Thoughts on Keeping a Journal--- Favorite Journal Entries
Other Journal Keepers--- Journalscape scan--- More
Read/Post Comments (0)
Bear Flag Revolt
A morning of drippy, drizzily rain...
I am reading a history book titled Bear Flag Rising, The Conquest of California, 1846, by Dale E. Walker. I have had it on my book shelf for a year or more. How silly that I buy books I know I need to read and then do not read them. I have another hundred or so in the same condition of neglect. I picked this book, as I recall, to better understand the finer details of the Bear Flag Revolt, which occurred in various places in California. Primarily the revolt occurred between Monterey, Sacamento at Sutter's Fort, and Sonoma, with action also taking place in the countryside between these places.
My ancestors, including my gggg grandfather, T.J.S., and my uncle J.H., and another uncle, G.D., were all part of the revolt, and played multiple parts in it at different junctures in the flow of events. No mention, of course, is found in Walker's book, so I must go through it with yellow sticky notes and flag for myself (and for posterity, perhaps), just where my family was involved. So far I have read one hundred pages of the book, and have fifteen or twenty stick notes that I use to add my own commentary to Walker's account.
I don't condemn Walker for his treatment of the minor characters, as their contributions to the history of the west becoming part of the USA are generally treated as mere footnotes in the larger, well-known accounts of western history, such as that written by Hubert Bancroft. I suppose then it is up to me and whoever else might be interested, to find the thread of my family's history running through the larger, more general fabric. I had to first learn the names of these people, my ancestors, because they were completely unknown to me until only a few years ago. That knowledge came through the efforts of my cousin, N.H., in Portland, Oregon, who had contacted our family while doing his genealogical research.
When we learned of this rich family heritage we were so surprised. My parents had died and most of the relatives that might possibly have had any notion of the history were either also dead, forgotten, or estranged from our consciousness. It was my sister and I who then began this journey of finding more of the details and in the process finding more of our own identity. Our identity as individuals on the earth comes to us from our history, from our past, and not from our unguaranteed future. Our identity in the cosmic scheme of things, of course, comes to us from who we are under our skin, and was given to us as a gift on the day we were born--the same day we became human individuals and began to forget about our divine source.
I have physically been to almost if not all of the places Walker mentions in his account of the revolt, so none of that is new to me. I live within one or two hundred miles of most of the places he mentions. What became new to me was that my family had played a key part in the events. Now my interest in the events has been heightened. We were lost and now are found. I enter the stream of history in some new-fangled way that I never dreamed of before. If as a kid going to school my history teacher had been able to point to events and time lines in our lessons and tell me how I was a part of that, I would have been a much more eager student.
I almost feel like a California vaquero when trying to lasso these loose bits of information--people, places, and times--and build a context in which to discuss them further. In my mind, I have the story, and can walk the journey with my ancestors in a vicarious fashion. The details, the precious details, are not quite there, and uncovering those details is my part of the journey, my journey as a stumbling, amateur historian.
Following is a map of the old west that Walker had put near the front of his book. I'm thinking frontispiece might be the appropriate term here. The landscape had not been well defined yet when the events of the Bear Flag Revolt occurred, which I believe is the point that Walker is making in introducing this map. I see an irony in looking at a modern map of this same region of the world, now fully studded with towns, cities, road systems, and large blotches of color-coding to indicate parks, reserves and metropolitan areas, but virtually nothing at all about the men who began the process of making the map what it is today. Where once there were men and biographies developing on a blank canvas, we now have a fully painted canvas with our ancestors blanked out.
I wonder, as an observer of this overall flow of history, a dweller on the land with a few memories of my personal past still fresh in my own mind, just what it is we are missing when we forget where we came from? I see an old farm house knocked down in a day that had stood for a hundred and fifty years or so, and wonder what else disappeared that day besides the old and rotting lumber? I suppose it is the community's consciousness of that small piece of history that disappears. I then wonder if recalling the history, preserving it, restoring it, is of much value either? The preservation is done by a specialized few who hold some piece of the past dear in their hearts and find some resources--time or money--to manage to keep it alive, to freeze the thing in time--when all around us everything else is subject to willy-nilly change. I have considered these things when working on this journal, and wanted this journal to become sort of an interactive force when uncovering and interpreting the family history, if that is at all possible. Thus I grabbed at the idea of adding videos, maps, my excursions to historical place, both near and far, to make my telling of the history more relevant to me, and perhaps give others an inspiration to create a journal of their search for their personal histories.
My journey in this area of embracing the family history has been manifold, including obtaining an understanding of the genealogy, reading the books from libraries and those I have purchased so that I may underline, spending hours looking at resources available on the internet, making a journey when possible to visit the geography associated with the history, and recording as much of this overall experience as possible, in the form of lists, maps, photographs, book reviews, contact with historical societies, emails, and making it all part of my journal.
I am reading a history book titled Bear Flag Rising, The Conquest of California, 1846, by Dale E. Walker. I have had it on my book shelf for a year or more. How silly that I buy books I know I need to read and then do not read them. I have another hundred or so in the same condition of neglect. I picked this book, as I recall, to better understand the finer details of the Bear Flag Revolt, which occurred in various places in California. Primarily the revolt occurred between Monterey, Sacamento at Sutter's Fort, and Sonoma, with action also taking place in the countryside between these places.
My ancestors, including my gggg grandfather, T.J.S., and my uncle J.H., and another uncle, G.D., were all part of the revolt, and played multiple parts in it at different junctures in the flow of events. No mention, of course, is found in Walker's book, so I must go through it with yellow sticky notes and flag for myself (and for posterity, perhaps), just where my family was involved. So far I have read one hundred pages of the book, and have fifteen or twenty stick notes that I use to add my own commentary to Walker's account.
I don't condemn Walker for his treatment of the minor characters, as their contributions to the history of the west becoming part of the USA are generally treated as mere footnotes in the larger, well-known accounts of western history, such as that written by Hubert Bancroft. I suppose then it is up to me and whoever else might be interested, to find the thread of my family's history running through the larger, more general fabric. I had to first learn the names of these people, my ancestors, because they were completely unknown to me until only a few years ago. That knowledge came through the efforts of my cousin, N.H., in Portland, Oregon, who had contacted our family while doing his genealogical research.
When we learned of this rich family heritage we were so surprised. My parents had died and most of the relatives that might possibly have had any notion of the history were either also dead, forgotten, or estranged from our consciousness. It was my sister and I who then began this journey of finding more of the details and in the process finding more of our own identity. Our identity as individuals on the earth comes to us from our history, from our past, and not from our unguaranteed future. Our identity in the cosmic scheme of things, of course, comes to us from who we are under our skin, and was given to us as a gift on the day we were born--the same day we became human individuals and began to forget about our divine source.
I have physically been to almost if not all of the places Walker mentions in his account of the revolt, so none of that is new to me. I live within one or two hundred miles of most of the places he mentions. What became new to me was that my family had played a key part in the events. Now my interest in the events has been heightened. We were lost and now are found. I enter the stream of history in some new-fangled way that I never dreamed of before. If as a kid going to school my history teacher had been able to point to events and time lines in our lessons and tell me how I was a part of that, I would have been a much more eager student.
I almost feel like a California vaquero when trying to lasso these loose bits of information--people, places, and times--and build a context in which to discuss them further. In my mind, I have the story, and can walk the journey with my ancestors in a vicarious fashion. The details, the precious details, are not quite there, and uncovering those details is my part of the journey, my journey as a stumbling, amateur historian.
Following is a map of the old west that Walker had put near the front of his book. I'm thinking frontispiece might be the appropriate term here. The landscape had not been well defined yet when the events of the Bear Flag Revolt occurred, which I believe is the point that Walker is making in introducing this map. I see an irony in looking at a modern map of this same region of the world, now fully studded with towns, cities, road systems, and large blotches of color-coding to indicate parks, reserves and metropolitan areas, but virtually nothing at all about the men who began the process of making the map what it is today. Where once there were men and biographies developing on a blank canvas, we now have a fully painted canvas with our ancestors blanked out.
I wonder, as an observer of this overall flow of history, a dweller on the land with a few memories of my personal past still fresh in my own mind, just what it is we are missing when we forget where we came from? I see an old farm house knocked down in a day that had stood for a hundred and fifty years or so, and wonder what else disappeared that day besides the old and rotting lumber? I suppose it is the community's consciousness of that small piece of history that disappears. I then wonder if recalling the history, preserving it, restoring it, is of much value either? The preservation is done by a specialized few who hold some piece of the past dear in their hearts and find some resources--time or money--to manage to keep it alive, to freeze the thing in time--when all around us everything else is subject to willy-nilly change. I have considered these things when working on this journal, and wanted this journal to become sort of an interactive force when uncovering and interpreting the family history, if that is at all possible. Thus I grabbed at the idea of adding videos, maps, my excursions to historical place, both near and far, to make my telling of the history more relevant to me, and perhaps give others an inspiration to create a journal of their search for their personal histories.
My journey in this area of embracing the family history has been manifold, including obtaining an understanding of the genealogy, reading the books from libraries and those I have purchased so that I may underline, spending hours looking at resources available on the internet, making a journey when possible to visit the geography associated with the history, and recording as much of this overall experience as possible, in the form of lists, maps, photographs, book reviews, contact with historical societies, emails, and making it all part of my journal.
Read/Post Comments (0)
Previous Entry :: Next Entry
Back to Top
