In the last post, we considered some of the major myths designed to guide people to live a purposeful life in Western civilization. In this post we will consider a number of myths in what is now the United States. They took us in a darker direction and still have an effect on our civilization from the earliest days to the present.
Karen Armstrong in her book, A brief history of the myth, affirmed that “we need myths that help us identify with all our fellow men, not simply with those who belong to our ethnic, national or ideological tribe. We need myths to help us revere the earth as sacred once again, rather than just using it as a resource.” Such lofty ideals are not always held in high esteem, including the principles discussed by our Founding Fathers (not including mothers). Instead , the main focus was on wealthy male landowners.
An unfortunate myth in the North was concern about witches, paralleling the witchcraft hysteria in Europe. Reverend Parris, a trader in the Caribbean, brought home a couple of slaves with him. The wife ended up spending a fair amount of time with the Parris girls, often focused on stories from the islands, including those related to voodoo lore and practices.
The rest of the story is not entirely clear. It seems that the girls started telling fortunes and having “fits”. The suspected witches were brought before the girls. If the presence of the suspects was followed by attacks by the girls, this was taken as a sure sign that the suspects were witches. Although all of this seemed to start out as child’s play, it took a deadly turn to the point that one hundred and forty-one “witches” were arrested and nineteen hanged.
In the 19th century, President James Polk championed the Manifest Destiny theory (myth). This belief or doctrine held “that the expansion of the United States throughout the American continent was both justifiable and inevitable”, according to the Oxford Languages compendium.
Long before the term Manifest Destiny was invented, early settlers in northern Europe considered what would become America to be ripe for the taking despite the centuries of civilization of the native peoples who lived here long before the Europeans. knew that this land existed. The history of the United States includes pushing the natives out of the way. Although there were some attempts to negotiate with them, for the most part these people were seen as an obstacle and an inconvenience. They were first pushed into the western areas of the continent and eventually confined to reservations. Even then, the reserves were consolidated and the land on the reserve was reduced to a minimum as the lands given to them were deemed ripe for development or appropriation of natural resources. Manifest Destiny was considered to apply only to “white” citizens. Manifest Destiny, of course, was a myth to justify expansion across the earth. There was no legal or moral justification for it, but as a “truth” for their own benefit.
Although the idea of white supremacy seems to have been created or imagined by us, it was alive and well in Europe before the first northern European settlers arrived in the Americas. They considered the American territories intended for them as superior people to the exclusion of the Irish, Italians, Asians, or Africans, unless they were brought in as servants and slaves. Slavery existed from the earliest days of America. It was written into our Constitution so that the southern states would feel comfortable being part of the American experiment.
Slavery itself was not a myth but a crude practice associated with the myth of white superiority. The struggles over the institution of slavery continued through the early days of our nation, ultimately culminating in the Civil War which outlawed slavery but did not end the racism that continues to divide us even today. Racism is not a myth in itself either, but again it depends on racial superiority for its justification. People kidnapped and brought to this country were considered to have no rights other than cattle. The greatest equality southern blacks could achieve until the Civil War was counting each as three-fifths of a person, which benefited southern white landowners in their representation in Congress, but did not benefit blacks at all. There were free blacks in the north. When I visited Charleston, I learned that there were some free black slave owners.
Post-Civil War blacks began to make some headway during the Reconstruction years that eventually came to an end, ushering in the Jim Crow era, the remnants of which linger to this day. Great strides toward racial equality have been made over the years, but significant pockets of racism continue to permeate our society based on the myth of white superiority. Educational and job opportunities, housing opportunities, and police protection, to name a few, are still far more available to whites than to people of color, including Native Americans, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians, as well as anyone else who is not considered white enough. the desirable basket.
One last myth remains to be discussed that now threatens the very existence of our democracy, that of Trumpism. We will address this in the next post.
