I was in Tucson weekend with my family for the Arizona Wildcats football game. My father in law is an alum, and every I watch a game with him in the alumni box. Not necessarily a Wildcats fan (not that the Bruins are doing much these days, despite finally beating Stanford this weekend), but the food is good and the company is better.

Anyway, we have most of the day in Tuscon tomorrow, and one of the things I was interested in doing was going to the site of the Camp Grant Massacre. Located 59 miles north of Tuscon, this location was where on April 30, 1871 a group of Tohono O’odham warriors, Mexican civilians, and six Americans killed 144 Aravaipa Apaches. Without going into too much detail about what led to this brutal event (for those who are interested, I highly recommend Karl Jacoby’s wonderful – if haunting – account, of the massacre, Shadows at Dawn), it was a fairly significant event in the history of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands.

What was really surprising to me, though, is that there is no monument. No park, no commemorative plaque, not even a roadside marker. Nothing. Just desert.

In recent years there has been a great deal of controversy over Confederate monuments and whether or not they should be removed. While I don’t intend to weigh in on that specific issue here, one of the comments often made in defense of keeping Confederate monuments is that by losing them we risk forgetting our history. I don’t agree with that argument (I’m an historian, after all – I am literally paid to make people learn and hopefully not forget history), but it does bring up an interesting point: do we risk forgetting about tragic events if we don’t memorialize them in any way?

I think we do.

How many folks in Tuscon know about this attack? Not many, I’d wager. Yet here they are, sixty miles from what could be a fantastic opportunity for local students and others to learn about the US-Mexico borderlands, regional indigenous groups, and frontier violence . . . and there is nothing.

For a good template for what is possible, one might check out the Massacre Canyon Monument in Trenton, Nebraska, where as many as 100 Pawnees were killed by the Lakota as they hunted bison in the Republican River Valley on August 5, 1873. I discuss this event in my upcoming book, Never Caught Twice: Horse Stealing and Culture in Western Nebraska, 1850 – 1890.

Despite its isolation (it is VERY far from virtually everywhere), the monument is respectful, informative, and an enduring tribute to the men, women, and children who died that day.

While it is disappointing to learn that there is no similar monument for the Camp Grant Massacre, it is never too late to build one. And for those who defend existing monuments to more controversial figures, it is never too late to reevaluate their ability to not only teach us about the past, but to inspire us to be better in the future.

[Note: I realized that I promised a blog about why non-academics should attend academic history conferences. Let’s, uh, put a pin on that . . . not that I don’t stand by this sentiment, but I had a number of conversations this past weekend about the present and future direction of the WHA, and about some of the rival organizations out there that are currently attracting more members, that compel me to think about the matter some. Stay tuned . . . I do plan on talking about this at some point. – ML]

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