Humans, the world over, are mythmakers and, as many of us have observed, America is among the most mythic of nations. In time and range, symbol and story, experience and opinion, American Myth is a vast subject, one that has been in the process of unfolding for many centuries.
What is Myth?
Myth (mythos --speech or tale in ancient Greek), by any definition, is universal and contains an imaginative variety. It is something special or sacred, the extraordinary amidst the regular motions of life. Myth is like a familiar tune, replaying the past, helping to unfold the present. Perhaps myth is not something we can touch so much as what touches us – an invisible presence. Although each of us is at the center of our own drama, myth is part of the understory.
I asked my friend Dr. Paul Cartledge (Emeritus A. G. Leventis Professor, Cambridge University, and prolific author of things Greek) for insights on the subject:
“A mythos was simply a 'tale', something spoken - then it came to mean a tale that was repeated, that was so often repeated that it became traditional. But that doesn't mean that the basic storyline couldn't be varied - far from it,” he explained.
Oral, repeated, traditional, varied – yes, myth lingers. That characterizes Homer, and Greek tragedy draws from the storehouse of Homer. Tragedy was an integral art form that helped the Greeks navigate the paradoxes and limits of life.
“Myth helps us to find our way in a life that we do not fully understand, probably never will,” said Magrita Pfab, one of my former students at LMU Munich, who is now the author of several novels.
What is real and what is imagined into existence? Perhaps it doesn’t matter, because myth lives as archetypes, paradigms, historical facts or fanciful tales, creating meaning, message, ritual and ceremony, propaganda, books and movies, museums, pilgrimages, sacred places and holidays.
Hollywood icons John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart, along with Irene Dunne and Rosalind Russell, at the premier of a movie in which they all starred, ‘How the West Was Won (1962),’ an epic tale portraying the mythological version of America’s 19th century westward expansion. (Public Domain).
First Peoples / Native Americans
When I was in grammar school, I learned that people first migrated from Asia to North American across the Bering Strait Land Bridge (Beringia) about 12,000 years ago. But intriguing evidence in a variety of places – footprints and drag marks in White Sands National Park in New Mexico and other sites in Central and South America – bring us back much further. New science and excavations are bringing the arrival date, by land and sea, to the New World to 30,000 years ago and perhaps far older than that. Archaeology is full of surprises.
- A Quick Run Through Navajo Mythology
- Archaeologists Digging Up Revolutionary War Site at Colonial Williamsburg
There are millions of Native Americans who continue their beliefs, rituals, myths and sacred stories, from creation to end of the world: trickster tales, to the Buffalo and warrior tales of the Plains Indians, including their sacred Earth Lodges. The trickster is a famous symbols; the Pacific Northwest Tribes believed in Raven, the shape-shifting trickster, who sometimes helps humans and sometimes plays tricks. Polynesians and Hawaiians believed in Maui, the trickster who stole fire from the underworld and also made the sun linger to have longer days.
Humans tend to emerge from the sacred earth, as in Navajo, Zuni and Hopi stories. The Incas (the great empire of the Andes) believed that Manco Capac and Mama Ocllo emerged from the sacred waters of Lake Titicaca; from there they journeyed to the fertile valley of Cusco, where Manco thrust a golden staff into the ground. Some indigenous people, such as the Maya, Incas and Aztecs, built great empires, while others moved about in small bands or tribes as hunter gatherers.
Recreation of Cahokia in 1,000 AD, the largest and most influential urban settlement of the Native American, mound-building Mississippian culture.(Michael Hampshire/Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site/CC BY-SA 4.0).
The small numbers of Europeans led to greater numbers, accompanied by “new” diseases. There were many treaties, and many broken treaties. Opening the New World to exploration and colonization brought destruction of people and nature. It is estimated that between 50-90% of indigenous peoples, in what became known as the New World or the Americas, died from disease, violence and colonization.
In the USA today, around 2.5 million or 0.8% of the population identify as Native American.
“The US recognizes 574 tribes. This is not counting the tribes that are recognized at the state level – 60 of them,” Professor Emil’ Keme, a Professor of English and Indigenous Studies at Emory University, informed me.
A brilliant, wide-ranging exploration of the Americans before Columbus is 1491 by Charles C. Mann. The National Museum of the American Indian (Washington DC) offers excellent books on its website, including Stories of the People: Native American Voices (Native Americans from six nations share their stories, from origins to European/American settlement on their lands, to reservations.)
Mundus Novus (The New World)
Advances in science and technology, such as the compass, astrolabe and advancements in shipbuilding, opened the door for the Age of Exploration. The fall of Constantinople in 1453 disrupted land routes to Asia, making it more dangerous. Therefore, Portuguese mariners took to sailing the West African Coast and the Cape of Good Hope to reach Asia. Prince Henry (1394-1460), better known as Henry the Navigator, sponsored voyages that sparked the Age of Discovery for mariners, including Christopher Columbus. They helped created the modern world of capitalism, world-wide trade, colonization – and slavery.
There is a pivotal year of course: 1492. The change was perhaps akin to two planets – one before 1492 and one after.
Born in Genoa, Italy, Christopher Columbus was a navigator and explorer. Historians point out that Columbus had millennialist leanings, that he was present at the siege and fall of Grenada, marking the end of the Reconquista – and that he was motivated also by the clash of civilizations. (see new theories about Columbus’ origins and ideas).
To reach Asia, Columbus thought that he could avoid the vast African continent by heading west across the Atlantic Ocean. His geography was off by a long shot. Columbus was sponsored by the Catholic Monarchs of Spain: King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. With three ships and a crew of about 90, Columbus sailed to the New World in 1492, inaugurating one of the greatest events in human history. Columbus opened up the New World to exploration and colonization. (In fact, it was really the Vikings, five centuries before, sailing on the “whale roads,” who “discovered” the New World. But they stayed a short time in Newfoundland, Canada.)
What Columbus did was to find what the Europeans were after: trade, wealth, new lands and opportunities and a place to spread Christianity. He opened a new understanding of the world, connecting people who had not known about each other. Yet, it came at the unimaginable losses of Native Peoples who had been on their lands for generations, for thousands of years. Most members of the Taino who had originally helped him and his crew found themselves under the yoke of great cruelty, as many were tortured and killed. Disease is a big part of the story. Triumphalist cultures / countries are barely apologetic, but very amnesiac. It is impossible to fathom.
Painting from 1893, entitled ‘Christopher Columbus Taking Possession of the New Country,’ from L Prang & Co. (Public Domain).
Columbus of course was from the old world with established political systems, royalty, limited land and so on. It’s a long story with Columbus and other explorers: Spanish, Portuguese, English, French, Dutch, followed by the mass influx of Europeans, as well as enslaved Africans.
Europeans brought not just horrible diseases that wiped out vast numbers of indigenous people. Europeans brought coffee, wheat and sugar cane to the New World. Indigenous peoples made it possible for Europeans to have tomatoes, chocolate, corn, potatoes, chocolate, etc.
Professor Emil’ Keme suggested this: “I would use ‘what is now the Americas’ – New World affirms a European perspective. It’s new to them, not to the original inhabitants who as you say have inhabited the hemisphere for over 30,000 years. For Native peoples, the original name of North America is Turtle Island.”
Roanoke
The first English settlement in North America was established in 1587 (led from afar, in London) by Sir Walter Raleigh. The colonists (91 men, 17 women and 9 children) landed on the island of Roanoke. They vanished. The only clue: Croatoan carved into a palisade. What happened to them is still a mystery.
Jamestown
King James I of England wanted to establish a colony in the New World, and the London Company answered the call. On the Godspeed, Susan Constant and the Discovery, 104 sailors and settlers reached the Chesapeake Bay in 1607 – Jamestown, the first successful English colony.
The settlers, primarily Anglican, had representative government. In 1619, about twenty enslaved Africans were brought to Jamestown – the start of slavery in North America. This land was inhabited by the Powhatan and other Nations. According to lore, Pocahontas (daughter of the chief) saved leader John Smith. She is notable for her interactions with the settlement. Hollywood’s latest iteration of Pocahontas is expected to be released in 2025.
Illustration of Pocahontas saving John Smith, from school text book published in 1854. (Public Domain).
In 1699, Williamsburg replaced Jamestown as the capital of Virginia.
The Pilgrims
The Pilgrims were separatists from the Church of England. They didn’t like hierarchy and ceremony in the church, preferring Bible study and independence. They first traveled to Leiden, Holland, then to the New World, with leaders including William Bradford and Myles Standish. While Holland offered religious freedom, the Pilgrims worried that their children were becoming too assimilated and wanted to retain their religious mission.
The Pieterskerk(St. Peter’s Church) in Leiden, where the Pilgrims worshipped during their time in Holland. (Renah Marranca).
Traveling at two miles per hour, it took the Pilgrims two months to reach the New World. The Mayflower landed at Plymouth Rock (Massachusetts) in December 1620.
It was common for indigenous in the area to have autumn harvest thanksgiving. The Wampanoag people and the Pilgrims had that first “Thanksgiving” in 1621. George Washington issued the first Thanksgiving proclamation in 1789 -- a celebration to help unite the new nation. In 1863, Abraham Lincoln declared National Thanksgiving Day (an echo of that 1621 celebration) to be held on the last Thursday of each November. (Along with Memorial Day, Labor Day, Presidents’ Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the American Flag and much else, it is part of our secular religion.)
Plymouth Rock wasn’t proclaimed to be the landing spot of the Pilgrims until well over a century after their arrival. Plymouth Rock has been moved a few times and even broken into two. Today, it is a sacred object under a canopy on hallowed ground forever linked to a celebration with a large meal, pumpkin pie and football games.
“City Upon a Hill”
Many tribes and civilizations, especially the empire-builders, believed themselves to be exceptional – Egypt, Persians, Greece, Rome, China, France, England and so on.
On Egypt, Dr. Salima Ikram mentioned this to me: “I think they thought that all Egyptians were the best, and everyone else was not quite good enough.” Alexander the Great, to use another example, saw himself and the Macedonians as invincible; and Greeks in general used the word “barbarian” (meaning non-Greeks & inferior) to refer to outsiders. In The Aeneid, Virgil includes a Roman view of exceptionalism that was pleasing to Emperor Augustus.
For a variety of reasons, America is often compared to Rome. Prof. Frank Korn (Emeritus Professor Classics, Seton Hall University), discussed the parallels:
Roman “exceptionalism was much like ours --. the belief that they were unique among nations, far ahead of others in the arts, the sciences, medicine, and quality of life issues --aqueducts, a sewer system, a robust economy, a strong military, a great highway system, and other things way ahead of the times.”
As for America, John Winthrop was an ardent Puritan who came to believe that God had chosen him for salvation (sainthood – for the Puritans). Elected governor in 1629, Winthrop led a group of Puritans to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630. He spoke of the community being “as a city upon a hill, the eyes of all people are upon us.” (The origin of these words goes back to St. Matthew.) There was the sense of being a beacon to the world.
Colonial Americans, who fought the Revolutionary War to secede from Britain and, in the process, create a unified nation, were focused on freedom and representative government. American Exceptionalism is based on a unique origin and mission for the USA. It is based on principles laid out in sacred documents: the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
John Trumbull's painting, Declaration of Independence (1819), depicting the five-man drafting committee of the Declaration of Independence presenting their work to the Congress. (Public Domain).
There are certainly political, religious, geographical and economic aspects to this vast concept. America is referred to as the “the indispensable nation” and the “last best hope of Earth” and “leader of the free world.” The Twentieth Century is “the American Century.”
During my Fulbright year at LMU Munich, I co-taught Myth and Mythmaking in America with the late great Dr. Berndt Ostendorf, who offered this: “The larger context for the search for American myths is ‘national identity politics’ which has given us the notion of American Exceptionalism.”
The idea of American Exceptionalism owes a lot to British Exceptionalism. Peggy Noonan, in The Wall Street Journal, writes: “We and Europe have been friends a long time. We came from them. Their blood was our starting blood” (A13).
The term exceptionalism was coined by Alexis de Tocqueville (French aristocrat) in his classic study Democracy in America (two volumes, 1835/1840), and is based on American liberty, equality, individuality, populism and laissez-faire economic policy. According to historians, it was in the 1920s when American communists came up with the term – American Exceptionalism -- during their disputes.
John Winthrop’s “City Upon a Hill” idea influenced the American presidents in their various speeches and addresses to the nation. For his Farewell Address, Ronald Reagan modified Winthrop’s concept to “a shining city upon a hill.” The phrase is sometimes used to frame American global affairs – and therefore open to interpretation and criticism.
“Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death!”
On March 23, 1775, the “magic” words above were spoken by Patrick Henry, the orator and Virginia governor. Another firebrand and revolutionary, Thomas Paine, wrote Common Sense in 1776, selling 500,000 copies with about 20% of the population owning a copy.
The American Revolution (1776-1783) was a major event in world history. In fact, a variety of English and French Enlightenment philosophers influenced the American Revolutionaries.
The author standing in front of Le Procope, a cafe in Paris that was visited by many great Enlightenment thinkers, including Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, Franklin, Jefferson, etc. (Renah Marranca).
Unlike other revolutions, when the American Revolution ended, it did not produce a bloodbath or a new dictator (Napoleon, Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc.). Epic events include the Boston Tea Party; Battle of Lexington and Concord (“shot heard round the world,” according to Ralph Waldo Emerson); singing of the Declaration of Independence; Battles of Trenton, Saratoga and Yorktown… the list goes on.
Founding Fathers include George Washington, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Sam Adams and others. (In an interview I did some years ago, E. L. Doctorow, author of Ragtime and The Book of Daniel, told me that “the basis of this free society, sort of the mythological underpinning, was supplied by revolutionists, over-throwers...”)
George Washington’s mythic aura began during the French and Indian War when his hat and clothes were shot through. There would be other such escapes. Later, as Commander of the Continental Army, he wore down the British with guerrilla tactics, strategic planning -- sometimes avoiding direct confrontation – like Fabius in ancient Rome, and working with the French. His earlier career in surveying gave him knowledge of maps and terrain. Other “mythic” material can be found in other Founding Fathers and Mothers.
The letters of John and Abigail Adams are many and wonderful, with all sorts of gems about Europe, the Continental Congress, revolution, diplomacy, home, farm and more – a bright light on America. “If we have heroes, statesmen and philosophers, we should have learned women,” wrote Abigail Adams. She and other Founding Fathers and Mothers were against slavery.
The American Revolution and the Shape of Things to Come
The American Revolution, an insurrection against the British from 1775-1783, was a key event in American and world history. It influenced modern movements around the world advocating civil rights and equality.
George Washington triumphantly riding into Boston in 1776, painting from 1834 by unknown artist. (Public Domain).
Of course, the American Revolution was a start of things to come. It did not end slavery, give women the vote or protect Native Americans. To interrogate history is wise and necessary, but to see the past only with lenses from today is to miss the revolutionary character of the times and how an inchoate democracy was successful. Even great revolutionaries with high ideals are limited and tied to their geography and time period – and settle into realities that they know must change. (The Civil War, Reconstruction and civil rights movements are beyond the parameters of this essay.)
The following quote explains how George Washington attempted a balancing act with Native American peoples. In “Inventing the Presidency” (American Heritage), the distinguished historian, Dr. Joseph P. Ellis, wrote:
At the personal level, Washington had experienced Indian power first-hand. As commander of the Virginia Regiment during the French and Indian War, he saw Native Americans not as exotic savages, but as familiar and formidable adversaries fighting for their own independence, behaving pretty much as he would do in their place. Moreover, the letters the new president received from several tribal chiefs provided poignant testimony that they now regarded him as their personal protector.
“Brother,” wrote one Cherokee chief, “we give up to our white brothers all the land we could any how spare, and have but little left. . . and we hope you won't let any people take any more from us without our consent. We are neither Birds nor Fish; we can neither fly in the air nor live under water. . . .We are made by the same hand and in the same shape as yourselves.”
Map at the Cherokee Removal Memorial Park in Tennessee depicting the pathways of the Cherokee on the Trail of Tears, the route followed by five indigenous tribes as they were forced to relocate from their homelands in the southeast to the Oklahoma Territory in the 1830s, on a long march that resulted in the deaths of approximately 15,000 people. (ItsOnlyMakeBelieve/CC BY-SA 4.0).
Tragically, the wishes of this Cherokee chief would not be met. The land that had been occupied by Native American peoples for thousands of years, from sea to shining sea, would eventually all be taken away, through treaties that were forced upon them, one after another ... all of which would be broken, one after another.
Top image: The Statue of Liberty on Liberty Island.
Source: Don Ramey Logan/CC BY-SA 4.0.
By Richard Marranca
