| Chapter 1: | Romantic Antiquarian Literature |
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A.Yes. I have often come across fortified works which bear evidence of the existence of a people who had reached a fairly high state of civilisation. Whence did that people come? Whither did it vanish? There is a mystery there. But one cannot doubt that it existed, and nothing indicates that the Indians of our day are the remnants thereof. The most probable view seems to me that they were Mexicans who in old days came and settled in the valley of the Mississippi. (242–243)
Similar discoveries, though less spectacular, had already been made in the eastern regions. By the era of Tocqueville’s journey, a solid foundation of writing about antiquities in the Americas was well established, and the western discoveries generated more at a rapid pace. Satisfying and fuelling public curiosity about relics and earthworks provided opportunities for the full spectrum of writers—ranging from earnest seekers of truth who wrote papers for scholarly societies and their journals to hacks whose methods included plagiarism, gross distortion, and the fabrication of far-fetched tales. In the antiquarian realm, the finished product is much the same, whether it was written by a gentleman scholar or a thirsty wordslinger.
A series of factors, in addition to the westward push, converged at the beginning of the nineteenth century that ignited this scholarly and public interest in U.S. prehistory, which included a conscious effort in numerous areas of society to construct a national culture and identity, and the persistent problem of Euro-American/Native relations. A core group of writers in the United States, most active and influential between the approximate dates of 1800 and 1870, were vitally interested in describing the prehistoric remains encountered by Euro-American settlers. These writers, whom I call Romantic Antiquarians, sought to explain the origins of what was assumed to be a lost civilization. Those whose interests transcended strictly regional concerns made connections between the antiquities of North, Central, and South America, their discourse following in the steps of U.S. expansionism. The phenomenon of widespread public acceptance of antiquarian views in the nineteenth century offers insight into the complex relationship between Native and Euro-American cultures.