Audio
African American "Buffalo Soldiers" - Joe Certaine - Season 2 Episode 1
Transcript
Music Intro
Matthew Guebard (MG): Hello and welcome to the National Park Service Southwest Archeology Podcast, brought to you by the Southern Arizona Office. My name's Matt Guebard.
Sharlot Hart (SH): And I'm Sharlot Hart
MUSIC
MG: ...in this episode we are going to talk about Buffalo Soldiers. This is just one part of a series. Uh, it's worth mentioning before we start that we really wanted to release this episode in February to co-inside with African-American History Month. Unfortunately, because of the partial government shut down, we weren't able to get everything together in time. Of course, we don't need a certain month to talk about African American military history, so with that said, let's get to it.
Uh, so our interview today is with Mr. Joe Certaine. Mr. Certaine is a historian and a historical reenactor. His work focuses on African American Military History, particularly the period of time between the American Civil War and the end of what is collectively called the Indian Wars. What you'll get from the interview is that he is a wealth of knowledge about military history but also the fact that he is a historical reenactor gives him some insight into the day to day lives of soldiers in that period of time. And it also makes him a really powerful educator because he's able to go into schools and uh, portray the parts of history that aren't often part of the school curriculum.
SH: I'm especially excited to offer this interview with Mr. Certaine. And I was excited to be able to do the interview um, for a number of reasons. As I mentioned before, I am an archeologist, but came up through the National Park Service as an interpreter. And I spent a season at Chiricahua National Monument in uh, southeastern Arizona, in the Chiricahua mountains. And there is a um, an encampment there for Buffalo Soldiers that were dispatched from Fort Bowie, which is also a National Historic Site. So, while I was there, I put together a program on the encampment, but I was never able to really bring it to life. So, this interview with Mr. Certaine really brings the day to day to life. You know, in my day coming up through school, history focused on military movement not necessarily the social aspects and the lasting impacts of um, of these decisions that were made and uh, and so bringing those two together in this interview is really exciting for me.
MUSIC
MG: This is Matt Guebard and Sharlot Hart. We're hear with Mr. Joe Certaine historian, historical reenactor and founder of the Descendants Jubilee Project. Hi Mr. Certaine!
Joe Certaine (JC): Hello, Matt how are you?
MG: I'm doing well. Thank you. So we have some questions for you, about some of the work you do, uh, whenever you're ready.
JC: I'm ready!
MG: Alright. Well, uh, you're the founder of what's called the Descendants Jubilee Project. Can you provide the listeners a little bit about what that project is, uh, and how it started?
JC: Well, the Descendants Jubilee Project is a program that I've uh, used for oh, I guess 15 years to acquaint people with the uh, part of history that's been ignored. Um, primarily with black military heroes and western heroes and it is really, it was really started because, uh, most of my life, I never encountered any black heroes, in American History. And I always wondered why that was, given our involvement in every conflict that the United States has ever been involved in. And our involvement in the um, the development of the fronteir and so many other things. And so I went about researching to find out, first of all, why that was, and secondly, to uh, learn about who some of those people were. Where they were involved and what they did, uhm, to make them historical. Uhm, as I was researching some things, I uh, found out about the uh, role of the United States Colored Troops of the American Civil War, and how involved they were in the Union victory over the Confederacy, and how the Union forces, the United States forces, could have lost the Civil War, had they not involved Black soldiers at the time that they did, which contributed to the victory, uh, over, over the rebels, from about, I guess, 1863 or thereabouts, to the end of the war. So, I went further trying to find out what happened to those men, and what kinds of things were they involved in beyond that. But as I was doing the research, you know, I learned a lot about American History, from uh, especially military history, from the French and Indian War, before we were the United States, uh, right up through present day. And I learned that during that time period, there were no heroes other than white Anglo Saxon heroes in American history. Um, they were not allowed. Most mainstream historians never acknowledge the role that people of color had, in major events in American history. Part of what I was looking for and I'm still looking for now, is um, why is it that there are no roles for people of color or women, for that matter, um, in American history until recently. There were, in fact, there were more roles for, for women, more publicized roles for women in American history, than there were for people of color. And I just learned that, you know, that it was pretty much agreed upon that that part of history uh wasn't really the um, stories that would be projected about the building and development of the United States, especially as we talk about west of the Mississippi, during the time of the frontier west, up until 1890. So, I went about researching a lot of that. And pulled together, compiling it and presenting it to audiences, and then I decided to uh, as I presented it to audiences it was called the Shadow Warriors Project, and as I developed the website, I decided to call it the Descendants Jubilee Project, first of all, because I'm a descendant of a Civil War Sergeant and 1st South Carolina Volunteer Infantry, and also because the Jubilee was a word and a symbol to black folks during the antebellum period, uh, it was, We look for and fought for the coming of jubilee, which was a triumph over slavery. So the Jubilee could be equated with another word, um, Freedom. Um, and there were, there's a lot of music about it. There's songs, there's stories. And in black culture, the jubilee has a true day to day meaning. It's not just a word that's used, there's a whole history that goes along with it. So, that's why I did the Descendants Jubilee Project.
MG: Hmm. So, as part of that, you're a historical reenactor, which for the listeners means that you help to recreate historical events or periods, and you actually wear the period clothing, including all the equipment and the weapons, and you're on horse back as soldiers would have been. Do you have a sense for how your experiences as a re-enactor might inform your knowledge of the past?
JC: Well, um, that is... It was interesting. As I was developing my character, I um, I ride as umm, I decided to ride as George Goldsby. He was a solider during the Civil War and was a, was a man servant to a Confederate officer who had come from Selma, Alabama. And served with the United States Colored Troops during the Civil War, and then joined the 10th Cavalry after the Civil War, and became what's now called a Buffalo Soldier. But, um, with the 10th Cavalry, he was the 3rd Sergeant Major of the 10th Cavalry. And then he mustered out after his first tour and re-enlisted and was a 1st Sergeant through the 2nd tour of duty. Um, and actually, there's a story about him and how he left, left the military, um, that contributes to the tales of the Black Outlaws of the old west. It allowed me to learn about um, the clothing, the, the, the, geography of the old west, uh, some of the traditions and habits of the western frontier from a black perspective. And also about a lot of the prejudices and complexities of the day to day life, on the, um, during the Civil War period, and also later on, on the western frontier.
MG: That's a pretty good lead in to the next question that I had. Um, on your website, and we'll put a link to that, so that folks can take a look at it, you refer to African American soldiers during the 1800s as in the shadows of American history. I thought that it was a really sort of poetic way of saying that their contributions have been willfully ignored, aside from the basic fact that soldiers and their families deserve a lot of recognition for the sacrifices that they made. One question I wanted to ask, how do you think that that lack of recognition can affect people in today's world, uh, especially children.
JC: Well, it, it affects kids the same way it affected me: when you don't know who you are, you don't really understand who you can be. You don't recognize any potential. You don't recognize what the possible accomplishments can be. If you look, you look and everywhere that you see something that's exciting, that you are thrilled with, it's not done by any person of color. It's not, there's no participants of people who look like you. Which was one of the things that used to baffle me. And you know, I know when I was in elementary school, and in high school, I would ask questions that teachers couldn't answer or wouldn't answer. Uh, I think back then it coulda been they couldn't answer, and now it's more that they wouldn't answer, but it's largely because of the way that history is written, and the way that history is projected. And so, I think it has a lot to do with who people become, uh, as they grow into adulthood. And what they think of themselves um, socially and culturally, as they transition into um, um, productive citizens.
MG: So, in your role of historical reenactor, you're providing that information about the past, but also you're like a piece of living history. You're allowing, especially kids, to sort of see the person in the flesh and see it as living history. I think that's probably a really, really effective, effective tool, um, for folks to interact with somebody sort of from the past.
JC: Well, yeah, it's the best way to learn about things that you don't really have, uh, an interest in. Uh, you can tell somebody a story about the frontier west, but if you kinda re-enact the story that you're telling, with all of the props and acoutrements, and create the environment that you're talking about, people pay more attention, and they participate more fully. So, I, I always do presentations that are interactive. I don't just lecture, I allow people to ask questions, and I, I talk to them about different things. I... With kids, and when I have, when I'm doing it with my horse, we talk about the different kinds of saddles, and I show 'em to 'em, tell 'em why those saddles look like they do.
MG: Mhmm.
JC: What the chevrons on an army coat are for. What the stripes on the legs are for. What the different colors of the army branches are, and how soldiers can tell each other apart on the battlefield, or, and when they're away from their garrison. So, people have a better understanding when they watch something, or they see something, you know the difference between a corporal and sergeant and a sergeant and a commissioned officer, things like that. They also learned about uh, why western hats are the way they are. And why there's a reason for a high heeled boot with cowboys, and what the lariat was for, and things like that. So, that they can identify more closely not only with you the presenter, but the character you're portraying.
MG: Sure. Sure. So, uh, your character served as a Buffalo Solider. I wanna to talk a little about the name. Um, I'm curious to know where the name "Buffalo Solider" originated, and if that's the way that they would have referred to themselves.
JC: Well, listen, there's no way to really verify what I'm about to tell you, but it's commonly thought and also from the, uh, regimental reports of uh, some of the um, units and the company reports, that the soldiers of the 10th Cavalry, the mounted soldiers of the 10th Cavalry, got their name from the Cheyenne Nation in 1867. Um, at a, at a battle, uh, with Cheyenne along the Saline River [Battle of the Saline River]. And it was largely due to the way that they met each other in combat. Um, the Cheyenne were great warriors and in their warrior society they had uh, respect for uh, fierce combatants. They recognize valor and honor, and they recognize courage. And it was mostly uh, it was kind of heroic combat; they didn't, it was one on one, you distinguish yourself as a fighter. The Native, the warrior society didn't plan necessarily the way a US Military company would plan to fight. They fought as individuals. And no matter how large the group was, each individual was trying to distinguish himself in battle. And what they recognize first of all, that they out numbered this group of soldiers whom they had never seen before. Uh, in Kansas on the open plains. They had never seen them before, and they had never seen their battle tactics before and they way they thought. So, um, descriptively when they, when they sang songs and told songs after battle, about the group of men they encountered, they described them as Wild Buffaloes. And buffaloes which the Cheyenne and the plains tribes depended on for their existence, would fight when cornered, and would fight until they just couldn't, until they were exhausted, and they would drop, or they would die, but they would never quit at a fight. So, those kinds of stories kept being told until the title emerged as Wild Buffaloes, or Buffalo Soldiers. It's a lot like the name the Cree gave the Canadian Mounted Police, when they called them Pony Soldiers. [coughs]
MG: Hmm, So, I think probably a lot fo listeners are familiar with the term Buffalo Soldier, so did the name persist sort of, after that Indian War period?
JC: Well, what happens was the soldiers themselves didn't call themselves Buffalo Soldiers. That, the nickname that was given them by the Native Americans who were descriptive of black soliders in blue uniforms, especially in the winter, because they wore buffalo skin overcoats, and their hair was thick and woolly, like the coat of a, of a buffalo. So there was an immediate identification um, the name, the nickname uh, really got more public identification in the 20th century. In the 19th century it was only used in the black community, because of the stories that had uh, filtrated into, into the home communities about the deeds about the 9th and the 10th Cavalry. And by the way, the eventually, all black soldiers of the United States, during the frontier days, whether they were infantry or were cavalry, or were even some of the limited artillery units, were called, um, you know they adopted the name buffalo soldiers. But it was originally a name that was given to the 10th Cavalry. In fact, their battle flag, their regimental flag, has a buffalo in it's crest. I dont' know if you've ever seen one, but the crest of the 10th Cavalry contains a buffalo.
MG: Hm. So, when we were talking before, uh, you mentioned that, you're from Philadelphia, and you mentioned that you remember growing up, and actually seeing pictures of, of, of soldiers in people's houses. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about how soldiers were sort of portrayed in African American communities, uh, particularly, as, because we've already talked about how sort of in white culture, er- in white communities they weren't given any credit at all. Um, so I wonder if you can just talk a little bit about maybe seeing photographs or hearing stories about soldiers growing up.
JC: Oh, yeah! There were always stories. And the reality is that there were, there were few photographs. There were pictures and likenesses, but during that time period because of the remoteness of their battle stations, there was not too much of an opportunity, especially soldiers in the cavalry to be photographed. But toward the latter part of the 19th century, I guess, after the, especially after the uh, period of the Civil War photography came into it's own, there were opportunities for pictures to be made of black soliders in uniform, uh, with all the regalia and acoutrements of the cavalry in the west. And what would happen is that black community has always been proud of it's military history. And very very often, uh, you'd hear the stories about ... families um, who had a you know, a father or uncle, or grandfather or something who was either part of the 9th or 10th Cavalry. And they would have a picture of that person on the wall. And you know, in the old days, you'd have a picture of Jesus Christ, you'd have a picture of Lincoln, and in cases like here in Philadelphia, because the 10th Cavalry was heavily recruited in Philadelphia, uh, because when the 9th and 10th Cavalry were first being formed they needed people who could read and write to make up the ranks of the non-commissioned officers. So, there was a recruitment specifically, here in Philadelphia, to recruit soldiers for the military. And they had a recruitment office, and a recruitment officer, for uh, 10th Cavalry, for Colonel Grierson's Cavalry. So, a lot of black soldiers were recruited from Philadelphia. And not just for the Indian Wars, the Civil War there were a lot of recruitments, a lot of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania recruits for the United States Colored Troops in the Civil War. So the families identified with that, because that was one way to prove that their men were making a contribution. And secondly, that black men could do anything a white man could. So, that was very important because we had to constantly prove that we were worth recognition, worth getting the vote, worth being able to get a job, and all those kinds of things were important so they were used for inspiration.
MG: So, you, uh, you gave us a book, uh, or you keyed us into a book called "The Buffalo Soldiers" by William and Shirley Leckie. Really interesting book. A lot of in depth information in there. In reading through it, one of the things I sorta picked up on, there were a lot of dangers sort of threatening any soldier in the American west during the period of, of what's colloquially called the Indian Wars. The environment was harsh, there were outlaws everywhere, they were dealings with combatants, Native American combatants, but Buffalo Soldiers also had to contend with a lot of unjust treatment um, as we've mentioned very little recognition from the military, and really a general lack of respect and sometimes blatant violence from some of the frontier communities that they were ordered to protect. It sounds like young men in communities were aware of those hardships, but they still enlisted, so one question I wanted to ask is what are some of the reasons that young men continued to join up, given the, given the hardships that they knew they would probably face.
JC: [clears throat] Well, there are a lot of reasons, uh, one of them is a steady job, okay. Uh, and it was difficult after the Civil War for black men to find work, honorable work anywhere doing anything. But, um, the-- the uh, way they were treated in the frontier west, if I may add, I'd like to tell you a little bit of a story to flesh out the character of George Goldsby.
MG: Yeah, of course!
JC: Uh, George Goldsby came from, as I said, during the Civil War, Selma Alabama.And he switched sides, he was a teamster. And he started, he switched sides and joined the Union Army and was a teamster for the Union Army and after the uh, after, at the end of the Civil War, he's one of the people who, uh, when he mustered out of the United States Colored Troops, joined -- the 10th Cavalry was just being formed in 1866. He went to the 10th Cavalry and rose up through the ranks of the non-commissioned officers to become Sergeant Major, which is the highest ranking enlisted man in the military. Um, but um, he was stationed in 1872, uh, in uh, Texas where he mustered out and when he re-enlisted he was dropped back to 1st Sergeant rather than Sergeant Major, which is a regimental rank. He was regimental Sergeant Major, he was dropped back to 1st Sergeant. And as a 1st Sergeant he was assigned to Fort Concho Texas, right outside of San Angelo. And San Angelo was a very, was very much a racist town like most of the towns in Texas at the time. They didn't want to see any northern soldiers, and a black soldier in a blue uniform was definitely something they just did not want to see. Unless they were in trouble. When they were in trouble from outlaws or marauding Indians or something like that, then they were needed. But uh, during the regular course of things, they were not accepted or wanted to be uh, even in town. And uh, in San Angelo they had a habit of harrassing black soldiers when they came in to town from Ft. Concho. George Goldsby was the 1st Sergeant during a time when some men from the 10th Cavalry went into San Angelo Texas, and they were harassed by the townspeople, and one of his NCOs had the stripes removed, um, were cut off his jacket and stripped from his pants' leg. Which is something-- I don't know if you were ever in the military... But, for an NCO to have his rank, his visible rank stripped from him by people who are not authorized to do so, you can get into a world of hurt like that. These men, when they left town they went back to Fort Concho and they reported what happened to them. George Goldsby, being the 1st Sergeant of the company at that time, allowed his men to uh, pick up their carbines and go back into San Angelo to teach the cowboys and you know, the drovers, and some of the other miscreants there, that you didn't mess around with a soldier of the United States Army. Uh, a gun fight ensued, and uh, townspeople died, and I think one Buffalo Solider died. But, during that time period um, the Texas Rangers were also in authority in Texas, and they were about as racist as you could be. Um, they went out to Fort Concho to see Colonel Grierson to try and take into custody the soldiers who had been in the gun fight in San Angelo. The town was in an uproar. I don't need to tell you how, how, how troublesome the environment was. But one of the things that Colonel Grierson did, and that's one of the reasons that he's revered today, is that he wouldn't let the Texas Rangers take his men. And one of the things that he did, is that he allowed their 1st Sergeant, who was George Goldsby, he allowed him to ride out of the east gate of the fort, at Fort Concho, and Goldsby left his wife and a child, and went AWOL, so as not to be taken by the Texas Rangers. Um, and that was the kind of environment that they existed in. He was hunted for, and there're stories after that he had joined Pancho Villa, and he had uh, that he was riding, that he was actually riding with the comancheros. There are all kinds of stories, but in fact, his son grew to become Cherokee Bill. Have you ever heard of Cherokee Bill?
MG: I have, yeah!
JC: Well, that was George Goldsby's son.
MG: Wow.
JC: Uh, and that's how, he was the son of a, of a 10th Cavalry First Sergeant. So, that's how this stuff is interlinked, but it also points to uh, how difficult for-- how difficult things were for black soldiers. Black troopers on the frontier were not accepted by anybody, even the townspeople that they saved, and the railroads that they protected, and the stagecoaches that they rescued from peril. They were not accepted as uh, oh uh, what they did was not heroic to those people. They found a way of justifying their continuing hatred for black soldiers. Part of it had to do with the Civil War. But a lot of it had to do with just the pure hatred and racism that existed, and in some places still exists today.
MG: Sure.
JC: So, those are the kinds of things that black soldiers had to fight through, even as they protected the developing west from outlaws and um, Indians, and other kinds of marauders, that had western towns and railroads and stagecoaches in jeopardy.
But they also did a lot of mapping of the frontier. They mapped border holes and um, they did a lot of the surveying that resulted in a railroad moving west and telegraph lines and things like that. So, it was a mixed bag, but it had to be done by valiant people. And those were the people who were ignored by mainstream historians. They never wrote or even acknowledged that those kinds of things that happened, even though the records, in all this stuff that I'm saying, you can find it in county records, newspaper clippings, all kinds of things. The regimental returns, the post returns. The mainstream historians just chose to overlook that part of history when they were writing about the history of the uh, of the heroes of the frontier west.
MG: And we even talked in one of our previous discussions, about movies. Like, uh, movies that have been made in the last 25 years or so. And how there are scenes in movies that are related to actual happenings uh, that African American soldiers participated in, but in the movies its always white soldiers.
JC: That's absolutely correct. A full 20% of the cavalry in the west was black. That's all documented, that's part of the historical record. Uh, I'll give you an example. The Lincoln County War, in Lincoln County, New Mexico of Billy the Kid fame. That was quelled by troopers from the 9th Cavalry, from Fort Stanton. They were all black troopers! The troopers that hunted Billy the Kid were black troopers. The ones that hunted Cochise and Victorio and Nana, and Mangus Coloradas, all of those stories that movies have been made of were all black soldiers. When you talk about the mountain men, a lot of the, well quite a few of the mountain men were black. Jim Beckwith was one - he's always portrayed as a white man in movies. Uh, Dead Wood Dick was a black, was a former black soldier who became chief of a clan of the Crow Tribe. You know, part of the, some of the people who rode with the Hole in the Wall Gang were black. There were black gun fighters, there were black merchants, hotel keepers, all kinds of things. And whole black towns that were formed after the Civil War by formerly enslaved people, but those kinds of things were never written about, never acknowledged, never recognized as a part of the development of the frontier west. So, that's what I went about trying to correct. And with the uh, Descendants Jubilee Project.
MG: So, uh, what ended up happening to Buffalo Soldiers following the Indian Wars in the west?
JC: The uh, the 9th and the 10th Cavalry um, rotated through posts that were peace time uh, they, first of all they were regular army soldiers, so during peace time they rotated through different posts. They were stationed at West Point, they were stationed at different places around the country. But uh, when the call went out for combatants for the Spanish-American War, the only combat ready units were available for duty in Cuba were the 9th and 10th Cavalry, and the 24th and 25th Infantry. So those troopers, those soldiers, were gathered from around the west, and they were marshaled into locations in Florida, and they were sent to Cuba.
MG: I also read somewhere that as part of their military duties Buffalo Soldier units also served sort of as the very first park units at places like Yellowstone and Sequoia/Kings Canyon.
JC: Yeah, yeah. They were, they were the first-- heh, believe it or not, they were the first Border Patrol. [Laughs] Trump would love to hear that. And they did serve as uh, But they were among the first of the people sent in to protect the national parks, during their infancy, to the US Forest Service. So, yeah, there is a long, long proud history of the 9th and 10th Mounted Cavalry, uh, right up until the time when they got rid of horses and went to mechanized cavalry.
MG: And in fact one of the very first superintendents for I think, Yellowstone, was an army man named Charles Young, a Buffalo Soldier. And he now has his own national monument in Ohio.
JC: Yeah, uh, Charles Young was one of the people who was scheduled to attain the rank of General, who the US government mustered out of service so that they wouldn't have to raise him in rank, to a, he was a Bird Colonel, but they wouldn't allow him to proceed to a uh, never let him get his star. But, you know, we used to do, during the 90s, we used to go on rides around the country, that we would call the Charles Young Ride. We did a ride once a year, about 90 of us, or 100 of us, in full regimental uniform with battle flag. The whole nine yards. In his honor. At the, the reason it was in his honor, when he tried to prove to the United States government that he was still fit for duty as they were telling him that he was not fit for duty and mustered out, he rode from Ohio to Washington DC on horse back.
MG: Oh, wow.
JC: And that's why we did those rides. And uh, guys from all over the country would muster at certain locations, um, to mount up and ride trail in honor of Charles Young.
MG: Wow. Amazing.
Well, I only have one more question for you. And uh, I think there's maybe a couple components to it. Do you think in the, I don't know, 10 or 20 years or more, has the Park Service improved the way that it talks about the contributions of African American soldiers? And the second component of that question is what ways do you think that the Park Service can continue to improve.
JC: Well, let me give you a couple examples, one in the east and one in the west. Um, I'll start with the east. Um, are you familiar with the Battle of the Crater in the Civil War?
MG: I'm not, no.
JC: Okay, well, uh, there was an incident where a tunnel had to be dug through some fortifications. This was done by the Union. And black soldiers dug the tunnel, and uh, at the last minute against all of the battle plans that were done, the generals decided to send in white regiments to try and win the glory for what they saw was an easy victory. Well, the whole thing blew up in their faces. And uh, this was in, this was around uh, the town of Petersburg Virginia. The Battle of the Crater was a Union fiasco. And, but it led to the taking of Richmond, and contributed toward the end of the Civil War. But the National Park Service, when you go to the Crater Battlefield, or when you go to the Petersburg Battlefield, up until recently they never mentioned the black regiments that were involved in that battle. When the tourists would come in to be seated in the diorama, um, when the guides would talk about the battle, and the different positions, and light up the battlefield and tell people where different units were, and how the battle evolved, they never acknowledged that black units were a part, a major part of that battle and that battlefield. What has happened recently, and I would say in the last 10-15 years, I'm not sure when they actually did it, is that they expanded the story to include the United States Colored Troops. And it was largely because the National Park Service wanted to get people of color involved in visiting the battlefields and national parks. And it was a way to expand the participation of Americans in the history of the county. So they stopped just reaching out to um, white tourists, and they expanded it to include things of interest to the black community.
In the west, have you ever been to Little Big Horn?
MG: I've -- I've never been there. I'd like to go though.
JC: In Montana at the Battle of the Greasy Grass, is what the Indians call it, but the Little Big Horn river battlefield was always told from the perspective of the while combatants. Now the National Park Service is allowing the story from the Indian perspective to be told. And they have now hired and trained Native American guides and employees who can tell that story. And there's a difference [laughs] there's a real difference between the way the story was told by the Park Service earlier, and the stories that have been passed down through uh, Native American history, especially the history of the tribes that were involved: the Crow, the Cheyenne, and the Sioux, or I should say the Lakota. But the National Park Service has made an effort in the last, oh I would say the last couple decades to really expand um, the story of what took place in different parts of the country, and what the true history of the United States really is. I don't know if they're doing it everywhere, but just from what you're doing now, Matt, um, it leads me to believe the expansion is on-going, and that history is gradually being corrected. And the National Park Service is at the forefront of that. It's late! Uh, but it's still being done. And I think for a government to recognize it's own mistakes in presenting history to it's people, and attempt to correct it without a lot of fan fare, there's no, you know, there's no brass bands, or advertising campaigns that go along with this. This is just something that they've done, trying to be more accurate about what happened at different places around the country. And what the contributions were for the people who actually participated in the historical events.
MG: I think you touched on this kinda early in interview, the idea that history needs to be relevant to everyone. And that includes telling the stories of folks, those stories haven't been told in the past. I do think that the Park Service is trying, and I think that that's happening everywhere in the service.
JC: And that's good! And there's uh, a serious attempt for accuracy. And that's important because that will make, I know, I know in the black community it makes people more interested in visiting National Parks now, or historic battlefields and things like that. And people have a better vision of what government can actually do to contribute to the day to day life of an ordinary person in the country. So I think it's a good thing.
MG: Well, I don't have any other questions, but I just wanna say thank you. This has been a great interview, and I really appreciate the time that you've taken to share all of your knowledge with us.
JC: Well, I appreciate being asked.
MUSIC
MG: There's a lot to talk about with this interview, and we really can cover it all. But if I had to pick one thing, I would say it was really interesting to me the discussion about his role kinda as an educator int he schools, and how he can go in and meet with kids dressed in the period clothing and they have an opportunity in a lot of cases, to see somebody that looks like them, that's portraying an important part of history, that maybe they're not getting in the curriculum, and that can make history more relevant to them. And so he can play a really important role in that way.
SH: Yeah, definitely Matt. One of the quotes that really stood out to me, and I copied down when I was re-listening to the interview, is "when you don't know who you are, you don't really understand who you can be." So, doing interviews like this with Mr. Certaine, doing archeology of the under-represented, and looking at social history is so important. You know, as Mr. Certaine said again, 20% of the cavalry at that time in the west were African American and they're not represented in popular media today at all. Not in movies, not in retrospectives. So hopefully the National Park Service can continue giving a voice to the Buffalo Solider, as Mr. Certaine said that he'd seen some change over the years. And um, and hopefully these changes will inspire these heroes descendants.
MG: Thanks for listening. In our next episode we'll be talking to Marty Tagg who excavated a Buffalo Soldier Camp at Bonita Canyon.
SH: The National Park Service Southwest Archaeology Podcast is a production of the Southern Arizona Office of the National Park Service. Our artwork was designed by Laura Varon-Burkhart. Justin Mossman composed music. We look forward to hearing from you. Matt and I will be with you again next month.
Description
Starting off our second season, we have the honor to speak with Mr. Joe Certaine - historian and historical re-enactor, and creator of the Descendants Jubilee Project. He has intimate knowledge of the 19th Century African American solider who often ended up "in the shadows of American history."
**Links mentioned in podcast** https://www.descendantsjubileeproject.com/
Duration
52 minutes, 55 seconds
Credit
NPS/Southern Arizona Office
Date Created
06/11/2019
Copyright and Usage Info