The readings of this week, Chapters 1 and 2 of Michel-Rolph Troulliot’s,
Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History, and a sample
from Jessica Marie Johnson’s, Markup Bodies, both seek to involve themselves
in one of the greatest problems of history, the creation of historical
narrative and the bias of the narrator. The quote from Roman historian Sallust’s
book The History of Catiline, which Troulliot uses to open his book, “I
am well aware; that by no means; equal repute; attends the narrator; and doer
of deeds,” not only perfectly encapsulates this idea, but also shows us that this
problem stretches back as far as the Roman Republic. In fact, the topic of this
book, the Roman Senator Catiline, is seen by some historians as a victim of
this problem, with people of his day and future historians seeing the story of
the Second Catilinarian Conspiracy only from the perspective of Cicero, another
Roman senator that was a political opponent of Catiline, and of Catiline, who
was known for major embellishments in his work. These two called him evil and
immoral, and while this may be true, there is evidence to the contrary, such as
Catiline having a large supporting base of dissatisfied citizens in the
Republic, such as the working poor and veterans, that no historians until nearly
2,000 later cared to delve into. The ignoring of certain facts by historical
actors in order to create an support a historical narrative is exactly the problem
that both Troulliot and Johnson delve into. Another example of this given by
Troulliot is the story of the Alamo, and how the victory of Texas over Mexico
was able to change the historical narrative. As Troulliot states, “But in more
important ways, he was doubly defeated at San Jacinto. He lost the battle of
the day, but he also lost the battle he had won at the Alamo…With the battle
cry of San Jacinto, Houston’s men reversed for more than a century the victory
Santa Anna thought he had gained in San Antonio.”[1] This is less an example of
historical actors changing the narrative, but rather historical events changing
the perception of previous ones. If the Texans under Sam Houston had not
defeated the Mexican forces at San Jacinto, the Alamo would be remembered as little
more than a minor skirmish in a unsuccessful and insignificant Texan uprising, similar
to events in American history such as the Whiskey Rebellion. Johnson looks at
this bias and shows how digital history, such as the visualization and analysis
of historical data, can help to allow historians look at history in a new light
and possibly discover other, less analyzed portions of history, and may allow
for the refuting of the claims of previous historians. Her focus is on Black
studies and Slavery studies, and how they interact with digital history, and as
she states, “Doing truly embodied and data-rich histories of slavery requires
similarly remixing conceptual, discursive, and archival geographies, with
deliberate, pained intimacy, and, likely, some violence. But black digital
practice challenges slavery scholars and digital humanists to feel this pain
and infuse their work with a methodology and praxis that centers the
descendants of the enslaved, grapples with the uncomfortable, messy, and unquantifiable,
and in doing so, refuses disposability.”[2] The opening of new windows
into the past has allowed for the reevaluation of past events, and is allowing
historians to look at what we thought we knew as fact with a certain bit of doubt,
both allowing for a clearer picture of the past but also complicating what were
once known as historical certainties. History is, simply put, a study of
stories, and understanding the bias of the narrator is important to understanding
history as a whole. While digital history may open up a new way at looking into
the past, bias and the creation of historical narratives will continue to permeate
into the subject of history, and it is up to historians to try to determine
what happened.
[1] Trouillot, Michel-Rolph (1995), Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History, pg.2
[2] Johnson, Jessica Marie. “Markup Bodies: Black [Life] Studies and Slavery [Death] Studies at the Digital Crossroads.” Social Text, 36(4), 2018, 57-79. https://doi.org/10.1215/01642472-7145658
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