Tuesday 21 April 2009

Theodore Roosevelt's African safari 1909

Roosevelt standing with native hunters over a dead lion during a safari in 1910. Photo credit: Library of Congress.

In March 1909, shortly after the end of his second term, Roosevelt left New York for a safari in Africa. Financed by Andrew Carnegie and by his own proposed writings, Roosevelt hunted for specimens for the Smithsonian Institution and for the American Museum of Natural History in New York. His party, which included scientists from the Smithsonian and was led by Frederick Selous, the famous big game hunter and explorer, killed or trapped over 11,397 animals, from insects and moles to hippopotamuses and elephants. 512 of the animals were big game animals, of which 262 were consumed by the expedition. This included six white rhinos. Tons of salted animals and their skins were shipped to Washington; the number of animals was so large, it took years to mount them. The Smithsonian was able to share many duplicate animals with other museums. Of the large number of animals taken, Roosevelt said, "I can be condemned only if the existence of the National Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, and all similar zoological institutions are to be condemned."^[37] Although based in the name of science, there was a large social element to the safari. Interaction with many native peoples, local leaders, renowned professional hunters, and land owning families made the safari much more than a hunting excursion. Roosevelt wrote a detailed account of this adventure; "African Game Trails" describes the excitement of the chase, the people he met, and flora and fauna he collected in the name of science.

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt

more safari history-Rooseveldt's safari

Safari Holidays: Brief History Safari has it roots in Arabic via Swahili and means “to make a journey”. Originally, Safaris were essentially trade missions seeking ivory, rhino horn, and slaves. With the coming of Europeans, the Safari began to be associated with exploration and the discovery. And those early European Safaris were huge operations that involved armies of staff and crew along with supplies and weapons. They blazed a trail for scientific safaris by Stanley and Livingstone or Burton and Speke. Many explorers never returned alive. Disease, starvation or death was part of the early African Safari experience.

African Safaris were trendy too. The novels of Rider Haggard, such as King Solomon’s Mines, introduced Allan Quatermain and the African Safari to an entirely new Victorian audience. Inevitably, along with great naturalists and men of science came the hunters. The European colonial ethic was to rule and dominate the people, the mineral resources and the wildlife. The Safari became synonymous with the “Hunt”. Conquering the wild beast and returning with trophies became the Safari’s entire purpose. Great White Hunters like Cornwallis Harris and Frederick Courtenay Selous prospered and by 1850 they were killing 30,000 elephant a year in East Africa. Gradually, this attitude changed. Those same hunters realised that the wildlife they were slaughtering was a finite resource. The first seeds of a conservation ethic were planted.

The Safari gradually began to change as the hunters began to consider themselves as naturalists and experts in bush craft. Selous’ book “A Hunter’s Wanderings In Africa” encouraged a new respect for natural Africa. Ironic though it may be, it’s because of men like Seleous and Harris that the conservation movement got started. That didn’t immediately stop the shooting parties though.

East Africa became the home of the Safari in the early 20th century and an entire industry grew up to cater for the every need of American and European clients keen to bag a trophy. The Guided Safari was born and probably reached its peak in 1909 with Theodore Roosevelt’s Great Safari, which cost £15,000.00 (several millions in today’s value!). Every Safari, whether undertaken by a hunter, naturalist, explorer, conqueror or colonial administrator, needed an army of gun-bearers, interpreters, guides, cooks and porters. Some of the Africans who made Safaris possible were almost as well known to the European public as the white explorers themselves.

By the middle of the last century portered safaris became less common as automobiles took over. Camping Safaris grew in popularity and so too did Photographic Safaris. The Safari Holiday has come a long way from the days of slave trading and over-zealous hunting. However, some elements of the Safari Holiday remain the same : Africa’s staggering natural beauty, the sense of freedom and adventure and the crucial involvement of Africa’s people. A Safari Holiday also remains a highly personal experience.

Safari bkround/Victorian novels

The word Safara comes from the Arabic meaning “to make a journey” and from that derives the Swahili synonym Safari. Nothing nobler than trade was the purpose of the first Safaris. Coastal Arabs and Swahilis traded for centuries with the African interior and Safari described not only the traders’ expeditions but also their huge caravans. The trophies sought by these 18th century explorers were ivory, rhino horn, and slaves. With the advent of European colonisation and the scramble for “A Place in the Sun”, the Safari began to become associated with exploration and exploitation of natural resources, animal and mineral.

European exploratory safari caravans were large-scale operations that involved a huge contingent of staff and crew along with supplies and weapons. They mapped out the “Dark Continent” and paved the way for scientific exploration. The expeditions of Stanley and Livingstone or Burton and Speke lasted years and involved the sort of preparations that were more commonly associated with equipping a small army. Many explorers never returned alive. Risk as well as adventure was an integral part of any Safari. Disease, starvation or attacks by wild animals or hostile tribes were part and parcel of the African Safari experience: magnificent, but potentially fatal. On the heels of the explorers came the early naturalists including men like William John Burchell, Thomas Ayres and Gustav Adolf Fischer. They were instrumental in identifying several species of animals, categorisation and taxonomy being pretty much the extent of what was considered “science” in those days.

The novels of Rider Haggard, especially his first blockbuster, King Solomon’s Mines published in 1875, introduced its hero Allan Quatermain and the thrill of life in the African Bush to an entirely new Victorian audience. This popular culture influenced generations of young Victorian men, imbuing the Safari with an irresistible allure to match the strong Empire ethic of “duty”. Inevitably, along with great naturalists and men of science came the hunters. Just as the colonial ethic was to rule and dominate the people, so the European sensibility of the time saw nothing wrong with doing the same to the wildlife. The Safari became synonymous with the “Hunt”. Killing the big beast and returning from the hunt with trophies ranging from hides, skins and heads, to an entire animal became the Safari’s sole raison d’être.

from cheesy travel blog

safari trophy pix

all previous from atkinson hunting

trophy hunter.ru pix

Frontier (definition from Nationmaster)

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Frontier

A frontier is a political and geographical term referring to areas near or beyond a boundary, or of a different nature.

In the United States, the frontier was the term applied by scholars to the impact of the zone of unsettled land outside the region of existing settlements of Americans. That is, as pioneers moved into the frontier zone they were changed significantly by the encounter. That is what Frederick Jackson Turner called "the significance of the frontier." For example, Turner argued in 1893, one change was that unlimited free land in the zone was available and thus offered the psychological sense of unlimited opportunity, which in turn had many consequences, such as optimism, future orientation, shedding of restraints due to land scarcity, and wastefulness of natural resources.

Throughout American history, the expansion of settlement was largely from the east to the west, and thus the frontier is often identified with "the west." On the Pacific Coast, settlement moved eastward. In New England, it moved north.

'Frontier' was borrowed into English from French in the 15th century with the meaning "borderland," the region of a country that fronts on another country (see also marches). The use of frontier to mean "a region at the edge of a settled area" is a special North American development. (Compare the Australian "outback".) In the Turnerian sense, "frontier" was a technical term that was explicated by hundreds of scholars. Mark or march (or various plural forms of these words) are derived from the Frankish word marka (boundary) and refer to an area along a border, e. ... A tourism sign post Yalgoo, Western Australia The Dingo Fence near Coober Pedy Fitzgerald River National Park in Western Australia Outback refers to remote and arid areas of Australia, although the term colloquially can cover any lands outside of the main urban areas. ...

Colonial frontier

In the earliest days of European settlement of the Atlantic coast, the frontier was essentially any part of the forested interior of the continent beyond the fringe of existing settlements along the coast and the great rivers, such as the St. Lawrence, Connecticut, Hudson, Delaware, Susquehanna River and James.

English, French, Spanish and Dutch patterns of expansion and settlement were quite different. Only a few thousand French migrated to Canada; these habitants settled in villages along the St. Lawrence river, building communities that remained stable for long stretches; they did not leapfrog west the way the Americans did. Although French fur traders ranged widely through the Great Lakes and Mississippi River watershed, as far as the Rocky Mountains, they did not usually settle down. Actual French settlement in these areas was limited to a few very small villages on the lower Mississippi and in the Illinois Country.^[1] Likewise, the Dutch set up fur trading posts in the Hudson river valley, followed by large grants of land to patroons who brought in tenant farmers who created compact, permanent villages. They did not push westward. ^[2]

In contrast, the English colonies generally pursued a more systematic policy of widespread settlement of the New World for cultivation and exploitation of the land, a practice that required the extension of European property rights to the new continent. The typical English settlements were quite compact and small--under a square mile. Conflict with the Native Americans arose out of political issues, viz. who would rule. Early frontier areas east of the Appalachian Mountains included the Connecticut river valley.^[3] The French and Indian Wars of the 1760s resulted in a complete victory for the British, who took over the French colonial territory west of the Appalachians to the Mississippi River. Americans began moving across the Appalachians into areas such the Ohio Country and the New River Valley.

Canadian frontier

A Canadian frontier thesis was developed by Canadian historians Harold Adams Innis and J. M. S. Careless. They emphasized the relationship between the center and periphery. Katerberg argues that "in Canada the imagined West must be understood in relation to the mythic power of the North." [Katerberg 2003] In Innis's 1930 work The Fur Trade in Canada, he expounded on what became known as the Laurentian thesis: that the most creative and major developments in Canadian history occurred in the metropolitan centers of central Canada and that the civilization of North America is the civilization of Europe. Innis considered place as critical in the development of the Canadian West and wrote of the importance of metropolitan areas, settlements, and indigenous people in the creation of markets. Turner and Innis continue to exert influence over the historiography of the American and Canadian Wests. The Quebec frontier showed little of the individualism or democracy that Turner ascribed to the American zone to the south. The Nova Scotia and Ontario frontiers were rather more democratic than the rest of Canada, but whether that was caused by the need to be self-reliant on the frontier itself or the presence of large numbers of American immigrants is debated. Harold Adams Innis (November 5, 1894-November 8, 1952) was a professor of political economy at the University of Toronto and the author of many seminal works on Canadian economic history and on media and communications.

The Canadian political thinker Charles Blattberg has argued that such events ought to be seen as part of a process in which Canadians advanced a "border"-- as distinct from a "frontier"--from east to west. According to Blattberg, a border assumes a significantly sharper contrast between the civilized and the uncivilized since, unlike with a frontier process, the civilizing force is not supposed to be shaped by that which it is civilizing. Blattberg criticizes both the frontier and border "civilizing" processes.

Canadian Prairies

The pattern of settlement of the Canadian prairies began in 1896, when the American prairie states had already achieved statehood. Pioneers then headed north to the "Last Best West." Before settlers began to arrive, the North West Mounted Police was dispatched to the region. When settlers began to arrive, a system of law and order was already in place and the Dakota lawlessness for which the American "Wild West" was famed did not occur in Canada. Before settlers arrived, the federal government also sent teams of negotiators to meet with the Native peoples of the region. In a series of treaties, the basis for peaceful relations was established and the long wars with the Natives that occurred in the United States largely did not spread to Canada. Like their American counterparts, the Prairie provinces supported populist and democratic movements in the early 20th century. ^[4] Pamphlet advertising the last best West Last best West was a phrase used to market the Canadian prairies to prospective immigrants.

Europe

In the European Union, the frontier is a term used to describe the region beyond the expanding borders of the European Union. The European Union has designated the countries surrounding it as part of the European Neighbourhood. This is a region of primarily less-developed countries, many of which aspire to become part of the European Union itself. Current applicants include Turkey and Croatia. Ukraine has also set itself the primary task of eventually joining the Union, as have many small countries in the Balkans and South Caucasus. Romania and Bulgaria, joined the European Union in 2007. Proposals to admit Turkey have been debated (and rejected), partly on the ground that Turkey is beyond Europe's historic frontier. If all or most East European states become members, the frontier may be the boundaries with Russia and Turkey. The European Neighbourhood is the region beyond the frontier of the European Union.

References

US history

The Frontier In American History by Frederick Jackson Turner
Billington, Ray Allen. America's Frontier Heritage (1984), an analysis of the frontier experience from perspective of social sciences and historiography
Billington, Ray Allen. Westward Expansion: A History of the American Frontier (1952 and later editions), the most detailed textbook, with highly detailed annotated bibliographies
Billington, Ray Allen. Land of Savagery / Land of Promise: The European Image of the American Frontier in the Nineteenth Century (1981)
Blattberg, Charles Shall We Dance? A Patriotic Politics for Canada (2003), ch. 3, a comparison of the Canadian 'border' with the American 'frontier'
Hine, Robert V. and John Mack Faragher. The American West: A New Interpretive History (2000), recent textbook
Lamar, Howard R. ed. The New Encyclopedia of the American West (1998), 1000+ pages of articles by scholars
Milner, Clyde A., II ed. Major Problems in the History of the American West 2nd ed (1997), primary sources and essays by scholars
Nichols, Roger L. ed. American Frontier and Western Issues: An Historiographical Review (1986) essays by 14 scholars
Paxson, Frederic, History of the American Frontier, 1763-1893 (1924)
Slotkin, Richard, Regeneration Through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600-1860 (2000), University of Oklahoma Press

Canada

Blattberg, Charles Shall We Dance? A Patriotic Politics for Canada (2003), ch. 3, a comparison of the Canadian 'border' with the American 'frontier'
Cavell, Janice. "The Second Frontier: the North in English-canadian Historical Writing." Canadian Historical Review 2002 83(3): 364-389. ISSN 0008-3755 Fulltext in Ebsco
Clarke, John. Land, Power, and Economics on the Frontier of Upper Canada. McGill-Queen's U. Press, 2001. 747 pp.
Colpitts, George. Game in the Garden: A Human History of Wildlife in Western Canada to 1940 U. of British Columbia Press, 2002. 216 pp.
Forkey, Neil S. Shaping the Upper Canadian Frontier: Environment, Society and Culture in the Trent Valley. U. of Calgary Press 2003. 164 pp.
Katerberg, William H. "A Northern Vision: Frontiers and the West in the Canadian and American Imagination." American Review of Canadian Studies 2003 33(4): 543-563. ISSN 0272-2011 Fulltext online at Ebsco
Mulvihill, Peter R.; Baker, Douglas C.; and Morrison, William R. "A Conceptual Framework for Environmental History in Canada's North." Environmental History 2001 6(4): 611-626. ISSN 1084-5453. Proposes a five-part conceptual framework for the study of environmental history in the Canadian North. The first element of the framework analyzes approaches to environmental history that are applicable to the Canadian North. The second element reviews historical forces, myths, and defining characteristics that pertain to the region. A third element of the framework tests the validity of Turner's Frontier Thesis and Creighton's Metropolitan Thesis when applied to northern Canada. The fourth element consists of an overview of major northern environmental trends. The final element consists of four interrelated themes that identify the environmental relationships between northern and southern Canada.

External links

^ Clarence Walworth Alvord, The Illinois Country 1673-1818 (1918)
^ Arthur G. Adams, The Hudson Through the Years (1996); Sung Bok Kim, Landlord and Tenant in Colonial New York: Manorial Society, 1664-1775 (1987)
^ Allan Kulikoff, From British Peasants to Colonial American Farmers (2000)
^ Laycock, David. Populism and Democratic Thought in the Canadian Prairies, 1910 to 1945. 1990; Seymour Martin Lipset, Agrarian Socialism (1950).

Categories: Canadian-American relations | History of United States expansionism

Frontier - Wiki
	In the United States, the frontier was the term applied to the zone of unsettled land outside the region of existing settlements of Americans.

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