Just how we settled the Old West was in reality, unsettling.
"What we are dealing with is an invasion of this continent bywhites," says Richard White, professor of Pacific Northwest Historyat the University of Washington at Seattle.
But why bother with reality when perception can be a colorfulsubstitute?
And what does it tell us about ourselves that instead ofhistorical accounts, we continue our cultural love affair withstories of settlers taming the frontier, bloody Indian battles andproud, independent people who become Americans while carving out anew country from the wilderness?
"Frontier in American Culture," an exhibit opening today …
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