Reading Response 1: Historical Narratives and Bias

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