{"id":106969,"date":"2025-02-24T11:09:30","date_gmt":"2025-02-24T11:09:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/american-history\/americanstudies-february-24-2025-alaskastudying-sewards-folly\/"},"modified":"2025-02-24T11:09:30","modified_gmt":"2025-02-24T11:09:30","slug":"americanstudies-february-24-2025-alaskastudying-sewards-folly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=106969","title":{"rendered":"AmericanStudies: February 24, 2025: AlaskaStudying: Seward\u2019s Folly"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

[100
\nyears ago this week<\/a>, Calvin Coolidge designated Alaska\u2019s Glacier Bay a
\nNational Monument<\/a>. So this week I\u2019ll AmericanStudy that beautiful spot and
\nother Alaskan places, people, and stories!]<\/p>\n

A few
\nexamples of why it\u2019s not at all foolish to consider the specifics of how, when,
\nand why America\u2019s territory expanded.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let me get
\nthis out of the way at the start: despite having had the singular dishonor of
\nvaulting <\/span>Sarah
\nPalin<\/span><\/a>, and her <\/span>erroneous
\nand destructive visions of American identity and history<\/span><\/a>, onto the
\nnational stage, Alaska is a very welcome part of our 21st<\/sup> century
\nAmerican community. Everything I wrote about <\/span>Sitka in
\nthis post on complex and instructive American places<\/span><\/a> is
\nequally true of the state overall; it opens up landscapes, histories, and
\ncommunities without which we\u2019d be a less rich and diverse nation. Yet we can\u2019t
\nfully appreciate much of what Alaska brings and means if we don\u2019t better
\nunderstand the contexts of its addition to our nation: the <\/span>complex
\nhistory of Russian imperialism in the region<\/span><\/a>; the <\/span>pre-Civil War arguments over
\ninternational expansion that led to the first consideration of buying Alaska,
\nunder the Buchanan Administration<\/span><\/a>; and the very divided
\nReconstruction-era moment and Johnson Administration during which <\/span>Seward finally
\ngained approval for that purchase in 1867<\/span><\/a> (and received the funds in 1868), and
\nwhich produced the very <\/span>vocal and
\nfamous critiques of the acquisition<\/span><\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

At least
\nas complex, and far more explicitly dark and tragic, is the history surrounding
\nthe American \u201cacquisition\u201d of Hawai\u2019i a few decades later. My January 25th<\/sup>
\nMemory Day nominee, Charles Reed Bishop [NOTE: I\u2019ve since changed that
\nnomination for these reasons], illustrates some of the powerful and inspiring
\nsides to American connections to Hawai\u2019i in the mid-19th<\/sup> century;
\nyet at the same time, <\/span>Bishop\u2019s
\nstruggles to hold onto his late wife\u2019s ancestral lands (on which they had
\nstarted their school)<\/span><\/a> in the face of pressures from subsequent
\nsettlers and big business to acquire that land exemplify the kinds of forces
\nthat <\/span>led
\ndirectly to America\u2019s annexation of Hawai\u2019i<\/span><\/a>. There are few historical figures
\nwhose stories reflect more poorly on the US\u2019s actions than <\/span>Queen
\nLiliuokalani<\/span><\/a> (although she has plenty of competition, of course), and we can\u2019t
\npossibly understand the place\u2019s history or meaning outside of a much fuller
\ninclusion of her in our national histories and narratives. Such an inclusion
\nwouldn\u2019t make it impossible to appreciate the state\u2019s natural beauties, nor its
\n<\/span>most famous contribution to 21st<\/sup>
\ncentury America<\/span><\/a>\u2014but it would force us to recognize at which price those beauties,
\nand the resources they include, were bought, and what that reveals about late
\n19th<\/sup> century American imperialisms.<\/span><\/p>\n

If
\nHawai\u2019i\u2019s history is one of the nation\u2019s most dramatic and tragic, the evolving
\nstory of Maine would seem to be one of the quietest and most diplomatic.
\nAlthough the area had been part of the United States (and specifically of
\nMassachusetts) <\/span>since the
\nRevolution, and had gained its own statehood in 1820<\/span><\/a>, it had
\nthroughout those years served as a flashpoint for continuing conflicts between
\nthe US and England. <\/span>Those
\nconflicts turned into the so-called \u201cAroostook War\u201d (or Pork and Beans War) of
\n1839<\/span><\/a>, a bloodless struggle over the state\u2019s borders and resources that
\nwas resolved through diplomacy three years later with the <\/span>Webster-Ashburton
\nTreaty<\/span><\/a>. Besides revealing how tense relations between the US and its
\nformer mother country remained throughout the first half of the 19th<\/sup>
\ncentury, that Treaty also illustrates some of the many other issues to which
\nthat relationship connected\u2014besides settling the Maine\/New Brunswick border,
\nthe treaty also stipulated the creation of a joint American and British naval
\nforce for the sole purpose of patrolling the African coast and \u201csuppressing the
\nSlave Trade,\u201d enforcing <\/span>laws that
\nhad been on the books<\/span><\/a> in both nations for decades but which clearly
\nremained an issue. Engaging with the history of Maine, then, allows us to
\nbetter understand multiple complex and crucial, Early Republic international
\ninfluences and relationships.<\/span><\/p>\n

Next
\nAlaskaStudying tomorrow,<\/span><\/p>\n

Ben<\/span><\/p>\n

PS. What
\ndo you think? Alaska contexts you\u2019d share?<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[100 years ago this week, Calvin Coolidge designated Alaska\u2019s Glacier Bay a National Monument. So this week I\u2019ll AmericanStudy that beautiful spot and other Alaskan places, people, and stories!] A few examples of why it\u2019s not at all foolish to consider the specifics of how, when, and why America\u2019s territory expanded. Let me get this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12032],"tags":[48745,13299,3843,29831,48746],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-106969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-history","tag-alaskastudying","tag-americanstudies","tag-february","tag-folly","tag-sewards"],"yoast_head":"\nAmericanStudies: February 24, 2025: AlaskaStudying: Seward\u2019s Folly - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=106969\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"AmericanStudies: February 24, 2025: AlaskaStudying: Seward\u2019s Folly - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[100 years ago this week, Calvin Coolidge designated Alaska\u2019s Glacier Bay a National Monument. 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