I noticed this photograph on the Flickr set of the Red Cross’s Midwestern flood relief efforts. The photo provides an idea of how much water was flowing around Cedar Falls, Iowa on June 10, 2008.
Sandbagging efforts in Cedar Falls kept the raging waters of the Cedar River from flooding the downtown area. The sign is located in an area that is usually above water. My guess is that the water level in the photo is somewhere between 2 to 3 ft. high.
I was curious as to what the text on the sign said. Fortunately, a hi-resolution version of the original photograph had been uploaded and it was easy to discern the text on the marker.
By the way, I think it’s important to note that critical thinking can still exist within a discourse of support…just wanted to give everyone a heads up as I am going to delve into some thinking that is critical of a historical marker that needs some serious editing.
Historic Cedar Falls
On lands acquired by the USA from Sac and Fox (Mesquakie) Indians in 1842, William Sturgis and Erasmus D. Adams settled near this spot along the Cedar River in 1845. Sturgis began construction of a dam and mill and the site became known as Sturgis Falls, the first permanent settlement in Black Hawk County. [Full text - Cedar Falls Historical Society website]
According to the Cedar Falls Historical Society’s timeline of Cedar Falls, Native Americans resided in the area from the year 10,000 BC until around 1837. That’s 11,837 years for anyone doing the math. I’ve searched for any information on how exactly the land was “acquired” from the Sac and Fox peoples but have found no record of the “acquisition.” My guess is that it was most likely taken. Taken via force, misinformation, bribery, etc. It’s still taken. Native folks lived in the Cedar Valley region for thousands of years and then mysteriously vanished. At least that’s how it seems when you read the history of Cedar Falls as written by those who took the land. The wikipedia article for Cedar Falls states that less than 1 percent of the cities inhabitants are Native American.
According to the City of Cedar Falls website, the first residents of the Cedar Valley were “primarily Scandinavians, Slovaks, Hispanic, German, and Greek immigrants.” Excuse me?! The first residents of the Cedar Valley were members of the Sac, Fox, Winnebagoes and Sioux tribes. The history of the Cedar Valley did not begin when white people took it. The Black Hawk County website “county history” gets a bit closer to accurately portraying what happened: “the Sac and Fox Indians lost their hold on [the Cedar Valley region] following the Black Hawk War of 1832.” Lost, as in someone came in and took it. The area wasn’t acquired, it was taken. The historical marker should reflect history. It should not distort it into a twisted view of reality.
I feel that the banner that rests on the light pole above the historical marker is severely and sadly ironic. The text on the banner, “Preserving Our Heritage,” makes me ask, who’s heritage? The heritage of white folks in the Midwest is built upon a foundation of Native American genocide that has been re-dubbed as White expansion / settlement.
I’m very happy that the people of Cedar Falls, Iowa were able to protect their downtown from significant flood damage. However, I wish that the historical marker had been swept away so that a new marker could be installed that more accurately represents how Cedar Falls came to exist.
My ancestry is both European and Native American. The native portion is inherited from my father, and I do understand your thoughts on that inaccurate sign. However, my father’s house overlooks the Cedar River. Please—if you are able—imagine what his property looks like now.
Your perspective is rather misguided.
@Sheila - I can imagine that his property has been severely impacted by floodwaters. My critique does not diminish my support of Cedar Falls residents who have fought courageously against floodwaters. My critique of the content on the historical marker does not diminish my support for folks who are dealing with the effects of flooding.
Like I said at the beginning of the post. Critical analysis can exist within a discourse of support. I can support your father while simultaneously engaging in an analysis of the historical marker.
I agree with you, Eric, that we can engage in both critical analysis and support/sympathy/empathy. I wonder, though, if having the flood waters take away the sign would do any good. I mean, wouldn’t it be much more meaningful and have actual results if the people of
Cedar RapidsCedar Falls took the sign down themselves and replaced it? The replacement of the sign seems like a great idea, but I think it would have a lot more meaning if done by citizens rather than by a flood.@Michael - Well said. Although, I guess I should have clarified/cemented my thoughts a bit better. If the marker had been swept away, and newly written content been placed upon it, it would most likely be accomplished by the people of Cedar Falls.
No. You cannot support a massive effort like the response to the Midwest floods with a written discourse as inconsequential as your history-sign report.
An historical perspective—much later when the flood is “history” and not in the act of affecting the lives of people and animals—might be appropriate.
But during an emergency where 36,000 Iowans are left homeless and where countless numbers of farm, domestic, and wild animals died?
An emergency where destruction of an annual harvest may cause frightening consequences for the world food supply? A supply already diminished—for many people—as climate-change and the ever-insatiate greed for ethanol make buying food impossible?
Your little report helped no one. It reflects a mind concerned with what cannot ever be rectified—the genocide of Native Americans—when that same mind had the ability to galvanize the populace to help with so many things that must be done.
You are a writer. Perhaps next “time” you will decide to use your writing to encourage the right action, thought, or idea, at the right “time.” A time which, perhaps, might change history. Or you can, again, complain about the common act of humans who change remembered history into something they can live with.
Yes. Next time.
And the waters. Still. Rise.
Actually, the numbers and the destruction Sheila cites above as arguments against the critique offered pale in comparison to the destruction and numbers killed and destroyed by the European genocide of the Native populations of this continent. Destruction of food? how about wiping out the bison and buffalo of the very plains now being flooded. That caused harm uncalculated and incalculable over all these many years. Why not count _that_ harm and damage too. The primary difference is one is “manmade” and the other natural, or what insurance agents call acts of God. One is a moral wrong and could have been otherwise. Why not count those harms in addition to all the harms being suffered now?
If there had ever been a “right” time, wouldn’t this have been discussed and rectified prior to _this_ time?
I think Anonymous’s points are important to take into consideration here. The critique that Stoller brings up is not “inconsequential.” The history here is of great consequence. The rhetoric of “this is an emergency so we shouldn’t critique” is also dangeous because it is during the very time of emergency that critique is necessary. When we are in a hurry and responding without critical thinking is when we make the most dangerous decisions.
Being bothered by that sign is irrelevant to the currant situation. And as a writer it is irresponsible. You take the easy way out by criticizing a past you cannot change, and ignore what is important NOW. What happens must be achieved through work and difficulty, yet you hide behind political correctness. That facts of white “expansion,” slavery, the Civil War, etc. etc. are touted by every politician who looks for votes and repeated as litany. We know. Got it. Give us something thought provoking and original. You complain about the past, but ignore the fact that non-Caucasians in third-world countries are being affected right NOW by food shortages brought on by climate-change and economics, and fail to suggest any way to rectify that situation. You believe you support minorities and people of “color,” as you put it elsewhere in your blog, but ignore their current plight. This flood will affect them much more than “us.” Had that been the angle of your story as linked to the history of the sign, it would have been relevant and useful. There is no point in calling yourself an “ultra liberal activist hippy” and then hiding behind established injustices while doing nothing. Not liberal. Not active. Not a hippy. You didn’t think about the bigger, global picture, but used the flood to your own advantage to point out something that bothers you, and to re-establish yourself as a “liberal.” It’s a cop-out. You just want people to agree with you. Even when you responded to me, you just restated your earlier “disclaimer.” If you have to equivocate, what is the point of having an opinion in the first place?
Now, the sign. If the sign is that much of a problem, take a chain saw, get rid of it. Write a story. Then face the consequences.
Or at least link the story to some real analysis. Because you, Mr. Writer didn’t analyze. You said you did, but the analysis was missing. There was no link to the flood other than the fact that the sign stood in water.
An act of God? Hmmm. It doesn’t matter “why” people hurt. It is what. “Why” just makes you feel better. “What” has consequence.
Whatever the “why,” “what” we do matters.
And what you did ignored the issue and changed the subject. It did not discuss, expand, or provoke thought.
Are you going to help Afghans this year when they cannot buy food?
How much do you care?
Now. Again. Mr. Writer. What can you say to clarify yourself? If that is indeed what you meant?
Because pointing out a past social injustice that goes as far as a sign on the street doesn’t do it for me.
How about you?
Come on. Take me on, Mr. Writer.
I’m a writer too.
Stoller,
I answered Faris (above) as though it were you who wrote. I need to clarify: that was a mistake on my part, I didn’t realize it was someone else who answered.
Faris. I give no rhetoric. Choice number one: I suggested waiting until the issue of the sign with the past makes sense. The sign, however, has nothing to do with the flood, either in reality, or in the above article.
Choice number two, make them link somehow.
I just want to clarify that I have been labeled as an “Ultra lefty white bread neo-hippie.” I do not self-identify as a Ultra lefty white bread neo-hippie. The way I feel about the phrase “political correctness” or it’s relative, “politically correct,” can be found at this post.
It’s difficult to respond to your comment. I feel that it is rife with anger.
I would rather engage you in a discourse that allows me to be supportive of the loss that has occurred in Cedar Falls while simultaneously being free to analyze the historical marker, that prior to the floods, I had no idea about. The post is inherently related to the flooding in Cedar Falls because it was the news coverage and subsequent posting of the photograph on the Red Cross Flickr site that generated this post and its analysis.
I also feel that your last lengthy comment is wading deeply into Godwin’s law.
Sheila,
I am not sure what you mean by “I give no rhetoric.” Your second comment here pretty much argued that this type of criticism would be okay once the emergency of the flood is over. This is rhetoric (using means of persuasion), and it is the (tired) rhetoric of criticism during times of duress is bad.
In your most recent comment, you wrote: Choice number one: I suggested waiting until the issue of the sign with the past makes sense. The sign, however, has nothing to do with the flood, either in reality, or in the above article.
Choice number two, make them link somehow.
Choice number one suggests that the issue of the sign does not make sense right now. However, if this issue does not make sense now, when would it? Eric wrote about the historical inaccuracies of this sign, which are built upon the stealing of land from Native Americans. It seems like this criticism would always make sense until injustices have been healed.
Choice number two implies two things: there is no linkage at all between the flood and the sign. The linkage seems clear to me in the picture Eric posted. However, perhaps you want a stronger link: less of a visual one and more of a historical/cultural one. But then, why should there be? Doesn’t this presuppose that a blog post must have all the contents in it linked?
You write that you want something original. While Eric’s critique isn’t “original” (similar critiques have certainly been made before), it seems like this type of critique has either not been made or has gone unheeded if it has been made, for the sign is currently standing. It seems like his critique is less tired and unoriginal to me than the a sign and other city and county documents with flat-out inaccuracies in them.
I also find it interesting that in one comment, you request that Eric limit his discourse to just the flood, yet also wish for him to expand his content to all injustices. It seems like an extremely fallacious argument to state that because Eric has not covered nearly all global injustices, that he does not actually care about justice.
Eric,
I don’t see the Godwin’s Law connection.
[…] Cedar Falls, Iowa + flooding […]
Listen, Sheila is right. It is wrong to waste time thinking about the suffering of native people whilst white people are suffering.
/sarcasm