Thursday, October 24, 2019

Slavery in Media

The portrayal of slavery in media varies from source to source. In many of the books that we used in class, the stance of the slave is never taken, and most of the books are written based on "fact" alone. The author will often deliver his perception of fact in an authoritative manner, with little or no emotion regarding the subject. In one book, the author is clearly biased towards Christianity, as he says that an advantage of slavery was the fact that it taught black people about "the glowing hopes of [Christianity]." Generally, elementary and middle school children were taught about slavery in a storybook manner, where history was presented with a moral. High school students were generally taught as mentioned above, with the authoritative author, as were college students.

In the passage from The Half Has Never Been Told, enslaved labor was viewed in a very factual way, but not in the sense that the author thought they were right. In this case, most of the fact was backed up with evidence; tangible results. In the other books that we read, this was often not the case. The author would tell you the "truth" but not tell you why it's the truth. In this book, however, you know why the author was right.

12 Years a Slave is a film which tackles a primary source written by a man named Solomon Northrup, a free black man who was kidnapped and brought into slavery. The film is extremely heavy and uncomfortable in numerous ways because it feels very realistic. Throughout many years and many masters, Solomon learns what freedom truly is. One moment in the film that stood out as particularly powerful was the scene where Solomon gets tied up by the neck and hung. He is lowered just enough to where his toes can barely touch the ground. He tip toes for almost 3 minutes (although it was hours in the world of the movie) trying his hardest not to slip into unconsciousness. I think that watching a film like 12 Years a Slave is very valuable because it gives you a visualization of something you would normally read; it engages more of your senses. You can learn so much just by the facial expressions of an actor, the score of a film, or the camera angles that you just can't get from reading. I would certainly recommend watching this film to anybody who wants to learn more about the impact of slavery on individuals, although I would warn people to proceed with caution when viewing this film, as it is not a pleasant experience.
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Tuesday, October 15, 2019

Butch Cassidy

In discussing outlaws and the “wild west”, it is important to remember the myth behind many of the stories which fall into those categories. For the past month or so, I have been researching an outlaw by the name of Butch Cassidy. It is virtually impossible to discuss outlaws without bringing up Cassidy, and there are many reasons for that. One of the most prominent reasons for that is the film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, which, if you know anything about Hollywood, is not an entirely true story. What you may not know, however, and what has surprised me recently, is the fact that even the stories that you may have read about Butch Cassidy aren’t entirely true either. After the Civil War, the idea of “cowboys” was very appealing to the public. Most of these legends, however, were mostly myth. These outlaws often capitalized in their own myth through publications such as dime novels. On some occasions, they would even write their own spiced-up version of their life. To find out the truth about Butch Cassidy, you must examine the firsthand sources that were written during the time when he was alive. While researching Butch Cassidy, I have learned that although the idea of outlaws is fascinating after the fact, while they are alive it is anything but fun.

At 10:00 A.M. on June 24, 1889, four men robbed a bank in Telluride, Colorado. Three of the men entered the bank with revolvers and demanded the money from the tellers. After they secured a few thousand dollars, they ran outside to the fourth robber who was waiting with their horses. As the robbers were leaving, they fired shots into the air to threaten the citizens and warn them not to go after them. The robbers begin heading for Arizona with the sheriff closely pursuing them. People believed that the robbers would be apprehended within 24 hours or less, but this could not have been further from the truth. The identities of all the robbers are not known, but it is known that they were part of the so-called “Wild Bunch.” The leader of the Wild Bunch was a man by the name of Harvey Logan, known as Kid Curry by his peers. Another man who was a part of this gang, and one who was certainly at the robbery in Colorado, was Butch Cassidy. This is the first major robbery accredited to Cassidy, and it will certainly not be the last. Within no time, Cassidy’s name will be all over every newspaper in his area.

Butch Cassidy may have been an outlaw, but he understood what it meant to be loyal to his partners. In 1896, Matt Warner was on trial for murder. During the trial, he was being kept in a prison. Butch Cassidy had a plan to break into the prison and release Warner, but this plan was quikly foiled when he was moved to a prison in Ogden. Cassidy decided to get the money to bail Warner out. He may have been an intelligent fiend, but he was by no means a rich one. So he did the only thing he could think of: he robbed a bank. On September 17, 1896, he and the Wild Bunch robbed a bank in Montpelier, Idaho. In an attempt to lessen, or perhaps exterminate, Warner’s sentence, the robbers threatened to kill anybody who testified against Warner. I’m not exactly sure what they thought they would get out of all this, but I’m assuming they were trying to decrease the amount of money needed to bail (or bribe) him out of jail. Though nothing significant came of it, a detective did figure out a connection between the Montpelier robbery and Matt Warner. This prompted the sheriff to interview Warner’s wife. She said that she told Cassidy not to get the money, and that she wanted to see Warner convicted. She told him that she was threatened by the robbers to not say a word about it, although she still ended up confirming the identities of the men who stole from the bank in Montpelier. Interestingly enough, I found that later on, Butch Cassidy confessed his identity to a man in Wayne County. However, he told the man that although he would do anything for Matt Warner, he had nothing to do with the bank robbery in Montpelier. This is very peculiar, since he fully admitted to being Butch Cassidy, but denied a specific robbery. This is a fantastic example of the myth behind many outlaws. We will never know if Butch Cassidy robbed that bank, although it will generally be accepted that he did, as it was during his time.

Butch Cassidy seemed to enjoy toying with authority. I found a few instances where Cassidy was going to turn himself in, but then decided against it. I even found one incident where Butch Cassidy was fully pardoned. On January 19, 1896, Governor William A. Richards of Wyoming pardoned Cassidy. He was asked to do so by a District Court Judge named Jesse Knight. He hoped that by pardoning Cassidy, he and his associates would become good citizens. This of course did not happen. Cassidy remained an outlaw. Shortly after this pardon, in June of 1900, the Wild Bunch disbanded. After Cassidy’s partner, Elza Lay, died in Mexico, he decided it was time for a new one. Enter Harry Longabough, “The Sundance Kid”. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid made their way to Bolivia in order to escape Pinkerton detectives. They bought a ranch in Argentina, but returned to a life of crime in 1906. They found themselves as the leaders of a band of outlaws with Kid Curry. From here on out, there are numerous variations as to how the rest of their lives went. One of the most popular says that in 1909, while trapped by Bolivian soldiers, Sundance was killed, while Butch Cassidy killed himself. However, we will never truly know how each of them met their demise. This just goes to show that myth and reality are two very separate things. 

Matt Warner
Butch Cassidy and His Horse


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