BRIAN: This is backstory with the American History Guys. I'm Brian Balogh.
ED: I'm Ed Ayers.
PETER: And I'm Peter Onuf. Today's show, reenactments. We're asking what it is that makes Americans wanna dress up and relive the past.
ED: Historical reenactments today tend to focus on events from a long time ago. But in the late 1800, America's most popular reenactment by far depicted events that were still happening. It was called Buffalo Bill's Wild West. Buffalo Bill Cody had spent his early years on the frontier as a Pony Express rider, a US cavalry scout, and a contract buffalo hunter among other things. But in 18 seventies, he started spending winners in theaters back east playing the role of, well, himself. He was on a stage, in fact, says historian Richard Slotkin, when news arrived of Custer's defeat at Little Bighorn in 1876.
RICHARD SLOTKIN: He is said to have stepped forth on the stage and claimed he would get the 1st scalp for Custer. That's probably not true. But he did immediately leave New York and rejoin the 5th cavalry, and they were preparing for a skirmish in which he knew he would play a leading role. And so he dressed for the skirmish in his theatrical costume. So he went into battle dressed it's a kind of a vaquerosuit with gold braid and
BRIAN: Sure. I I I had many when I was growing up.
RICHARD SLOTKIN: Yeah. So yes. Exactly. So that he could say when he went back to the East after the campaign that I stand before you in the very clothes I wore when I took the first scalp for Custer. And yet those very clothes would be the perfect theatrical costume.
BRIAN: It was this episode Slotkin told me that Cody used to catapult himself to national fame. A few years later, he created the circus like extravaganza, The Wild West. It had a cast of 100 and was sort of in American history's greatest hits. The grand finale, a dramatic rendition of, you guessed it, Custer's Last Stand.
RICHARD SLOTKIN: They would have cleared the arena, and the, cavalry, would have paraded, and the cavalrymen in the parade would have been real cavalrymen, either veterans or sometimes in some performances they had actual, serving cavalry guys. And, the Indians who would then do a ride around were Indians, many of whom had fought Custer, and you would have seen Indians form an ambush. You would have seen the cavalry do some ride arounds, then the cavalry rides into the center. There's all kinds of shooting with blanks. The cavalry are surrounded and overwhelmed by the Indians, and, finally, the cavalry are lying dead on the arena floor. The Indians have disappeared, and Buffalo Bill himself would ride out as the lights, if it's an evening performance, dim, leaving him in a spot and over his head would appear what they call an illuminated transparency saying, too late, implying that if Buffalo Bill had only received earlier notice, he could have saved custody.
BRIAN: Well, up to the illuminated transparency, how accurate would you say this was given, of course, the constraints of time and, reproduction?
RICHARD SLOTKIN: Well, given the restraints of time and reproduction, not accurate at all. And I should say Buffalo Bill always advertised his performances as authentic and realistic, but what was authentic and realistic about it was the uniforms, the weapons that were used, and above all the personnel Yes. The the the actual cavalrymen and the the Indians. In fact, he featured in some performances Sitting Bull and an Indian whose name was Rain in the Face, who was reputedly the Indian who killed Custer.
BRIAN: So by incorporating Indians real Indians into their performance, integrating them, if you will, is he sending a message about, integrating the South back into the North, reconciling, the union with Confederate soldiers?
RICHARD SLOTKIN: Well, well, he's doing something even more interesting than that. He stages a reconciliation of cavalrymen and Sioux Indians who had both fought not only at, Little Bighorn but also at the massacre of the Sioux at Wounded Knee. This is in 1893. In in 1890, Cody had actually been involved in Wounded Knee trying to get Sitting Bull to surrender to avoid the outbreak of hostilities. So it's an, again, one of those real world adventures suddenly becoming the the basis of entertainment. But he stages a red and white reconciliation that parodies or reflects the kind the blue and gray, but it does it across the color line. And in 1893 America, the Jim Crow America, that is a very, very interesting thing
BRIAN: Yes.
RICHARD SLOTKIN: For somebody to do.
BRIAN: That's just remarkable. And the other thing that's remarkable, in the context of reenactment today is how close the reenactment was to the actual event being reenacted in time.
RICHARD SLOTKIN: Yes. He kept that going. The the Custer's last stand is, of course, the big spectacular. But in 1899 when the US gets, involved in the Spanish American War, he changes it. He substitutes for the last stand the charge of the Rough Riders at San Juan Hill. And after 1899, as the United States involves itself in more imperial adventures, he adds those adventures to the end of the show so that the reenactment of the frontier, the old frontier, segues into reenactments from the new or imperial frontier beyond the Pacific. So so for example, they do a scene from the Boxer Rebellion, the storming of Tientsin. They do a scene from the Philippine Insurrection and, of course, San Juan Hill. And what he's doing there is convincing Americans that the geographical expansion of the country into the West is the key to understanding why America continually grows and progresses, why we get wealthier and stronger and braver and more courageous as we, as we go along.
BRIAN: Richard Slotkin is the Olin Professor Emeritus of American Studies at Wesleyan University. His latest book is The Long Road to Antietam, How the Civil War Became a Revolution.