into that little journey

00:32.195 --> 00:34.935
and read the newspaper articles he, he wrote coming out

00:34.935 --> 00:37.535
of it, which were remarkably disparaging

00:37.675 --> 00:38.815
of the Modoc people,

00:39.355 --> 00:40.615
and described them in terms

00:40.725 --> 00:43.095
that made them sound like demons and devils.

00:43.635 --> 00:47.655
And I really began to wonder whether that was his reactions

00:47.875 --> 00:51.415
to the specific battles and horrors of that particular war,

00:51.415 --> 00:54.335
or whether it represented a more general attitude

00:54.435 --> 00:56.975
of his towards America's indigenous people.

00:57.675 --> 01:00.335
And that's what led me to start doing the research

01:00.395 --> 01:01.935
and led ultimately to the book.

01:02.395 --> 01:04.175
It was relatively straightforward.

01:04.515 --> 01:08.335
Um, what I focused on primarily was John Muir's thinking

01:08.355 --> 01:09.415
his words and so forth.

01:09.875 --> 01:12.175
He was a relatively, he was a tortured

01:12.355 --> 01:13.935
but pro prolific writer.

01:14.595 --> 01:15.735
He put out a lot of books.

01:15.895 --> 01:18.215
I read all of his published work, arranged

01:18.215 --> 01:20.295
that within the narrative of his life.

01:20.835 --> 01:23.415
And then I began digging back into his journals

01:23.415 --> 01:26.175
and his correspondence, looking for the unpublished work

01:26.645 --> 01:29.895
that also reflected upon what he was thinking and doing.

01:30.515 --> 01:31.735
And then I put that all together.

01:31.975 --> 01:36.295
I I was very lucky in that there is a terrific,

01:36.965 --> 01:40.855
archive, online archive of John Muir's materials,

01:40.855 --> 01:43.295
particularly his correspondence, his journals

01:43.675 --> 01:44.895
and his, drawings.

01:44.895 --> 01:46.895
He was a very gifted, sketcher

01:47.465 --> 01:49.695
right over at the University of the Pacific, which is

01:50.435 --> 01:53.495
little over an hour from me in Stockton, California.

01:54.115 --> 01:56.295
And it is, much of it is available online.

01:56.755 --> 02:01.375
And so there was this essentially a research load

02:01.485 --> 02:03.615
that I was able to, to dig into.

02:04.445 --> 02:07.015
Well, he, he, he, he really, like I said, he's referred to

02:07.015 --> 02:09.335
as the father of the National Parks,

02:09.335 --> 02:10.975
which is a little overdone, but,

02:11.155 --> 02:12.615
but it's, it's kind of okay.

02:12.755 --> 02:16.015
He is, he came along at just the right time when there was

02:16.095 --> 02:19.415
a, a wellspring of interest in preserving wild America

02:19.415 --> 02:22.895
because it was being, increasingly,

02:24.095 --> 02:27.495
eroded by rising population, rising industry,

02:28.335 --> 02:29.975
a market hunting and so forth.

02:30.555 --> 02:33.775
And he helped to create that body of writing

02:33.845 --> 02:36.775
that really promoted what became the National Park system,

02:37.305 --> 02:40.815
which preserved many, many iconic American landscapes.

02:41.515 --> 02:44.735
And for example, there is this off repeated picture

02:44.735 --> 02:48.615
of him standing with Teddy Roosevelt on Glacier Point

02:48.635 --> 02:51.135
and Yosemite National Park, where

02:51.805 --> 02:55.535
Muir talked Roosevelt into putting Yosemite Valley

02:55.835 --> 02:58.695
inside Yosemite National Park, was a big coup

02:59.155 --> 03:01.045
that disturbed the state of California,

03:01.145 --> 03:03.205
but really helped protect that particular space.

03:03.705 --> 03:05.805
And he did that kind of thing over and over.

03:06.625 --> 03:10.365
And his, his writings too, gave Americans who didn't go

03:10.365 --> 03:12.645
to the National parks or climb mountains,

03:13.085 --> 03:15.445
a vi vicarious experience of what this was like.

03:16.625 --> 03:18.965
And so he really is a, he's sort

03:18.965 --> 03:20.525
of right near the spiritual heart

03:20.745 --> 03:22.325
of the American Conservation

03:22.325 --> 03:24.685
and preservation movement and remains there.

03:24.845 --> 03:27.005
I mean, you know, that's one of the, I mean, you know,

03:27.005 --> 03:29.165
John Muir helped found the Sierra Club

03:29.865 --> 03:31.965
and, his influence,

03:31.965 --> 03:34.125
therefore is his extremely wide,

03:34.595 --> 03:36.565
even in today's environmental movement,

03:37.105 --> 03:38.765
he worked extremely hard.

03:38.925 --> 03:41.645
I mean, he, he would write and rewrite and rewrite again,

03:41.645 --> 03:42.725
and then rewrite some more.

03:42.725 --> 03:45.445
And I mean, he was just an obsessive writer.

03:46.025 --> 03:49.445
Um, he was actually a remarkable man in terms of he had a,

03:49.765 --> 03:53.365
a deep-seated, essentially Calvinistic morality

03:53.395 --> 03:55.285
that he had inherited from his upbringing.

03:56.145 --> 03:58.765
And, that's really, there's nothing really

03:58.765 --> 04:01.845
to be said about any feelings on Muir's part.

04:01.905 --> 04:03.805
He was not a cynic, he was not a skeptic.

04:04.305 --> 04:05.805
He was not a nasty dude.

04:06.545 --> 04:10.965
Um, the problem he had was that he was,

04:11.985 --> 04:14.845
he sort of drew upon racial stereotypes of the time,

04:14.845 --> 04:16.005
racist stereotypes,

04:16.345 --> 04:19.045
and had a view that basically people of his kind

04:19.435 --> 04:22.645
that is Scot's, Anglo-Saxons, Germans, Norwegians,

04:22.865 --> 04:25.805
et cetera, were gen generally people who were,

04:25.995 --> 04:27.685
they were the ones who should be running things

04:27.785 --> 04:30.485
and everybody else should be taking orders from them.

04:31.465 --> 04:33.925
And this was particularly problematic when you get

04:33.925 --> 04:35.325
to the issue of the national parks,

04:35.515 --> 04:38.565
because all of them were once upon a time, tribal homelands,

04:38.795 --> 04:40.045
therefore, any, any,

04:40.145 --> 04:42.925
and additionally, he had this idea that nature

04:43.185 --> 04:45.165
and the human world are essentially separate.

04:45.225 --> 04:48.445
And if we're really gonna understand nature, that is Eden,

04:48.825 --> 04:50.765
the, the, state of creation

04:51.105 --> 04:52.845
before mankind got thrown out.

04:53.345 --> 04:55.605
You need to have these pristine landscapes

04:55.755 --> 04:57.325
that nobody lives in.

04:58.025 --> 05:02.685
So he had this kind of a notion of nature as sanctuary, not

05:02.685 --> 05:04.685
as home, not as sustaining environment.

05:05.265 --> 05:08.245
And unfortunately, that led to a lot of,

05:08.705 --> 05:12.045
or it contributed to the overall policy

05:12.145 --> 05:14.525
of the way national Parks ran,

05:14.525 --> 05:17.245
towards the indigenous peoples who had once lived there and,

05:17.305 --> 05:20.725
and taken their sustenance from those particular landscapes.

05:21.075 --> 05:23.805
He's not, I mean, he, he sta I think he stands out

05:23.805 --> 05:24.885
because of his influence.

05:25.835 --> 05:27.245
It's, it is that, I mean, the,

05:27.265 --> 05:30.485
the at this attitude toward native peoples was relatively

05:30.485 --> 05:32.725
common throughout the American group.

05:32.825 --> 05:35.685
And if you look at the times when he was really active,

05:35.745 --> 05:38.125
in the, he was, he was a wilderness influencer,

05:38.125 --> 05:41.325
essentially from 1890 up until right about the time

05:41.325 --> 05:42.605
of his death in 1914.

05:43.265 --> 05:47.405
And he really did draw upon the stereotypes towards Indians

05:47.405 --> 05:49.645
that were very much around at that time.

05:50.155 --> 05:52.245
That said, however, one should remember

05:52.245 --> 05:53.485
that there were Americans

05:53.485 --> 05:55.685
who had different attitudes towards Native people.

05:56.345 --> 05:58.285
Uh, he, two of them were actually his friends.

05:58.505 --> 06:01.765
One was a guy named Charles Lumi, who was a magazine editor

06:02.345 --> 06:05.085
who had lived with Pueblo people in New Mexico

06:05.255 --> 06:07.165
after he had a stroke at a very early age

06:07.435 --> 06:08.485
when he was recovering.

06:08.705 --> 06:10.525
And he absolutely admired their culture,

06:10.585 --> 06:12.925
and he brought them to Los Angeles where he ended up living

06:13.105 --> 06:15.205
and putting up fiesta with,

06:15.365 --> 06:17.765
with Pueblo people doing dances and so forth.

06:18.865 --> 06:21.885
And there another one was c heart Miriam,

06:22.185 --> 06:25.645
who was originally a physician who became a, a field

06:26.365 --> 06:30.285
zoologist and then became very interested in the, the,

06:30.285 --> 06:32.365
indigenous cultures of Native California,

06:32.985 --> 06:35.325
and spent the last 25, 30 years

06:35.325 --> 06:36.645
of his career researching them.

06:36.945 --> 06:39.325
And he had a very high opinion of

06:39.325 --> 06:41.085
who native people in this state were.

06:42.185 --> 06:43.565
And curiously, muran,

06:43.735 --> 06:47.205
those men's attitudes never wore off on Muir.

06:47.505 --> 06:51.245
He always maintained a sense of superiority and difference.

06:51.785 --> 06:55.285
He saw native people as distinctly other,

06:55.285 --> 06:57.565
and essentially alien from folks like him.

06:58.305 --> 07:01.725
And that's, that's not so much a personal feeling as

07:01.725 --> 07:05.885
that he was pulling from the sort of institutional

07:05.945 --> 07:08.485
and systemic attitudes towards Native people at that time,

07:09.765 --> 07:12.245
attitudes that really are only being eroded

07:12.245 --> 07:15.925
inside the United States within the past, you know, 20

07:16.025 --> 07:18.845
to 30 years and are starting to really rise at this point.

07:19.425 --> 07:21.485
It, it's interesting thing about nature is

07:21.485 --> 07:24.605
that he had this sense of nature as sanctuary that he wanted

07:24.605 --> 07:26.885
to be in it with, maybe with people like him

07:27.265 --> 07:28.525
who would achieve some kind

07:28.525 --> 07:31.205
of a spiritual enlightened within this sanctuary.

07:31.865 --> 07:34.365
And he often refers to nature as a cathedral,

07:34.785 --> 07:36.685
and something to important to remember is

07:36.685 --> 07:39.965
that you don't live in a cathedral, you go to worship there.

07:40.625 --> 07:42.205
And that was really his attitude.

07:42.345 --> 07:45.405
And unfortunately that works against those people,

07:45.845 --> 07:47.525
particularly the tribal people

07:47.625 --> 07:49.885
who were drawing their sustenance in their

07:49.885 --> 07:50.965
homelands from 'em.

07:51.185 --> 07:54.085
And he saw in the same way, unfortunately, he didn't have,

07:54.465 --> 07:57.445
didn't perceive well that the tribal people lived

07:57.445 --> 07:59.165
with a very small footprint.

07:59.835 --> 08:01.405
They didn't beat the place up.

08:01.875 --> 08:03.485
That was the tourists, you know,

08:03.945 --> 08:05.885
and who were people like him in a lot of ways.

08:06.505 --> 08:08.605
And he could not understand

08:08.705 --> 08:10.645
how you could live in a wilderness

08:11.065 --> 08:13.165
and also maintain its wilderness quality.

08:14.065 --> 08:15.325
And that led to something

08:15.325 --> 08:18.925
that is now called fortress conservation, which is in,

08:19.065 --> 08:21.525
or the Yosemite model very interestingly, which is

08:21.915 --> 08:25.805
that you draw a line around a wildlife sanctuary

08:26.105 --> 08:28.125
and then you kick all the indigenous people out,

08:28.225 --> 08:31.605
and then you put, essentially soldiers game wardens

08:31.605 --> 08:32.725
around it to keep them out.

08:33.565 --> 08:36.045
I remember seeing this exactly in Kenya,

08:36.185 --> 08:38.005
on the Masai Mara, it's a shame.

08:38.165 --> 08:39.965
I mean, because that, the curious thing is

08:39.965 --> 08:42.965
that there is an in good empirical evidence

08:43.515 --> 08:46.765
that when you let the tribal people stay, they know how

08:46.765 --> 08:50.325
to live there, and the wildlife actually flourishes much

08:50.325 --> 08:52.125
more than if you eliminate them.

08:52.705 --> 08:55.325
And so, but unfortunately Muir did not see that.

08:56.315 --> 08:59.005
Very few people, however, at that time, saw that

08:59.645 --> 09:01.725
somewhat mutes the criticism of on that basis.

09:02.225 --> 09:05.165
But unfortunately it created a, a paradigm

09:05.585 --> 09:08.605
of wild lands management that has continued to haunt,

09:09.225 --> 09:10.645
all kind.

09:10.765 --> 09:12.285
I mean, not just in the United States,

09:12.305 --> 09:14.245
but like I said, I've seen it in Africa.

09:14.665 --> 09:16.805
Oh, wow. He, there's a whole lot of things.

09:17.085 --> 09:18.765
I mean, I mean, there's, there's a way.

09:18.835 --> 09:20.645
He's a kind of secular saint

09:20.665 --> 09:22.325
of the wild in the United States,

09:22.985 --> 09:25.965
and I think he, he, he kind of earned that.

09:26.285 --> 09:30.485
I mean, there, his writing continues to be influential.

09:30.485 --> 09:31.605
People talk about him.

09:31.865 --> 09:35.645
He has this larger than life sort of stature.

09:35.925 --> 09:38.325
I mean, he's kind of like an iconic president in some

09:38.325 --> 09:40.685
respects, like Abraham Lincoln or Teddy Roosevelt.

09:40.845 --> 09:42.085
I mean, there's, they kind of rise

09:42.085 --> 09:44.405
above whatever they did in their own human failings.

09:44.405 --> 09:46.085
And, and that's a large part of his legacy.

09:46.185 --> 09:47.645
He also founded the Sierra Club.

09:48.385 --> 09:50.525
Um, I mean, it wasn't only his energy.

09:50.645 --> 09:52.285
There were some other people behind him

09:52.945 --> 09:56.725
who really did all the, the hard footwork to make it happen.

09:57.625 --> 10:01.805
But it created a, a really helped propel the,

10:01.805 --> 10:03.245
environmental movement in this country.

10:03.585 --> 10:06.045
And now I, it's in a very good place

10:06.045 --> 10:08.605
because it's being headed up by Ben Jealous, who used

10:08.605 --> 10:12.365
to be the head of the, naacp, the National Association

10:12.385 --> 10:13.765
of, of, colored people

10:14.225 --> 10:15.685
and for the advancement of colored people.

10:15.705 --> 10:18.485
So he was a, whereas Muir was trying to keep people out

10:18.485 --> 10:21.565
of the woods, Ben jealous in the Sierra Club are turning

10:21.565 --> 10:23.285
towards issues of environmental justice,

10:23.285 --> 10:25.805
which very much affect communities of color

10:26.305 --> 10:28.365
and seeing that there's a common ground

10:28.365 --> 10:30.165
between saving a wilderness

10:30.585 --> 10:32.765
and saving a community that's affected by say,

10:32.825 --> 10:33.885
oil refinery waste.

10:34.665 --> 10:37.245
And I think that's a really important widening.

10:37.705 --> 10:39.085
And to mirror's credit,

10:39.185 --> 10:41.125
he helped create this organizational frame

10:41.515 --> 10:42.965
that is now pushing that forward.

10:43.425 --> 10:45.965
The one thing is, I, I don't really want them thinking

10:45.965 --> 10:47.365
of mirror as a secular saint.

10:47.425 --> 10:50.085
The problem with saints is saints don't do anything wrong.

10:50.945 --> 10:54.125
And he did. I mean, it's just pure and simple.

10:54.545 --> 10:57.925
He, he did indeed draw on these racist stereotypes that,

10:57.925 --> 11:01.445
to the disadvantage of those particular peoples and casts.

11:02.105 --> 11:03.285
And that's unfortunate.

11:03.685 --> 11:05.245
I I really would hope that if,

11:05.345 --> 11:07.205
if they come away from this book with

11:07.615 --> 11:10.125
where I go towards the end of it, which is

11:10.355 --> 11:13.485
what does a more inclusive vision of the national parks

11:13.485 --> 11:15.085
and the national wildernesses look like?

11:15.865 --> 11:17.685
And the, the new paradigm for

11:17.685 --> 11:20.885
that is the Bears Ears National Monument in southeastern

11:21.155 --> 11:25.325
Utah, which is, was actually not only is it being now run

11:25.345 --> 11:28.845
by five tribes from Southeast Utah, it was their idea.

11:29.595 --> 11:32.605
They got p they did all the groundwork, which is huge

11:33.185 --> 11:37.405
to create a proposal that went to President Obama in 2016

11:37.545 --> 11:40.085
and led him to set up this national monument

11:40.135 --> 11:41.485
under the Antiquities Act.

11:41.825 --> 11:45.725
And now those five tribes called the Bears Ears Intertribal

11:45.725 --> 11:49.165
Coalition are actually participating in,

11:49.345 --> 11:50.685
on a co-management level

11:50.715 --> 11:52.965
with the federal government. That's

11:53.165 --> 11:55.005
A really cool paradigm.

11:55.505 --> 11:58.085
And it's, it's spreading remarkably rapidly.

11:58.135 --> 12:00.285
There are almost 200 sorts

12:00.285 --> 12:04.085
of these cooperative arrangements now between tribal peoples

12:04.185 --> 12:05.525
and federal land managers.

12:06.265 --> 12:07.565
And that's really good

12:07.565 --> 12:08.725
because that begins cre,

12:08.725 --> 12:12.725
whereas Muir saw an exclusive vision of the National Parks.

12:12.955 --> 12:14.445
This is taking the national parks

12:14.445 --> 12:17.485
and making them inclusive, looking at the wider America.

12:18.025 --> 12:20.525
And I hope people come away with, from my book

12:20.525 --> 12:22.525
with the sense of how necessary that is

12:22.745 --> 12:24.925
and how we are in fact heading in that direction.

"Exploring John Muir's Complex Legacy: From the Modoc War to National Parks"

00:00:00 - This book kind of came out in my prior book It was, which is called The Modoc War, which is about a seemingly obscure Indian war in California. It ended in 1873. And in the course of doing the research, I just, just kind of chanced upon the discovery that John Muir, the father, often referred to as the father of the American National Park system, had visited the Modoc war battlefield about a YA year after, the war was over. And that just intrigued me. And so I started digging into that little journey and read the newspaper articles he, he wrote coming out of it, which were remarkably disparaging of the Modoc people, and described them in terms
00:00:43 - And I really began to wonder whether that was his reactions to the specific battles and horrors of that particular war, or whether it represented a more general attitude of his towards America's indigenous people. And that's what led me to start doing the research and led ultimately to the book. It was relatively straightforward. what I focused on primarily was John Muir's thinking his words and so forth. He was a relatively, he was a tortured but pro prolific writer. He put out a lot of books. I read all of his published work, arranged that within the narrative of his life.
00:01:23 - and his correspondence, looking for the unpublished work that also reflected upon what he was thinking and doing. And then I put that all together. I I was very lucky in that there is a terrific, archive, online archive of John Muir's materials, particularly his correspondence, his journals and his, drawings. He was a very gifted, sketcher right over at the University of the Pacific, which is little over an hour from me in Stockton, California. And it is, much of it is available online. And so there was this essentially a research load
00:02:04 - Well, he, he, he, he really, like I said, he's referred to as the father of the National Parks, which is a little overdone, but, but it's, it's kind of okay. He is, he came along at just the right time when there was a, a wellspring of interest in preserving wild America because it was being, increasingly, eroded by rising population, rising industry, a market hunting and so forth. And he helped to create that body of writing that really promoted what became the National Park system, which preserved many, many iconic American landscapes.
00:02:44 - of him standing with Teddy Roosevelt on Glacier Point and Yosemite National Park, where Muir talked Roosevelt into putting Yosemite Valley inside Yosemite National Park, was a big coup that disturbed the state of California, but really helped protect that particular space. And he did that kind of thing over and over. And his, his writings too, gave Americans who didn't go to the National parks or climb mountains, a vi vicarious experience of what this was like. And so he really is a, he's sort of right near the spiritual heart of the American Conservation
00:03:24 - I mean, you know, that's one of the, I mean, you know, John Muir helped found the Sierra Club and, his influence, therefore is his extremely wide, even in today's environmental movement, he worked extremely hard. I mean, he, he would write and rewrite and rewrite again, and then rewrite some more. And I mean, he was just an obsessive writer. he was actually a remarkable man in terms of he had a, a deep-seated, essentially Calvinistic morality that he had inherited from his upbringing. And, that's really, there's nothing really to be said about any feelings on Muir's part. He was not a cynic, he was not a skeptic.

"John Muir's Racial Attitudes and Their Impact on Indigenous Peoples and National Parks"

00:04:06 - the problem he had was that he was, he sort of drew upon racial stereotypes of the time, racist stereotypes, and had a view that basically people of his kind that is Scot's, Anglo-Saxons, Germans, Norwegians, et cetera, were gen generally people who were, they were the ones who should be running things and everybody else should be taking orders from them. And this was particularly problematic when you get to the issue of the national parks, because all of them were once upon a time, tribal homelands, therefore, any, any, and additionally, he had this idea that nature and the human world are essentially separate.
00:04:48 - the, the, state of creation before mankind got thrown out. You need to have these pristine landscapes that nobody lives in. So he had this kind of a notion of nature as sanctuary, not as home, not as sustaining environment. And unfortunately, that led to a lot of, or it contributed to the overall policy of the way national Parks ran, towards the indigenous peoples who had once lived there and, and taken their sustenance from those particular landscapes. He's not, I mean, he, he sta I think he stands out because of his influence.
00:05:27 - the at this attitude toward native peoples was relatively common throughout the American group. And if you look at the times when he was really active, in the, he was, he was a wilderness influencer, essentially from 1890 up until right about the time of his death in 1914. And he really did draw upon the stereotypes towards Indians that were very much around at that time. That said, however, one should remember that there were Americans who had different attitudes towards Native people. he, two of them were actually his friends. One was a guy named Charles Lumi, who was a magazine editor who had lived with Pueblo people in New Mexico after he had a stroke at a very early age
00:06:08 - And he absolutely admired their culture, and he brought them to Los Angeles where he ended up living and putting up fiesta with, with Pueblo people doing dances and so forth. And there another one was c heart Miriam, who was originally a physician who became a, a field zoologist and then became very interested in the, the, indigenous cultures of Native California, and spent the last 25, 30 years of his career researching them. And he had a very high opinion of who native people in this state were. And curiously, muran, those men's attitudes never wore off on Muir.
00:06:51 - He saw native people as distinctly other, and essentially alien from folks like him. And that's, that's not so much a personal feeling as that he was pulling from the sort of institutional and systemic attitudes towards Native people at that time, attitudes that really are only being eroded inside the United States within the past, you know, 20 to 30 years and are starting to really rise at this point. It, it's interesting thing about nature is that he had this sense of nature as sanctuary that he wanted to be in it with, maybe with people like him who would achieve some kind
00:07:31 - And he often refers to nature as a cathedral, and something to important to remember is that you don't live in a cathedral, you go to worship there. And that was really his attitude. And unfortunately that works against those people, particularly the tribal people who were drawing their sustenance in their homelands from 'em. And he saw in the same way, unfortunately, he didn't have, didn't perceive well that the tribal people lived with a very small footprint. They didn't beat the place up. That was the tourists, you know, and who were people like him in a lot of ways. And he could not understand

"Reevaluating Conservation: From Fortress Mentality to Inclusive Management"

00:08:11 - and also maintain its wilderness quality. And that led to something that is now called fortress conservation, which is in, or the Yosemite model very interestingly, which is that you draw a line around a wildlife sanctuary and then you kick all the indigenous people out, and then you put, essentially soldiers game wardens around it to keep them out. I remember seeing this exactly in Kenya, on the Masai Mara, it's a shame. I mean, because that, the curious thing is that there is an in good empirical evidence that when you let the tribal people stay, they know how to live there, and the wildlife actually flourishes much
00:08:52 - And so, but unfortunately Muir did not see that. Very few people, however, at that time, saw that somewhat mutes the criticism of on that basis. But unfortunately it created a, a paradigm of wild lands management that has continued to haunt, all kind. I mean, not just in the United States, but like I said, I've seen it in Africa. wow. He, there's a whole lot of things. I mean, I mean, there's, there's a way. He's a kind of secular saint of the wild in the United States, and I think he, he, he kind of earned that. I mean, there, his writing continues to be influential.
00:09:31 - He has this larger than life sort of stature. I mean, he's kind of like an iconic president in some respects, like Abraham Lincoln or Teddy Roosevelt. I mean, there's, they kind of rise above whatever they did in their own human failings. And, and that's a large part of his legacy. He also founded the Sierra Club. I mean, it wasn't only his energy. There were some other people behind him who really did all the, the hard footwork to make it happen. But it created a, a really helped propel the, environmental movement in this country. And now I, it's in a very good place because it's being headed up by Ben Jealous, who used to be the head of the, naacp, the National Association
00:10:14 - and for the advancement of colored people. So he was a, whereas Muir was trying to keep people out of the woods, Ben jealous in the Sierra Club are turning towards issues of environmental justice, which very much affect communities of color and seeing that there's a common ground between saving a wilderness and saving a community that's affected by say, oil refinery waste. And I think that's a really important widening. And to mirror's credit, he helped create this organizational frame that is now pushing that forward. The one thing is, I, I don't really want them thinking of mirror as a secular saint. The problem with saints is saints don't do anything wrong. And he did. I mean, it's just pure and simple.
00:10:57 - to the disadvantage of those particular peoples and casts. And that's unfortunate. I I really would hope that if, if they come away from this book with where I go towards the end of it, which is what does a more inclusive vision of the national parks and the national wildernesses look like? And the, the new paradigm for that is the Bears Ears National Monument in southeastern Utah, which is, was actually not only is it being now run by five tribes from Southeast Utah, it was their idea. They got p they did all the groundwork, which is huge to create a proposal that went to President Obama in 2016
00:11:40 - under the Antiquities Act. And now those five tribes called the Bears Ears Intertribal Coalition are actually participating in, on a co-management level with the federal government. That's A really cool paradigm. And it's, it's spreading remarkably rapidly. There are almost 200 sorts of these cooperative arrangements now between tribal peoples and federal land managers. And that's really good because that begins cre, whereas Muir saw an exclusive vision of the National Parks. This is taking the national parks and making them inclusive, looking at the wider America.