The Smithsonian Tells The Truth.You Got A Problem With That?

The U.S. Mint has released a new gold dollar depicting an Oneida Nation woman by the name of Polly Cooper handing stalks of corn to George Washington.

Polly Cooper? Never heard of her?

I hadn’t either until I encountered a bronze statue of her during a visit to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC. Here’s her story.

In 1778, with the outcome of our war for independence in precarious balance,  George Washington and much of his army were wintered, and near starvation, at Valley Forge. Hearing of their plight, Oneida Nation Chief Shenendoah dispatched dozens of his warriors with hundreds of bushels of corn to trek through the snow from central New York to Washington’s camp in Pennsylvania. 

 Polly Cooper, an Oneida woman who came with the relief party, remained in the camp to show the troops how to prepare the corn in traditional ways, cook for them, help them find medicinal herbs, and nurse the sick and wounded. She refused any compensation.

The Oneida Story Is America’s Story

After the war, a grateful President George Washington signed a treaty with the Oneidas, explicitly stating that the U.S. acknowledged Oneida lands, and would "never claim the same, nor disturb them," and guaranteed their "free use and enjoyment" until the tribe chose to sell them to the federal government.

Almost immediately, the State of New York began pressuring Oneida leadership into illegal, state-level land deals, which the new federal government did nothing to prevent. Part of the Oneida Nation was ultimately moved by federal authorities to Wisconsin. By 1920, the traditional Oneida 6-million-acre homeland in New York was down to 32 acres.

After considerable litigation, the Oneida has won the right to buy back its ancestral treaty lands and place them back into federal trust protection.

The Oneida story is one capsulized version of the story of America. Exploitation of indigenous people, slaves and immigrants in the centuries’ long project of building our current dominant nation. We’re coming to terms with that history now by recognizing the human costs and in some instances compensating for past wrongs.

The Smithsonian Institution includes that story in its various museums. It’s why in recent decades the National Museum of the American Indian and the National Museum of African American History and Culture have taken their place with others on Washington DC.’s National Mall.

Why the Smithsonian Matters

My wife and I have been visiting these museums recently. At the Indian museum you see a large bronze statue of Polly Cooper and the telling of the Oneida story on the same floor as an exhibit that takes a deep dive into the wider history of the nation’s shameful broken treaties with most of the continent’s Indian nations. Move to other floors and you will see endless works of arts and crafts from those same indigenous peoples, proud of their American heritage, along with heroic tales of how native Americans have fought and died for this country.

At the African American museum, one floor is devoted to the history of slavery. Other floors feature African Americans who’ve enriched our nation’s culture, science, economics and more. It’s a brilliant and honest story of African Americans in the U.S., entertaining as well as educational.

At both museums you see legions of visitors, among them young people, many absorbing the context of their own heritage for the first time.

Across the street from the African American museum is the newly renovated American History Museum. It tells America’s story and achievements in a way that would make every American proud.

How many nations are secure enough in their own heritage to display the richness of their history, warts and all, unafraid of the truth, willing to learn and grow from it?

This is the America the White House apparently fears presenting to its own people. The document it just released should be read as “fake news,” and dealt with accordingly.

I suspect that if the Trump administration tries to change the Smithsonian the way it has with the mall’s reflecting pool, the Fourth of July celebration and nation’s other 250th year birthday events it will rightly have a major fight on its hands.

The Smithsonian is one of America’s most beloved institutions. It’s earned that respect.

Credit to Texas for this one: DON’T MESS WITH THE SMITHSONIAN!

Comments? Criticism? Contact Joe Rothstein at jrothstein@rothstein.net

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