Unsettling Mormonism
an archive of unsettling histories, mythistories, and mystories
from U.S. & Mormon settler colonialism, white supremacy, and imperialism
from U.S. & Mormon settler colonialism, white supremacy, and imperialism
(acKNOWLEDGEment - learned most of this in Kirsten Buick’s “American Landscape” course at UNM) >Addresses U.S. anti-Indigeneity< Columbus’s invasion of this land is often depicted in State art as a “discovering” of a cowering “Indian” woman. Sometimes she is even named “America” in these works. The “Indian” and the woman are stand-ins for land, it’s supposed wildness and fertility. This statue depicts Christopher Columbus holding a globe aloft as a cowering “Indian maiden” looks on. Columbus’s triumphant pose alongside the “Indian’s” recoil is symbolic of supposed white-superiority over the “Indians” and their land, so-called “America” The artist of this one wrote that it was meant to “commemorate the dangers and difficulty of peopling our continent” and “to convey the idea of the triumph of whites over the savage tribes.” The Rescue and Discovery of America together helped the settler imagination rationalize Andrew Jackson’s “Indian Removal” policy. This painting is described in the U.S. Capitol’s website: “In the foreground, a fallen tree and spiky, bread-leafed plants suggest that a new and unknown world begins only a few paces from the explorers’ feet. At the right edge, the natives blend into the forest of tall deciduous trees.” Again collapsing “Indians” and the land, depicting them as fallen. The Myth of the Disappearing Indian. Here Pocahontas is depicted glowing in white robes, cowering/kneeling below the white-settler-man-Priest. Through her baptism Pocahontas is, as a symbol of the land, turned white–civilized, tamed, Christianized, assimilated. To the right side, in front of a group of “Indian” men, an “Indian” woman in “Indian” clothes looks on, kneeling, holding a baby. They are all in the dark. Pocahontas and the Priest are in the light/right. This piece is described in the U.S. Capitol’s website: “The first panel contains the only allegorical figures in the frieze. America...stands in the center with her spear and shield. To her right sits an Indian maiden with a bow and arrow, representing the untamed American continent. Also at America’s feet is a female figure representing history…” Here the “Indian maiden” as “America” is replaced by the white woman "America.” The settler is now native. This piece is described in the U.S. Capitol’s website: “The center figure is America [depicted as a white woman in Romanesque robes]... On the right, a woodsman, hunter, Indian chief, Indian mother and child, and Indian grave represent the early days of America. On the left, the diversity of human endeavor is suggested by the soldier (imperialism), the merchant (capitalism), the two youths (settler-futurity), the schoolmaster and child (pre-education camps), and the mechanic (Industrialization).” White-supremacist myths of US innocence are set in stone in our US Capitol and across this land, literally using stolen land (extractive-capitalism) to reify/immortalize myths that erase the ongoing history of Indigenous erasure in the service of this “One Nation Under (a Christian) God.” The U.S. cannot celebrate Indigenous heritage until it reckons with its own ongoing genocidal heritage swaddled myths of settler innocence.
For more on these monuments to white power visit: aoc.gov/explore-capitol-campus/art.
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AuthorI am nicholas b jacobsen, an artist, researcher, historian, educator, and organizer. I am a trans-non binary Euro-settler raised in the Nuwu lands of so-called Utah. My family has been Mormon and Utahn for as long as either of those concepts have existed. My ancestors sacrificed everything--their identities, homelands, jobs, health, & safety to become Mormon, Utahn, U.S. American, & white--to settler their Zion. They also sacrificed their humanities as they committed genocide against Kuttuhsippeh (Goshute), Timpanogos Shoshone, Shoshone-Bannock, Eastern Shoshone, Ute, Nuwu (Southern Paiute), and Diné (Navajo). Because my ancestors made my home through Indigenous genocide in their home/lands––I take it as my personal responsibility to unsettle what my ancestors settled, while helping my fellow settlers do the same through reading, writing, art, and community building. Archives
June 2023
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