Savagery, Sloth, and Scenic Vistas: Henry Rowe Schoolcraft in the Ozarks, 1818-1819

Keywords: travel literature, Ozarks, place perceptions, cartography
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Saturday
Session Start / End Time: 2/26/2022 11:20 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/26/2022 12:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 18

Abstract

Henry Rowe Schoolcraft (1793-1864) commented frequently on both the environmental and cultural characteristics he observed in the Ozarks of the American South during his wilderness trek of 1818 to 1819. This presentation focuses on perception maps created to better understand the spatial patterns evident in Schoolcraft’s discourse. The cultural and environmental perception maps were constructed using GoogleEarth to locate each observation. The observations were divided into cultural and environmental categories and further coded as positive, negative, or descriptive. The resulting perception maps reveal spatial and temporal patterns in Schoolcraft’s place perceptions of the Ozarks. First, Schoolcraft was much more negative in his commentary during the first half of his trek than he was in the second half of the journey. Second, his cultural discourse reveals the social biases of American men of his class and regional background in favor of cultural ecologies and landscapes that are settled, commercial, and agricultural. Finally, Schoolcraft’s environmental commentary was largely negative as he trekked across the Salem Plateau, where he perceived the land to be sterile, rough, and barren, while his language was more positive during his travels through the valleys of the White and James Rivers. The paper demonstrates a methodology for mapping the place perceptions evident in travel accounts to cartographically represent the places experienced by travelers rather than simply the spaces traversed.