Let’s provide context, not remove statues

My friend and colleague UAA professor Steve Langdon argued that the William Henry Seward statues in Juneau and Anchorage should be removed to museums because they represent the colonialism and imperialism which Seward, and other advocates of American exceptionalism, believed in, captured in the phrase “manifest destiny.” That term was interpreted to mean the expansion of American culture, Anglo-Saxon culture, over all of the land in North America, or as much of it as possible. That expansion meant, mostly implicitly but sometimes articulated and acted upon, the elimination of the Indigenous people of the continent, i.e., their deaths and that all of their progeny that might have been born.

It was my privilege to speak at the dedication of both of Alaska’s Seward statues; I wrote the text that appears on the pedestal of the statue donated by Andy Muldoon, which stands at the Loussac Library in Anchorage.

American exceptionalism, the notion that American culture and government are superior because of the doctrines of universal equality and individual freedom, has always contained a kernel of white supremacy. Before the development of the policy of assimilation, which was intended to provide an alternative to extinction for Native Americans, apologists for manifest destiny, as professor Langdon noted, accepted the notion that the continent must be cleared of its original people.

But there are neglected aspects of professor Langdon’s argument which deserve attention. While holding to American exceptionalism, both John Quincy Adams, whom professor Langdon cited as a foremost proponent of manifest destiny, and Seward, made salient, honorable contributions to the formation of American culture and life. Both Adams and Seward were lifelong anti-slavery advocates. Serving in the House of Representatives for 17 years after his presidency, Adams fought the gag rule, which unconstitutionally prohibited anti-slavery petitions from being debated, and ultimately secured its repeal. In the nullification crisis in 1832, he faced down slavery apologist John C. Calhoun, whose “concurrent majority” theory, allowing states to “nullify” any federal law they didn’t like, would have emaciated federal authority. Seward and his wife housed escaping slaves in their New York home. In 1850, in his maiden speech as a U.S. senator, Seward asserted that there is a law higher than the U.S. Constitution, a moral law, which commands the equality of all people. His counsel to Lincoln helped win the war and preserve the union.

Professor Langdon would condemn these men for their one failing, in their advocacy of manifest destiny, their implicit endorsement of the genocide of Indigenous Americans. This is a judgment every thinking Alaskan must weigh.

In his novel “Go-Between,” the author L.P. Hartley writes that “the past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” Both Adams and Seward were creatures of their culture, informed by its mores and assumptions, and unexceptional in their view of manifest destiny. It is extremely difficult to put our minds into a different culture where the assumptions and mores are alien to us. This is as true of the past as it is of the present. It is not essentially different to condemn figures in the past who believed differently from us now than it is to condemn people in a current culture foreign to us simply because they think and act differently than we do. Franz Boas, credited with introducing the theory of cultural relativism, the notion that all people have equally developed though different cultures, did not teach and write until the end of the nineteenth century. Margaret Mead did not publish her pathbreaking work on cultural relativism until 1928. For Adams and Seward, there was only one right way to be.

Professor Langdon recommends placing Alaska’s Seward statues in museums, with explanatory text on their histories. While reasonable, there are flaws with this idea. Generally, despite the fine work done at the Alaska State Museum and the Anchorage Museum to bring people to their facilities, museum-goers tend to be elites, or at least fairly well educated, and overwhelmingly non-minority. In an ordinary trip through a museum, the average view-time at an exhibit is one to two minutes. It is unlikely that the complexity of lives such as Adams’ and Seward’s can be grasped in that time. And the nature of the exhibit depends on how it is curated.

Professor Langdon recommends alternative statues: Cmdr. Lester Beardslee, William Paul, Bob Bartlett and “Muktuk” Marston, as examples. I, for one, applaud the notion of such statues. But they raise the question of whether the only history on public display as statues should be sanitized history — and sanitized by whose standard? Should not the general citizenry, especially our children, be confronted with history, life, in its messy complexity, in its reality?

While appreciating professor Langdon’s analysis, for the reasons stated I support the view of Aaron Leggett, president and chairman of the Native Village of Eklutna and member of the board of directors of the Alaska Historical Society, who has recommended not removal of the Captain Cook statue in Anchorage, but that it be turned around, and that explanatory text be added at the site to provide context, and to acknowledge and celebrate the Dena’ina people of this place. I would extend that recommendation, with appropriate text and displays, to the Seward statues in Juneau and Anchorage.

History, because it is the search for the meaning of past human thought and action, is complex, often contradictory and inconclusive. So were John Quincy Adams and William Seward, and so are we all.

Steve Haycox is a professor emeritus of history at the University of Alaska Anchorage.

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