# Shouldn't History be paired with Literature, rather than Government? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 31, 2019, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shouldnt-history-be-paired-with-literature-rather-than-government/837936 "2019-07-31T17:23:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2019, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shouldnt-history-be-paired-with-literature-rather-than-government/837936/21 "2019-07-31T22:11:06Z")
> [@King\_of\_the\_Americas](#): > > Re-creating lists isn’t history… What do you think history IS ? Might as well start there. > [@](#): > > Why not task us with researching the individuals, their families, look into MORE than inventories…locate the house, look for the context to tell us more than speculation. Well, I ain’t your former teacher so I can’t speak to their pedagogical plan, but most likely : because that’s all there _is_. That’s literally the only proof we have that Joe Dirt, died 1732, existed : a list of what shit he had, to be divided among his next of kin. If you’re _very_ lucky you can maybe match it with a DOB or baptismal record. But more likely, nobody knows who the fuck that was. Nor where his house was (it very, very, VERY likely isn’t there anymore, at best you could maybe find signs that earth was moved, post holes, filled foundations… that’s of course if you even knew where to look in the first place). We were already lucky enough to find his executor’s records. > [@](#): > > I spent over 40 hours just re-typing this stuff to add a column for the room. Yup. And that’s what historian work is : collating lists, and inventories, and edicts and charters ; trying to find something interesting to say about them. Poring over blindingly boring data, trying to find patterns worth talking about. You have to understand, I wasn’t being merely facetious about the “complete history” stuff. Even for something as thoroughly investigated, thoroughly documented as WW2 there are innumerable shadows and doubts and inaccuracies and plain “we don’t know, we can’t tell”. I’ll even give you an example : the famous Assault on Brécourt Manor. It’s a small engagement of D-Day that got ultra famous because it was Dick Winters’ first real command, and he did brilliantly, and to this day it’s pored over in most every military academy as “successful assault tactics 101”. Today even civilians kind of know about it thanks to _Band of Brothers_. And, again, it’s thoroughly documented : we know exactly how many Americans were there, from which company, we know their names, some of them are even still alive to talk about it. But to my knowledge, there is not a single German account of that battle. Not a report, not a witness, not a survivor. We don’t know why they did the shit they did. We don’t really know who was there, who commanded them, I’m not even sure we’re 100% on which unit(s) were guarding them 88s at that time on that day. And again, this is WW2 - a war with a paper trail a mile long, with survivors still out there to talk about it, with personal journals not molded away, with fucking _photos_. How accurately do you think we can talk about Napoleon’s wars, comparatively ? > [@](#): > > It wasn’t investigative enough for me… Again, I come for Criminal Justice & Legal Studies. History by and large isn’t. You’d have been better served doing archaeo - which is more “hands on”. Despite how intuitive it feels, historians and archaeologists have only very recently started talking with each other and collating notes. Crazy, I know - but the disciplines come from very different backgrounds, have very different aims and methods. > [@](#): > > History should be a search for what’s missing, not acceptance of a Government issued History book. Sure - and there are plenty of grad students and budding PhDs out there trying to amass Data or tasked with sorting through it. But what isn’t there… just isn’t there, you know ? And so we try to find ways to bring light into those shadows, through various means. In many, many cases, we can only bring sensible speculation and extrapolations to the table. That being said, and judging by what I think is what you’d wanna read about, I can only suggest you look into microhistory. The seminal work there is Ginsburg’s _The Cheese and the Worms_ - interesting read, if a bit repetitive. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2019, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shouldnt-history-be-paired-with-literature-rather-than-government/837936/22 "2019-07-31T22:51:08Z")
> [@King\_of\_the\_Americas](#): > > TWU, graduated with my B.S. about 3 years ago. > > Ever seen this? > > ["Tribe over Truth" - Imgur](https://imgur.com/gallery/ZdAatPO) > > It proves that Amerindians both owned land and subsidized the continent. > > My thesis advisor tossed it back, told me it was unacceptable. I applied to Tulsa University, which has an Amerindian Program. They told me not just “No, but don’t bother re-applying.” > > If you can find me a history program willing to call Thomas Jefferson a liar and a thief, point me to it. That image dates from 1846, so it says nothing about pre-Columbian America. If you are calling that proof of anything, I can understand why a master’s program might think twice about taking you on. ---
**Author:** ![King\_of\_the\_Americas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3da27b/32.png) [@King\_of\_the\_Americas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/King_of_the_Americas)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2019, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shouldnt-history-be-paired-with-literature-rather-than-government/837936/23 "2019-07-31T23:16:55Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > That image dates from 1846, so it says nothing about pre-Columbian America. If you are calling that proof of anything, I can understand why a master’s program might think twice about taking you on. The proof is that the borders existed BEFORE the Survey… ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2019, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shouldnt-history-be-paired-with-literature-rather-than-government/837936/24 "2019-07-31T23:47:25Z")
> [@King\_of\_the\_Americas](#): > > The proof is that the borders existed BEFORE the Survey… What proof is that? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2019, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shouldnt-history-be-paired-with-literature-rather-than-government/837936/25 "2019-08-01T03:19:43Z")
> [@King\_of\_the\_Americas](#): > > The proof is that the borders existed BEFORE the Survey… Huh? The document talks about Indian Territory, which probably refers to the territories established by the Indian Intercourse Act of 1834. Those were the creations of the U.S. government, areas to which Indians were forced to go and forced to adopt mainstream, i.e., white, customs. Such areas are the exact opposite of what conditions might theoretically have been like before the U.S. existed, much less before Columbus. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2019, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shouldnt-history-be-paired-with-literature-rather-than-government/837936/26 "2019-08-01T03:25:17Z")
Is the OP perhaps thinking that because the 1846 surveyor’s affidavit form he linked to refers to the “Indian Meridian”, that that somehow proves that the Indians had already surveyed the region? The linked image is followed by this remark from the poster: > [@](#): > > The operational phrase therein is “Indian Meridian”…the western territories weren’t settled, or tamed. THEY were stolen. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2019, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shouldnt-history-be-paired-with-literature-rather-than-government/837936/27 "2019-08-01T03:32:33Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > That image dates from 1846 Actually, [now that I look at it more closely](https://imgur.com/gallery/ZdAatPO), it doesn’t. It’s a surveyor’s affidavit form printed for the years 189x, as can be seen on the subscription line ending “189” and followed by a dotted line for writing in the last digit of the year number. The **text** of the form refers to an “Act of Congress” **passed** in 1846, which is what momentarily confused both of us, and appears to have confused the OP even more. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2019, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shouldnt-history-be-paired-with-literature-rather-than-government/837936/28 "2019-08-01T03:34:22Z")
> [@King\_of\_the\_Americas](#): > > Re-creating lists isn’t history… Why not task us with researching the individuals, their families, look into MORE than inventories…locate the house, look for the context to tell us more than speculation. > > I spent over 40 hours just re-typing this stuff to add a column for the room. > > It wasn’t investigative enough for me… Again, I come for Criminal Justice & Legal Studies. > > History should be a search for what’s missing, not acceptance of a Government issued History book. You were a student. This is the kind of boring project professors assign to their students. If you had been in some science or engineering field, they’d have had you spending hundreds of hours performing a long series of repetitive experiments and recording the results. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2019, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shouldnt-history-be-paired-with-literature-rather-than-government/837936/29 "2019-08-01T05:05:14Z")
The [Indian meridian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_meridian) was established in 1870 and was chosen arbitrarily. Your picture shows a form letter pulled verbatim from the [Manual of Surveying Instructions for the Survey of the Public Lands of the United States and Private Land Claims,](https://books.google.com/books?id=_Qq4AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA46&dq=%22as+are+represented+in+the+foregoing+field+notes+as+having+been%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj60PLn8uDjAhUOI6wKHSIIDlkQ6AEIMDAB#v=onepage&q=%22as%20are%20represented%20in%20the%20foregoing%20field%20notes%20as%20having%20been%22&f=false) written in 1890. I have no idea what you think you proved. ---
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2019, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shouldnt-history-be-paired-with-literature-rather-than-government/837936/30 "2019-08-01T05:34:44Z")
I do think I can see why you were not admitted to that graduate program. Have you considered that history is not just one thing? Military history, for example, is different than examinations of the life of peasants after the Black Death. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2019, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shouldnt-history-be-paired-with-literature-rather-than-government/837936/31 "2019-08-01T06:11:42Z")
> [@King\_of\_the\_Americas](#): > > Re-creating lists isn’t history… Why not task us with researching the individuals, their families, look into MORE than inventories…locate the house, look for the context to tell us more than speculation. I think you may be confusing history and archaeology. ---
**Author:** ![King\_of\_the\_Americas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3da27b/32.png) [@King\_of\_the\_Americas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/King_of_the_Americas)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2019, 9:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shouldnt-history-be-paired-with-literature-rather-than-government/837936/32 "2019-08-01T09:47:55Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Huh? The document talks about Indian Territory, which probably refers to the territories established by the Indian Intercourse Act of 1834. Those were the creations of the U.S. government, areas to which Indians were forced to go and forced to adopt mainstream, i.e., white, customs. Such areas are the exact opposite of what conditions might theoretically have been like before the U.S. existed, much less before Columbus. Nah. Rectangles were created by Amerindians. The Rectangle Survey System, cut them into square townships. Here’s a set I have spent extensive time studying. [![Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/Fr1gxXh.jpeg "Grid Garden") ](https://imgur.com/gallery/Fr1gxXh) ---
**Author:** ![King\_of\_the\_Americas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3da27b/32.png) [@King\_of\_the\_Americas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/King_of_the_Americas)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2019, 9:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shouldnt-history-be-paired-with-literature-rather-than-government/837936/33 "2019-08-01T09:55:19Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Is the OP perhaps thinking that because the 1846 surveyor’s affidavit form he linked to refers to the “Indian Meridian”, that that somehow proves that the Indians had already surveyed the region? > > The linked image is followed by this remark from the poster: Not exactly. Indian Meridians are actual lines, “meander lines” that surveyors followed to find and destroy markers, and re-create new ones. You can use Google Earth to see their existence in uninhabited places. Examine Long Island, and look at the area in-between the eastern barrier reef and the island itself…rectangles, everywhere. The surveyed notes were just my primary source data. I used Google Earth to make the discovery. ---
**Author:** ![King\_of\_the\_Americas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3da27b/32.png) [@King\_of\_the\_Americas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/King_of_the_Americas)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2019, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shouldnt-history-be-paired-with-literature-rather-than-government/837936/34 "2019-08-01T10:12:45Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Actually, [now that I look at it more closely](https://imgur.com/gallery/ZdAatPO), it doesn’t. It’s a surveyor’s affidavit form printed for the years 189x, as can be seen on the subscription line ending “189” and followed by a dotted line for writing in the last digit of the year number. > > The **text** of the form refers to an “Act of Congress” **passed** in 1846, which is what momentarily confused both of us, and appears to have confused the OP even more. Ummm, No. The only confusion here is yours. This was my MA thesis, I’ve spent over two years researching this topic, and I can confidently state unequivocally - “Amerindians both owned land, and had subdivided the entire continent before Europeans arrived.” ---
**Author:** ![King\_of\_the\_Americas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3da27b/32.png) [@King\_of\_the\_Americas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/King_of_the_Americas)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2019, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shouldnt-history-be-paired-with-literature-rather-than-government/837936/35 "2019-08-01T10:18:17Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > I think you may be confusing history and archaeology. Oh, I definitely did that! I had no idea that History only begins with written/primary sourced data. Anything before this is of course Archaeology. So you can literally make it impossible to study someone’s history, by burning it. Poof, they never existed. I found these land divisions using Google Earth, but I managed to turn it into history when I found the original surveys. Let me find my presentation… ---
**Author:** ![King\_of\_the\_Americas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3da27b/32.png) [@King\_of\_the\_Americas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/King_of_the_Americas)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2019, 10:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shouldnt-history-be-paired-with-literature-rather-than-government/837936/36 "2019-08-01T10:21:51Z")
> [@Sunny\_Daze](#): > > I do think I can see why you were not admitted to that graduate program. > > Have you considered that history is not just one thing? Military history, for example, is different than examinations of the life of peasants after the Black Death. Was it my 3.82 undergrad gpa, or my 4.0 graduate gpa? History is a “pursuit” not static acceptance. It is a constant search for what’s missing, more context to what is already known. One “does” History, not just by reading but by deciphering what really happened through the bias of the story teller. You learn History by looking for it. ---
**Author:** ![King\_of\_the\_Americas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3da27b/32.png) [@King\_of\_the\_Americas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/King_of_the_Americas)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2019, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shouldnt-history-be-paired-with-literature-rather-than-government/837936/37 "2019-08-01T10:28:20Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > You were a student. This is the kind of boring project professors assign to their students. > > If you had been in some science or engineering field, they’d have had you spending hundreds of hours performing a long series of repetitive experiments and recording the results. Re-creating documents to add another field is Media Production, not History. I didn’t learn any History performing this busywork. It was a pointless exercise to talk about furniture, rather than talk about the economic turmoil the Earthquake of 1751 caused. Imagine an event that causes the Mississippi River to run backwards and relocate 100 miles. The devastation would have re-made this world! Not a single mention of it in any of my Colonial studies… ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2019, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shouldnt-history-be-paired-with-literature-rather-than-government/837936/38 "2019-08-01T10:28:35Z")
I’m sorry, are you saying the pre-Columbian natives subdivided\* Great South Bay\* along ownership lines? ---
**Author:** ![King\_of\_the\_Americas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3da27b/32.png) [@King\_of\_the\_Americas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/King_of_the_Americas)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2019, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shouldnt-history-be-paired-with-literature-rather-than-government/837936/39 "2019-08-01T10:30:36Z")
Does this link work- [Rectangles by A.J. Knabe](https://prezi.com/qza1jbt9xzdj/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy) This was part of an oral presentation, so I was speaking as I flipped through the slides. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2019, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shouldnt-history-be-paired-with-literature-rather-than-government/837936/40 "2019-08-01T10:30:45Z")
> [@King\_of\_the\_Americas](#): > > I had no idea that History only begins with written/primary sourced data. Anything before this is of course Archaeology. There is no “before” and “after” - plenty of archaeology gets done on literate societies. It’s a case of only mildly-overlapping magisteria. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shouldnt-history-be-paired-with-literature-rather-than-government/837936.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shouldnt-history-be-paired-with-literature-rather-than-government/837936.md?page=3)