Live Music Archive
Librivox Free Audio
Metropolitan Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Internet Arcade
Console Living Room
Open Library
American Libraries
TV News
Understanding 9/11tv American Frontier Book Collection CSPAN February 5, 2017 11:44am-11:56am EST
11:44 am
conscience, more people would have voted against the war. thank you. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> interested in american history tv? visit our website, c-span.org /history. to market artifacts, road to the white house rewind, lectures and history, and more at c-span.org/history. >> all weekend long, american history tv is featuring fresno, california. in spanish, fresno means ash tree, the city got his name from early spanish explorers due to the abundant asked trees -- ash trees in the area. learn more about fresno all
11:45 am
weekend on american history tv. mr. ebert: when i was a kid, the was consigned to the children's section in the basement. and the only nonfiction 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 american west, 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
11:46 am
landscape, the culture, the history, the really deep history. the history that involves so many different groups that it was quite different from what hollywood presented all of these years. they were not only native americans and anglo-americans, but i learned that there were asian-americans, african-american, hispanic americans, and 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.
11:47 am
we forget that african-americans were in the west. they were brought to the west as slaves, first in texas, and to the indian territory. but the five civilized tribes, when they left the southeast and were 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 african-americans left the south to form communities in the west. they are referred to as xo exo dusters 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.
11:48 am
if you watch the cowboy movies or if you watch the cowboy programs, 100%, almost 100% of the cowboys are anglos. in fact, over 30% of the cowboys in the west were either african-american, hispanic american, and even native american. and east of 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. but there were black cowboys, and this book covers that time and when you see many of these
11:49 am
cowboys, they look just like, dressed like, worked like, did everything their white counterparts did. not only were they cowboys, they were marshals and lawmen. for example, this is a biography of a very famous martial in the indian territory under the famous judge parker in fort smith, arkansas, and bass is certainly noted as an outstanding lawmen of his time. he was tough. vast it not worry about sparing himself in catching outlaws, and 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
11:50 am
thought it was very important to buy material on native americans, special material. -- especially material culture. this book of narratives, you can see the art of the native peoples. this is 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 period, if native americans were to find a notebook or something
11:51 am
they could write on, they would do ledger arts. and for much of native american history we have this art in our accounts or in these notebooks. for example in the battle of little bighorn, we have quite a few ledger notebooks that 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 horses, but they decorated them.
11:52 am
you can find more traditional horse masks for the native american period before the reservation. 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 indian silver. this is just an example of the various types 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
11:53 am
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 beginning it is more multicultural and all of these dimensions. and that is an important thing for americans to realize. and everybody, african-americans, native americans, they all contributed to the history of the west and helped shape the west. >> this weekend, we are featuring the history of fresno, california, together with our comcast cable partners. learn more about fresno and other stops on our cities tour
11:54 am
at c-span.org/citiestour. you're watching american history tv. all weekend, every weekend on c-span 3. >> today, in depth will feature a live discussion with author and political commentator nick adams. tweets,king your calls, emails, facebook comments. despite all the problems america may have right now, this is still by far and away the greatest country in the history of the world. >> made out of the some -- nick adams is the author of several books, including "retaking america," mr. adams is the founder and director of director -- director of an organization promoting american exceptionalism and combating anti-americanism worldwide.
11:55 am
live from noon to three clock p.m. eastern today on book tv on c-span2. >> you're watching american history tv. 48 hours of american history programming every weekend on c-span3. follow us on twitter for information on our schedule and to keep up with the latest history news. >> on lectures in history, james madison university professor evan friss teaches a class about the evolution of the suburbs from the early 1900s until the present. he talks about how changes to home loan policy come of houses, and the rise of automobiles helped great an alternative to urban living. his class is about an hour. mr. friss: today we are talking about the suburbs. how many of you grew up in the suburbs? almost all of you.
56 Views
IN COLLECTIONS
CSPAN3
Television Archive 
Television Archive News Search Service 
Uploaded by TV Archive on
