Clio Muses Over Current Events

With all the political wrangling in Washington over the budget crisis, it's easy to focus on how tough things are (and they have been better, no question). But people who read history usually take the long view and can often point to events that put the current situation (whatever it is) into perspective. Entirely by accident, I've recently read two novels dealing with 19th-century life on the American frontier, and both made me glad to be living in the 21st century.

Jane Smiley's The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton tells the story of a young Illinois woman who follows her new husband to the Kansas Territory just as pro-slavery and abolitionist forces are clashing for control of it. Her husband Thomas, though mild-mannered and kind, enters K.T. with smuggled arms to aid fellow abolitionists who have already settled in and around Lawrence. Lidie, a tomboy self-described as "useless," has married the attractive but enigmatic Thomas largely to escape a circumscribed life. Like many others, she has fallen under the spell of advertising that encourages settlement by promoting Kansas as a new paradise.

What seems like a big adventure turns serious once Lidie and Thomas arrive in K.T. and see for themselves the open hostility that frequently results in violence. Aside from that, Kansas is no Eden, and life for homesteaders is difficult, even for the young and strong. Despite the harsh conditions, the Newtons make the best of their new life and friends until the escalating brutality results in tragedy, and Lidie is forced to decide on a course of action.

When I learned about the Missouri Compromise and the Kansas-Nebraska Act in history class, it was in broad terms. This novel really opened my eyes to what America must have been like in the 1850s and how much blood was shed over the issue of slavery even before the Civil War. It was a vicious time, marked by tragedy and ill will. The novel is remarkable, and Lidie is a wonderful protagonist, but the book describes an unforgettably dark episode in the push for westward expansion.

Tracy Chevalier's The Last Runaway, set in 1850, gives a view of similar events through the eyes of a young Quaker woman, Honor Bright, who comes to America for a new start after a broken engagement. Her adventure starts off badly when her sister dies soon after the pair's arrival from England, leaving Honor alone at the edge of the Ohio frontier.

Honor finds conditions in America daunting due to the loneliness, the coarseness of daily life, and the hardships imposed by both nature and an unsettled society. The area around Oberlin is part of the Underground Railroad, but the consequences of helping escaped slaves have become more severe since passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Even within Honor's Quaker community, questions of right and wrong are balanced against questions of livelihood, pragmatism, and safety. Honor learns that adhering to principles can lead to ostracism, even among Quakers.

Miss Chevalier's book paints a vivid portrait of an America still half wild, where a wagon journey through the forest between one town and the next presents innumerable hazards, and social divisions simmer ominously, sometimes boiling over. An episode in which Honor accompanies a runaway slave during her own bid for freedom has a parallel in Miss Smiley's book, although the consequences are different. Both books reminded me of Toni Morrison's Beloved, which tells the story of an escaped slave in Ohio still entangled in the tragedy of her past. Beloved has been likened to Dante's Inferno; it certainly contains many scenes of both personal and societal hell, as do Miss Smiley's and Miss Chevalier's novels.

With so much contention in our history, it's not surprising that we still find ourselves at odds with each other. Maybe there is some good news in the current climate after all: at least now the divisions are over budgetary issues, health care, and the debt ceiling and not over slavery and territorial expansion. Current matters are serious, but at least we're not engaged in hand-to-hand combat. Perhaps we've learned enough from the past to proceed peacefully even when stakes are high and disagreements are sharp. Maybe our tumultuous past has at least given us that legacy.