Upon Writing History

Just Thinkin’

“History is written by the winners.” When I first heard this concept, I rejected it. I was more comfortable with the notion of historical truth. Now I believe the truth is that history is tinted by the writer.

I recall reading a required English History textbook. I discovered there was a difference in the way we had recorded the events of 1776 and the fashion English historians had recorded those same events. At first blush, I didn’t care much for the English version.

Over the years, I enjoyed pointing out that I learned about our Civil War from an American History text with a chapter titled, The War for Southern Independence. I have wondered how it affected my prospective. I also wondered what textbook was used in the Boston schools. I believed my story was as good as it got when it came to chapters on our Civil War. I believed that right up until I shared my story with Dr. Ed Cadenhead at the University of Tulsa. Dr. Cadenhead saw my chapter and raised me one. His introductory chapter to the Civil War was titled The War of Northern Aggression.

There is little more jaded and shaded than our frontier history. Since boyhood I have enjoyed westerns. Books, movies, television series – anything western.

A fight at Adobe Walls, Texas has long interested me. Legendary western figures. Bat Masterson, Billy Dixon and Quanah Parker, played vital roles. About 10 years ago, I wrote historical novel, Who Be Dragons, about Adobe Walls. Adobe Walls was just a zit on the dusty flat prairie of the Texas Panhandle northeast of Amarillo. Only after intense research did I ask, “Why this town even exist?”

Today no roads lead there. In June of 1874, nestled near the Canadian River, it was at an intersection in the hiway of commerce in the budging trade in buffalo hides.

Buffalo hides. Unlike the beaver pelts of a century earlier, the demand for buffalo hide was artificial. Unable to defeat the plains Indians within an acceptable time frame, the battle-weary US Military implemented a policy designed to starve the plains tribes into submission.

It was a simple idea. The buffalo provided for virtually every need of the Plains Indians. Eradicate the buffalo and you eradicate the Indians.

At first, hunters had to haul their hides into Santa Fe or Abilene. In an effort to keep the hunters hunting, trading towns like Adobe Walls brought hide buyers closer to the hunters. Time the hunter’s spent traveling was time they couldn’t be hunting. They could come to hastily constructed places like Adobe Walls, sell their hides, replenish their supplies, drink their fill of liquor and then return to killing buffalo. A good business model indeed.

Now, I sit on my porch and watch my coke fizz. I hope in Who Be Dragons I did everyone justice. The fizz answered, “You can hope.” God can not alter the past, though historians can. – Samuel Butler.

Hal McBride writes a column, Just Thinkin’, published each week.