A Brief History of the American West

I can't write about Lake Tahoe's history without a better understanding of the entire American West. With so many layers and players to choose from, of course I'm starting with language...

As I write my historical novel about logging in Tahoe in 1860, I’ve been reading a lot about the American West, logging, mining, and various Indigenous Nations. With so many players vying for power, land rights and status, it’s hard to know where to start. So of course, I’m starting by dissecting language and how certain words have strategically misinformed my understanding of history.

The Troubling Language of Imperialism

Westward expansion, capitalism and industrialization are often celebrated as achievements. That celebration inherently dismisses entire communities of people, plants and animals who have lived and thrived in the American West for thousands of years.

Infesting today’s history books are words like acquired, unoccupied, wild, territories, discovery, explorer, settlers, homesteaders and others, all laced with Euro-American presumptions.

My goal to write a fuller, more complete history about Lake Tahoe in novel form means I’m having to unlearn, then relearn more accurately, how to interpret and talk about what happened to the people and this land, which starts with questioning the use of the English language itself.

“Acquiring Land” from “Unoccupied Territories”

Well into the 1800s, European countries were still jostling for power throughout North America by acquiring, selling and battling over land. Dozens of land swaps occurred in the American West without the knowledge or consent of the Indigenous Peoples, plants or animals who were living there. Just take a look at the names of colonial powers on this map of the 1800s:

Colonial governments deeded land to military captains, soldiers, friends of officials. Men in unrelated places pointed to maps and said, “Here friend, have this land here.” And they called it acquisition.

For too long, I accepted these words without scrutiny, never stopping to ask how or why governments had so much land to give away in the first place. In order to write my novel, I’m having to re-learn how to interpret my own place in the American West. How and why have I been so lucky to grow up here?

Before my ancestors arrived, someone was already living here. Someone still has traditional rights to this land.

Calling Known Killers “Revered Explorers”

For centuries, explorers like Lewis & Clark, John Fremont and Kit Carson were commissioned by the U.S. government to travel into Indigenous Peoples’ territories and map geographical areas and resources. Despite killing thousands of Indigenous people who obviously lived there, they labeled land as “unoccupied territories,” stirring up feelings of a specific kind of patriotism that strategically advanced their own political and military gains.

Men like John Fremont and Kit Carson, whose names still honor peaks, towns, and Nevada’s state capital (Carson City), were explorers, tresspassers and murderers turned politicians, celebrated for their conquering of the west. They were, and still are, considered patriots to many because they helped open up the American West. But only to other men like them.

The Homestead Act Favored a Select Few

For centuries, early squatters (a word more apt than settlers) traveled into Indigenous territories, threatened and killed inhabitants, built cabins, then refused to leave. When the term Manifest Destiny was coined in 1845, the name gave justification to self-proclaimed rights that every Euro-American man believed he deserved: a new beginning, more freedom, free land for the taking.

One year deep into the Civil War, President Lincoln made westward migration legal with the Homestead Act of 1862. Within 30 years, over 48 million acres of undeveloped land was granted to American citizens who agreed to farm and improve it for at least 5 years. Every head of family (ahem, men only), who was a citizen and had never borne arms against the government, was given 160 acres.

This language is so strategic and so limiting that it still has a trickling affect today. For example, some of my ancestors would have qualified. Some of yours did not:

1. Not everyone was allowed to be a citizen

The Homestead Act intentionally excluded many people of color, especially African Americans who were enslaved or previously enslaved. Indigenous Peoples were not considered citizens of the United States. Women were not allowed to own land, which meant they relied on their husband’s status of citizenry. Basically, the Homestead Act was designed to uplift Euro-American men of the North only.

2. You Cannot Have Borne Arms Against the Government

Anyone who had borne arms against the Union were excluded from getting 160 acres of free land. Thus excluding Confederate soldiers, criminals, some Mormons, those who fought with foreign powers, and most members of Indigenous Nations. This was no accident. Again, this language choice encouraged a select few to prosper with free land grants, while excluding thousands of others.

3. “Undeveloped” or “Unoccupied” Presumes There’s a Right and Wrong Way to Live on Land

The phrases “undeveloped land” or “unoccupied land” are hugely problematic because they presume that only farmed land is productive land. This presumes that to improve land means building a permanent house, establishing a farm, fencing in cattle. Land across the American West was critical to thousands of migratory animals, plants, people and communities. But these traditional ways of living and relationships did not look Euro-American enough, so they were discredited and destroyed.

4. The American West Was Stolen

For a long time, I heard this phrase and felt prickles of discomfort down my spine. I grew up in the American West, my family has lived there for multiple generations. We own land, have benefited greatly from owning that land, and also work hard to keep it. That reality can be true as well as this fact: the U.S. Government had no legal or traditional rights to give away land. Illegal squatters had no inherent right to build homes and fences. They first had to acquire it, which means they likely stole it from those already living here.

Words Do Matter

I grew up romanticizing the Wild West, reading adventure novels like The Call of the Wild, Huck Finn, and Tarzan. Men setting out into the unknown with little more than a hunting rifle and canteen. I still love these novels, but now realize how brash and righteous such men must be. To conquer peaks and name them after you and your friends. To presume that no name previously existed, that no other societies (whether plant, animal or human) were already established there. Such novels have been further erasing Indigenous cultures and have stunted my understanding of the American West.

I refused to write another exclusionary novel.

So I’m Choosing Better Words

When I talk about the American West, I make a conscious effort to choose words that question, not perpetuate, the history I’ve learned of America’s past. For example:

• Instead of saying discovered, I say gold and silver were uncovered because it’s unknown and unlikely that two German brothers in 1857 were the first humans to ever realize gold and silver existed near Virginia City. They were just the first people who put intense value on it.

• I pause at the phrase acquired land, because more likely it was forcibly stolen and strategically redistributed to a select few.

• The west was not wild. Nature is a place celebrated and understood by some through generations of traditional knowledge. What seems wild to you is likely understood by someone else. Go seek those people instead of presuming the wild must be conquered.

• Words like gather or wander imply there was no rhyme or reason to Indignous People’s historical activities on the land. Instead, I use descriptive words like harvest, cultivate, manage, which better captures generations of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK).

Finally, Some Book Recommendations

I have researched and read so many books in order to feel confident while writing my own historical novel about the American West. I’m sometimes crippled by the inaccuracies of my pre-existing understanding. But here are two books I believe every American should read:

1. An Indigenous People’s History of the United States

Though difficult and heartbreaking, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz relays the distressing truth about how 15 million Indigenous People who once lived in the modern-day United States have been reduced to 3 million today. And why the conditions in which they’ve had to resist centuries of systematic genocide and invasions by the U.S. Army, illegal squatters, and self-righteous vigilantees have resulted in broken systems and relationships, but not a broken will to continue resisting.

This book tells a history my school books never touched. Maybe because it’s ugly and honest. But these things happened. We all should reevaluate what lense we’ve interpreted America’s history through. This book can help.

2. Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America

I wanted to learn more about generational wealth and amassed white prosperity when I found Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America by Ijeoma Oluo. In it she discusses the modern day results of early federal policies (like the Homestead Act) that promoted success and generational wealth for some (white male America) while systematically creating hurdles and purposeful barriers for others (women, people of color).

This book pinpoints which early government policies still have lingering affects like

• Why my student loan rates were akin to predatory lending

• Why we don’t have universal health care

• Why America’s dedication to capitalism is crippling our chance for equality…

The title may be intense, but the content is invaluable. I highly recommend reading it.

(Note these are affiliate links via my Bookshop.)

Conclusion

For most of my life, I’ve shied from conflict, sitting quietly in my privileged life and considering myself and my voice too small to be any trouble.

The problem is, I can’t write my novel in good conscious without confronting the reality of my world, of Lake Tahoe’s history, the history of white privilege, America and the American West.

Writing this novel has changed how I see everything, and its a shame our history books insist on painting a more pallitable, passive, Euro-American-centric version. Luckily there are books by women and people of color like Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and Ijeoma Oluo who are speaking with big voices. And they are helping me learn to speak with a bigger voice too.

As always, thanks for reading. If you have any book recommendations, please share them with me in the comments! And hit that like button so I know you’re out there.