The Bancroft Papers -- Better Than the Best Historical Fiction

Spending hours a week in them -- better than an historical novel, miniseries or movie.

It's frustrating that U. S. readers are so uninterested in our own history, either as historical fiction (unless it turns into romance-erotica bs) or television miniseries.

Our nation's history may not be as long as Europe's or Asia's, even when we take into account the First Peoples and all they did -- at least Europeans and Asians think so.

But as relatively short then, our continents' recorded histories may be -- when it comes to the depth, the scope, the range -- the endless parade of vivid, fascinating characters -- we need not take a back seat to any other country.

When the box is delivered to my table, I choose what to delve into. More often than one might think, I need to send the box right back. The papers' finding aids are usually worse than useless, they're misleading, because mislabeled, and earlier researchers have torn their order to pieces. Too often the box's contents are useless for my research, such as the scrapbooks of Frederick's brother's career -- he and Edgar were so close and so admiring of each other, that Frederick kept meticulous clippings and copies of every speech Edgar ever made. Frederick donated reams of his brother's career documentation, along with his own research papers. Frederick wrote most of Edgar's speeches, being an excellent writer, while Edgar's talent was for making money.  But interesting and useful as these boxes might be for a student researching the Gilded Age, they are of no use to The American Slave Coast.

But once I find a folder that is concerned with antebellum matters in the South, I fall, fall, fall ever deeper into another world that is more vivid to me than this one in every way.  I'm confronted by one new figure after another, all of them of great interest, all of them I wish to know more of.  Sometimes I do know more of them, but not always.  For one thing, there's more of the natural world, that natural world that's nearly gone, embedded in everything.

Wild Turkey, Edisto Island

I dream of these matters now, constantly, every night.

On the other hand, I also push far away the horror of the matters with which I'm most concerned.  Then, unexpectedly, something I read, something el V and I discuss, as last night at the Bistro over the perfectly chilled beers, while the rain poured and steam rose from the sidewalks, the horror grabs us both.  And we stare, into our glasses, and look at each other from the corners of our eyes.  The eyes of us both are damp, our stomachs clenched with shame that this is how our country was built.