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Understanding 9/11tv American Frontier Book Collection CSPAN February 4, 2017 3:38pm-3:48pm EST
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history tv? visit our website, www.c-span.org/history. can sera coming schedule or watch a program. rode to the white house, lectures and history, and more at www.c-span.org/history. long, american history tv is joining our comcast cable is to showcase the history of fresno, california. to learn more about the cities on our current tour, visit www.c-span.org/citiestour. we continue now with our look at the history of fresno. mr. ebert: when i was a kid, the only books they had were books on the american west. since i have always been a nonfiction person, i got, i read everything i could there on the
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primarily the native americans. over the years, the 1950's when i was growing up, was a time when you had all of the movies at the theater, most of them were cowboy movies and cowboy programs were on tv. so, when i was a kid, you were sort of saturated with the american west. and i just fell in love with it. and then in 1993, i began traveling through the west and i just fell in love with it. i quickly became, came to understand that there was much more to the west than cowboy and indian fights. it's just the artistry of the landscape, the culture, the history, the really deep history. it involves so many different quite that it was different from what hollywood presented all of these years.
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were asian-americans, african-american, hispanic the west was far more diverse in many ways then some of the places east of the mississippi river. first, i'm going to talk about the books i purchased on african-americans in the west, and then i'm going to talk about the hispanic west, and finally talk about some of the books on native american culture. we forget that african-americans were in the west. they were brought to the west as slaves, first in texas, and to territory. they moved to oklahoma, took their slaves with them. so, african-americans have always been in the west. they didn't just show up suddenly. after the civil war more
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african-americans left the south to form communities in the west. they are referred to as xo exo bustersexodus -- from exodus, the book in the bible. recently i bought a book from the university press. this is from one of the many all black communities that were formed as they tried to find a new life of freedom and a place in the american west. the cowboy movies or if you watch the cowboy almost 100% of the cowboys are anglos. fact, over 30% of the cowboys in the west were either
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african-american, hispanic american, and even native american. fresno, east of the adjoining community of clovis, they hired many native americans . so, this is something that you don't see in the cowboy movies. cowboys, were black that timeook covers and when you see many of these just like,ey look dressed like, worked like, did everything their white counterparts did. cowboys, theythey were marshals and lawmen. for example, this is a biography
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martial in thes indian territory under the famous judge parker in fort isth, arkansas, and bass certainly noted as an outstanding lawmen of his time. he was tough. about sparingrry outlaws, andtching he caught many an outlaw that was brought to justice. and then we talk about native americans. even though i brought this material on the indian wars, i thought it was very important to buy material on native americans, special material.
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this book of narratives, you can see the art of the native peoples. basically them sketching in notebooks or pieces of paper they would find. they were describing, because they did not have a written language, they were actually describing battle scenes. i mean, there were these set symbols for what actually was going on. even before the reservation peri od, if native americans were to find a notebook or something they could write on, they would do ledger arts. and for much of native american art in ourhave this accounts or in these notebooks. for example in the battle of
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little bighorn, we have quite a thatedger notebooks described the battle and what happened after the battle. these are two of my favorite books on native american culture . this book is titled "american indian horse mask." and you can see the very decorative masks that they put on the horses. not only did they paint their decorated them. you can find more traditional horse masks for the native americans. they specifically painted each other's horses. this book, the last thing i am going to show you called bridles of the americas, in this covers
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indian silver. this is just an example of the of native american silver that was used. and the native americans had quite extensive trade routes between each other. they were thousands of miles inland, so there was an extensive trade route for the native americans, which again, we sort of dismissed because we sort of reduced native americans to warring indians, which unfortunately, was not always the case. but the history of the east tends to be more white, more anger, more protestant in its initial story. the history of the west is more reflective because from the
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beginning it is more multicultural and all of these dimensions. and that is an important thing for americans to realize. everybody, african-americans, native americans, they all contributed to the history of the west and helped shape the west. we are weekend, featuring the history of fresno, california, together with our comcast cable partners. learn more about fresno and other stops on our cities tour at www.c-span.org/citiestour. historyatching c-span --you're watching american history tv. all weekend, every weekend on c-span 3. you're watching american history tv, 48 hours of american history programming every weekend on c-span3. follow us on
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