Letters

Editor,

I want to thank Rod Miller for taking the time to identify a number of errors in my book, The Bear River Massacre and the Making of History (SUNY Press, 2004; reviewed in your Spring 2006 issue).I take full responsibility for these errors, and apologize to my readers. Should the book be reprinted, I will be sure to recheck carefully—and credit you and Mr. Miller in the preface. Most of the errors Mr. Miller notes are relatively minor—misnaming Joseph Smith III as Joseph Smith, Jr., for instance; but some errors might, as Mr. Miller suggests, prove misleading and confusing (e.g., incorrectly locating the Haun’s Mill Massacre, overestimating LDS worldwide church membership, etc.).There exist one or two more serious errors, regarding which I need to spend some time ascertaining where I went wrong.

All of the errors Mr. Miller takes care to note in his review are to be found in the first quarter (82 pages) of my book—in that portion comprised of my attempt to condense into a relatively few pages a vastly complicated history. I am not an historian, as I indicate in the work, and in pulling from countless sources to assemble this condensed history, I could have benefited from the expertise of a professional historian, yes; one versed in particular with the places and histories I survey. But herein begins my difficulty with Mr. Miller. As I write in my preface, “I assume the presence of error in this document.” This is no excuse, and was never intended to be; but in saying so, the preface illuminates the book’s real aim, which is an analysis of how history is made. So when Mr. Miller indicates that the “remaining 240 pages of narrative are likewise liberally seasoned with errors of fact,” I would venture that the incidence of error in those pages will prove much rarer ,as my aim there is not historical, but rather (in Part II) journalistic and (in Part III) analytical—speculative, even.

Here’s a (rhetorical) question: were I to correct every error that Mr. Miller helpfully pinpoints, would this alter the gist of my larger argument about historiography? The problem here is that Mr. Miller, like a number of other reviewers, fails to grasp the issue that occupies three-quarters of my book: why is the Bear River Massacre not commonly known, and might its neglect have something to do with the mass rape that (as I argue) almost surely ensued, and which is likewise dismissed even by some of those most familiar with the massacre? For Mr. Miller and others, my attempts to shed light on the reasons why we have erased this pivotal event are “overshadowed” by my “disjointed explorations of the rape of Shoshone women by soldiers.” In fact, this very issue—that of the rape itself being “overshadowed” by the massacre, of women’s history being “overshadowed” by historical inquiry that neglects women’s issues—is at the core of my book. The only means by which we may unwrap the clouds of mystification, as I suggest, is by having a close look at our narrators-authors, in my case a white woman, and having a close look at (therefore) the involvement of white women in native issues generally. The book pursues the cultural repercussions white women have had historically —repercussions that persist right into the present moment, as the journalistic section of my book demonstrates.

There is, further, a venerable social history at stake in the last third of the book, beginning with a recitation of Susan Brownmiller’s landmark insights into militaristic rape (I call it genocidal rape),and extending most recently to the discussion of anti-rape activism provided by Maria Bevacqua. One can refuse to acknowledge the legitimacy of this latter—make no mention of it, silence it, in the way that rape itself is often silenced—but doing so would constitute less a “sinister conspiracy” than a cultural and social condition, a condition that has led some reviewers to assess my work along the lines that Mr. Miller offers: “as obsessed with that single aspect of the many atrocities committed at the winter camp on Beaver Creek.”

I could just as easily accuse Mr. Miller of being “obsessed” with whether it’s Donner Hill or Donner Mountain (thank you, Mr. Miller; I will change it)—and ask Mr. Miller why he can’t tolerate a bit of obsession about our cultural erasure of both the massacre and the rape. My purpose has been to identify conditions of historiography that might allow us to move, constructively, toward some greater sense of collective (collegial? certainly cultural) awareness. I am forced to note that while some aspects of history remain curiously stable (hill…mountain…),our use of such stagnant facts can often be, as I say in the book, an excuse to bludgeon a more speculative messenger, a messenger willing to ask more than she answers. Speaking now as a creative writer, I confess that what I demand from history and historians is a broader range of stylistic approaches, of challenges to their narrative conventions and mythologies—particularly objectivity, linguistic transparency, and authoritative, expertise-driven narrator-authors. These approaches will require, of course, words like gender and (hang onto your hats!) feminism

And too,that other f-word: forest.As in: forest.Trees. Etc.

To be clear:I come not to dismiss the sort of careful scrutiny Mr.Miller has provided.I come only to ask that he not dismiss mine.Meanwhile,as I cannot emphasize enough,he has my gratitude for engaging in the sort of dialogue my book calls for when it says that history can never be stable;that we must work together toward a comprehensive understanding,one sensitive to how our own historical moment is inevitably a part of the pasts we relate.And so history,if you will,will find that gratitude officially recorded in any future editions.

With apologies again,

Kass Fleisher Normal,Illinois