STORY FROM INDIAN COUNTRY: What We Learned from the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial, THE

IT IS HARD TO REMEMBER a world without bicentennials. An entire generation has now passed since Queen Elizabeth II helped turn history on its head by touring Britain's former American colonies to help celebrate the two hundredth birthday of the United States. In ensuing years, we have celebrated birthdays of the Statue of Liberty, the Columbus voyages, the U.S. Constitution, the D day landings, the Wright brothers' first flight, and founding events in cities and states across the continent. These occasions shared a central aspect of the 1976 original: a common commitment to "happy history." Aimed initially at fostering public patriotism and increasing attendance at museums and historic sites, American bicentennials and anniversaries have generally stressed the strength and courage of historical actors and credited them with making possible the prosperity and happiness of the present.

But the celebrations have not always come off smoothly. In the 1980s, the strongest words of dissent came from American Indians who began warning Christopher Columbus's fans and advocates that native peoples were not interested in celebrating his 1492 voyage. Nervous officials quickly scotched the idea of a 1992 world's fair in the U.S., and Italian-American and Spanish officials were routinely embarrassed by native delegations appearing at their parades and press conferences. By the time the quincentennial year rolled around, chastened promoters had renamed the 1992 events a "commemoration" and learned to forego the term "discovery," in favor of the more accurate term "encounter."

Given this history, anyone considering the prospect of a three-year bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark Expedition a decade ago would not have been optimistic. If the popularizers who supervised previous celebrations took charge, it seemed we would be in for another celebration of a national "mission accomplished." At the same time, the story of the Corps of Discovery promised to bring out dissenters who would surely remind celebrants that European expansion came at the cost of dispossessing Native Americans and bullying Mexico into giving up die northern third of its young country. A "happy history" commemoration-and a "tragic history" response-promised to open one more battle in the ongoing exchange of ignorance, resentment, and misunderstanding that Native American anthropologist D'Arcy McNickle once called "the Indian war that never ends."1

But remarkably, the Lewis and Clark bicentennial seems to have come off with barely a hitch. While promoted by boosters seeking tourist dollars more than new insights and leavened by a raft of goofy souvenirs, the 2004-2006 bicentennial seemed to generate almost none of the heat or fire of earlier commemorations. In the summer of 2004, one group of eager Lewis and Clark reenactors was shocked when Alex White Plume and a group of Sioux protestors met them as they put ashore near Chamberlain, South Dakota, but that brief confrontation seemed notable primarily because of its rarity. "Lewis and Clark brought the death and destruction of our way of life," White Plume told the reenactors. But unlike the partisans of Colonel George A. Custer or the American Indian Movement activists who occupied Mount Rushmore, these travelers were in no mood to fight. "We're not Lewis and Clark," one of them replied. "We are a group of volunteers."2

WHY THE apparent peace and quiet?

Three reasons come to mind. First, the location of most commemorations in the West and the presence there of dozens of modern tribal governments representing the descendants of people who interacted personally with the explorers created a structural reality previous Lewis and Clark commemorations lacked. This event was anchored in Indian country, and the presence of Indian people could not be denied. Moreover, the region's native communities survived the past two centuries of dispossession as well as the previous few decades of confrontation and cultural revival in part because they had developed an ability to speak for themselves and defend their view of the past. They were ready to speak up and they insisted on being heard. The membership of the bicentennial groups organized to plan and coordinate bicentennial events reflected this new structure.

From 1976 on, Congress or other governmental agencies authorized commissions to lead each major historical commemoration. These commissions rarely commanded the resources to sponsor activities of their own, but they exercised control over the entire celebration by stamping some events with their approval and discouraging others. Over time, the most effective commissions developed an ability to set an overall tone for the proceedings. This time around the National Council of the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial played this oversight role. Organized originally by leaders of a private group, the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation, the council joined forces with the National Park Service and several historical societies during the 19905 and received the endorsement of Congress in 1997. A year later, the council completed a complex set of agreements with the federal departments with jurisdiction over public lands and programs along the explorers' route, including the departments of the Interior, Transportation, and Defense. This governmental spadework likely elevated the importance of consultation and consensus in the bicentennial planning process. The desire for consensus was also spurred on by the fact that several Native American leaders were founding members of the National Council, and one of them, former Nez Perce tribal chair Alien Pinkham, quickly organized a Circle of Tribal Advisors to provide additional input. The Circle began meeting annually in 2000.