By Juan Montoya
Having searched high and low for the DVD of L. Frank Baum's "The Great Wizard of Oz" for my seven-year-old daughter Marisol, we finally found a copy this weekend.
We had tried Blockbuster, the Central Library (someone stole it), Wal-Mart, Target
, etc..., all to no avail. Imagine our surprise when we found a copy in the Southmost Branch Library Saturday.
We set out to view the movie and, of course, since we had already read the book together, seeing the narrative come to life on the television screen is something – especially in the case of this movie – magical.
That led me to look up Baum's background and in doing so, encountered one of those contradictions in literature that make it so interesting.
We've heard of Ezra Pound being put in an insane asylum for supporting Mussolini's fascism by broadcasting propaganda on the radio.
And who isn't acquainted with Edgar Allen Poe's demise when he was last seen in a bar in Baltimore calling for the bartender, who was also ran a voting precinct there? After tying on a huge bender, Poe was found dead in an alley in that city.
Hemingway committed suicide, as did Hunter S. Thompson. But Baum died a natural death amid family and friends. And everyone, from the very young to the very old, are enthralled with the movie version of the Wizard of Oz.
What quirk did Baum have that brings this about?
My three children in Brownsville have half brothers and sisters in Michigan who are Native Americans (Chippewas, to be more specific). Writers have not been too kind to Native Americans, and I found out that Baum, when he was a newspaper editor in his youth, wasn't a very tolerant person toward the Sioux of South Dakota.
Upon the killing by the U.S. Army of the great Sioux warrior Sitting Bull, Baum wrote an editorial. Here's a sampling:
"The proud spirit of the original owners of these vast prairies inherited through centuries of fierce and bloody wars for their possession, lingered last in the bosom of Sitting Bull. With his fall the nobility of the Redskin is extinguished, and what few are left are a pack of whining curs who lick the hand that smites them. The Whites, by law of conquest, by justice of civilization, are masters of the American continent, and the best safety of the frontier settlements will be secured by the total annihilation of the few remaining Indians. Why not annihilation? Their glory has fled, their spirit broken, their manhood effaced; better that they die than live the miserable wretches that they are. History would forget these latter despicable beings, and speak, in latter ages of the glory of these grand Kings of forest and plain that Cooper loved to heroise.
We cannot honestly regret their extermination, but we at least do justice to the manly characteristics possessed, according to their lights and education, by the early Redskins of America."
Strong stuff, isn't it?
Having searched high and low for the DVD of L. Frank Baum's "The Great Wizard of Oz" for my seven-year-old daughter Marisol, we finally found a copy this weekend.
We had tried Blockbuster, the Central Library (someone stole it), Wal-Mart, Target
, etc..., all to no avail. Imagine our surprise when we found a copy in the Southmost Branch Library Saturday.We set out to view the movie and, of course, since we had already read the book together, seeing the narrative come to life on the television screen is something – especially in the case of this movie – magical.
That led me to look up Baum's background and in doing so, encountered one of those contradictions in literature that make it so interesting.
We've heard of Ezra Pound being put in an insane asylum for supporting Mussolini's fascism by broadcasting propaganda on the radio.
And who isn't acquainted with Edgar Allen Poe's demise when he was last seen in a bar in Baltimore calling for the bartender, who was also ran a voting precinct there? After tying on a huge bender, Poe was found dead in an alley in that city.
Hemingway committed suicide, as did Hunter S. Thompson. But Baum died a natural death amid family and friends. And everyone, from the very young to the very old, are enthralled with the movie version of the Wizard of Oz.
What quirk did Baum have that brings this about?
My three children in Brownsville have half brothers and sisters in Michigan who are Native Americans (Chippewas, to be more specific). Writers have not been too kind to Native Americans, and I found out that Baum, when he was a newspaper editor in his youth, wasn't a very tolerant person toward the Sioux of South Dakota.
Upon the killing by the U.S. Army of the great Sioux warrior Sitting Bull, Baum wrote an editorial. Here's a sampling:
"The proud spirit of the original owners of these vast prairies inherited through centuries of fierce and bloody wars for their possession, lingered last in the bosom of Sitting Bull. With his fall the nobility of the Redskin is extinguished, and what few are left are a pack of whining curs who lick the hand that smites them. The Whites, by law of conquest, by justice of civilization, are masters of the American continent, and the best safety of the frontier settlements will be secured by the total annihilation of the few remaining Indians. Why not annihilation? Their glory has fled, their spirit broken, their manhood effaced; better that they die than live the miserable wretches that they are. History would forget these latter despicable beings, and speak, in latter ages of the glory of these grand Kings of forest and plain that Cooper loved to heroise.
We cannot honestly regret their extermination, but we at least do justice to the manly characteristics possessed, according to their lights and education, by the early Redskins of America."
Strong stuff, isn't it?
But he wasn't done. After the Wounded Knee massacre, he wrote yet another editorial. Here it is:
The Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon the total extirmination [sic] of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries we had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth. In this lies safety for our settlers and the soldiers who are under incompetent commands. Otherwise, we may expect future years to be as full of trouble with the redskins as those have been in the past.
The Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon the total extirmination [sic] of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries we had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth. In this lies safety for our settlers and the soldiers who are under incompetent commands. Otherwise, we may expect future years to be as full of trouble with the redskins as those have been in the past.
It is only fair to say that in 2006, his descendants apologized to the Sioux Nation for the wrong that their ancestor had propagated against them.
My kids were surprised that the author of such a good work of literature could be capable of writing such nasty stuff. But if there was a redeeming work that might mitigate Baum's legacy, it would have to be the Great Wizard of Oz. Its universal appeal to good over evil and the triumph of the finest sentiments of humanity (loyalty, friendship, hope and love of home and hearth) surely will not be overshadowed by what I want to believe were youthful indiscretions by its author.
4 comments:
Montoya why are you defending his believes, writers can write anything they want, whether they mean it is something else.
The anglo people have always being prejudiced toward any kind of race. At times they don't even like themselves.
First the Indians, than the blacks, then the people from China,then they used hispanics, and now they everyone deported. It is like they use different ethnic groups and then dispose of them like trash.
I don't believe the anlo race can claim redemption, Their history is way to soild.
sorry about the bad spelling, too many things at one time.
This Remote and Isolated Border Place
" The Rancho Grande Valley - Indian Reservation " is just another little colony from our Great Masters and conquerors whom Forced us By rubbing very Hot -Chile Peppers into our mouths in the 1960's school years , for speaking Spanish in class... Now The Anglo - Saxon - White - Caucasians , with a Black President , are feeling a little bit of " The Reversed Discrimation " on Them !!!
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