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| Statue of General Philip Sheridan on the grounds of the New York State Capitol, Albany, NY. |
On the grounds
of the State Capitol building in Albany, NY, resides a statue of city native
General Philip Sheridan. Erected in 1914 while many Civil War veterans were
still alive, the memorial honors Sheridan who played who played an important
role the defeat of the Confederacy. After the war, Sheridan was put in command
of the Department of the Missouri to fight the various Native American tribes
and bring them into submission.
As widely
reported in various sources, including writers/historians Dee Brown in Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee and Evan
S. McConnell in his extensive biography of George Armstrong Custer Son of the Morning Star, Sheridan is
also rather infamously noted as saying, “The only good Indians I ever saw were
dead.” While Sheridan himself
reportedly denied saying this (though his actual denial seems undocumented),
his denial alone is not credible given that his actions certainly reflected the
spirit of the saying. The wars, lies, and betrayals that effectively nearly
destroyed the Plains Indian culture were committed under his command.
There are few
phrases that more embody the offensively racist and genocidal attitude of a
nation against an ethnic group, and we have a statue of the person to whom it
is attributed to, and who led the campaign to take their lands, on the grounds
of the New York State Capitol.
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| Dedication plaque at the base of the Sheridan statue. |
In the past,
when I served as a reporter, whenever I interviewed a state or local
representative, I invariably would ask them about the statue of Sheridan and
what he reportedly said. I never met one who was even aware this heinous
comment is credited to him. Not one.
New York State
still has reservations for Mohawk and Seneca Indians and their populations are
greatly reduced from the many thousands who once possessed the land the state
now claims for its own. How do you think they feel when visiting the State
Capitol and see this statue? If you can’t imagine that, then consider what if
there was a statue of someone who said the only good White people he ever saw
were dead? Get it now?
Across from the
statue of Philip Sheridan in front of Albany City Hall stands the statue of
Revolutionary War Hero Philip Schuyler which is scheduled to be removed due to
his own history with slavery. Schuyler was a mediocre general whose plan for
the invasion of Canada was a failure and was court martialed, but acquitted,
for his role in the loss of Fort Ticonderoga. He is perhaps more famous for
hosting some of the most notable people of the times at his home in Albany
(which still stands), including George Washington and Benjamin Franklin. His
daughter Elizabeth married Alexander Hamilton.
According to a
Jun. 18, 2016, article in The Guardian,
forensic examination of the bodies of 14 slaves (one man, six women, five
children, and two infants) owned by Schuyler showed the adults were worked hard
and, despite being well-muscled, had severe arthritis and some broken bones,
typical of the treatment of people in bondage sentenced to a life of hard
labor. It is notable that half of the dead found were children.
By a large
margin, the only people demanding these statues remain are of European heritage
whose ancestors felt no impact from the institution of slavery in the United
States, except to benefit from it.
I am not
ignorant of history. My master’s degree is in both history and literature, so I
understand the contributions of both Sheridan and Schuyler to the nation. However,
ancient Greece and Rome, on whose foundations our Western culture was built,
erected statues in public places of those individuals who represented their
heroic ideals. When those individuals fell from grace it was common for those
statues to be removed, and in Rome they simply swapped out the head with that
of someone else. In fact, the statues of emperors, senators, and generals were
often made with replaceable heads with just that purpose in mind.
By removing
those statues and putting them in museums where they belong we are not
forgetting or rewriting the past. Rather, we are finally listening to the
voices we have ignored for far too long.
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