Some years become etched into our collective memory. People worldwide will remember the years 2020 and 2021 for the impact of Covid-19. As I type this, 2022 witnesses Russia’s baseless invasion of Ukraine. For many older Americans, 1963 will forever be the year President Kennedy was assassinated. But what about years that don’t seem so famous? What happened in 1872, for instance?

In this post I’ll mention a couple events that are important from 1872. Both matter symbolically and historically. And both have some connection to each other.

What Happened in 1872 – The Idea of National Parks

One of the major events of 1872 in the United States was the creation of Yellowstone National Park, the first such park in the country. (And in the world.) The idea of creating a National Park seems to be an American invention. One of our nation’s better ideas, too, in my eyes. From the number of nations that have copied the idea since, it seems the world agrees. But the reason’s for the park’s creation tell us much about what happened in 1872.

Was one reason for the creation of Yellowstone that some Americans felt a need to preserve wilderness? Why would they feel such a need in a nation as vast as the US? Perhaps because observers became aware of the consequences of industrial development. Was it because Americans realized the decline of the buffalo, or the forests of New England, and wanted to preserve the land for the future?

Not really. This attitude was not well-developed in 1870s America, although in the next generation it gained ground. Instead of people wanting to preserve the land for future use, better to say that they were willing to preserve it because it seemed to have no profitable present use. The Yellowstone area is arid and poorly suited for farming. Transport (before modern highways) was difficult. The potential for economic development in 1872 seemed bleak.

Indeed, the act of Congress creating the park, the Yellowstone Act of 1872, mentions economic uses prominently. As soon as it finishes describing the park’s boundaries, it states that park lands are “withdrawn from settlement, occupancy, or sale.” Later, it charges the Secretary of the Interior with preserving the timber and mineral deposits of the park. National policy was to distribute land for development. Setting a park off-limits would be a significant departure from this practice.

The Arts of the 1870s

What Yellowstone did have was scenery. Trouble was, most of the lawmakers in Eastern states had never been there and didn’t know it. So, using the recently popularized art of photography, those who had been to Wyoming Territory to see Yellowstone showed Easterners what they were creating. Photography, along with landscape painting (Thomas Moran, for instance), made the nation aware of how beautiful Yellowstone was. This gained some supporters for the idea of a national park.

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The idea of creating a sacred space because of its beauty wasn’t new. European aristocrats had maintained private parks for decades. But opening the park to the general use of the public was new. Furthermore, people had become aware that many large cities were noisy, dirty places. Cities were growing after the Civil War. Some of the growth was European immigration. Some of it was people leaving farms throughout America. Having a place of natural beauty to escape crowded, noisy cities seemed a worthwhile idea.

So, creating Yellowstone Park seemed a perfect move. The area didn’t seem to have much value, developmentally speaking. But it was sublime to look at. And Easterners could use the park as an escape when city life grew too crowded. A problem existed, however.

The Losers in the Creation of Yellowstone

This may have occurred to you already. Native American people probably lived inside the boundaries of the park, right? Of course, they did. And one of the statements in the Yellowstone Act is that “all persons who shall locate or settle . . . shall be considered trespassers and removed therefrom.”

This was a problem. Yellowstone Park was meant to be sacred wilderness. But that could only be true if no people lived there. Yet people lived there. So, true to 1870s America, the nation had to pretend that they didn’t. The park’s second superintendent, Philetus Norris, began the fiction that native people shunned Yellowstone because its geysers and other geological features intimidated them.

This, of course, played into multiple negative stereotypes about Native Americans that have proven persistent over the years. They were irrational. Native people were superstitious and backward. They scared easily. They floated over the landscape, leaving little or no lasting trace of their presence. And so on. (The cavalrymen at the Little Bighorn a few years later might have disagreed, had they lived to do so.)

What Happened in 1872 – The Skeleton Cave Massacre

Although the connection might seem tenuous, it isn’t. The year 1872 also witnessed the massacre of Yavapai people in Arizona. The Grant administration wanted to pacify Arizona by moving the Yavapai and Tonto Apache onto reservations. Some were willing to move. Others were not.

Some ended up surrounded by the U.S. Army at Skeleton Cave (sometimes known as Salt River Canyon). Of these somewhere between 50 and 100 people died. (Reports differ.) The Army claimed it had attacked hostile Apache. Yet, as was so often true of massacres of “hostile” Native Americans, many of the dead were women and children.

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In 1870s America, pacification required an act of force if Native Americans did not submit to reservation life willingly. This is the connection to Yellowstone Park. Native Americans could only exist where the U.S. government was willing to allow them to live. It wanted them outside of Yellowstone Park. So, a combination of rumor and force was used to achieve this goal. In Arizona, the government wanted them on a reservation. Force was the answer.

This process was known as “pacification.” It was peace in the same way that Augustus’s Ara Pacis (Altar of Augustan Peace) signified peace in ancient Rome. One critic said of Augustus that he created a wasteland and called it peace. Native Americans of the 1870s probably saw things similarly.

Thank you for joining me in this look at what happened in 1872.

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