The Destruction and Afterlife of the Indian Mounds of St. Louis, Missouri
FAIN: HB-267613-20
Patricia A. Cleary
CSU, Long Beach (Long Beach, CA 90840-0004)
Research and writing leading to a book on the history of the Indian mounds in the area now occupied by the city of St. Louis, Missouri, showing how they shaped and were shaped by the city’s development.
In the mid-1800s, daguerreotypist Thomas Easterly documented the transformation of St. Louis, Missouri, with images of buildings, roads, and railways. He also chronicled the disappearance of St. Louis’s indigenous past. Perhaps most striking was the destruction of the Big Mound, a massive earthen structure. Part of a ceremonial district erected by Mississippian Mound Builders hundreds of years earlier, it was the largest of over two dozen mounds that gave the city its early claim to fame. During the 1800s, all—except one outlier—were razed. This project explores the life, death, and afterlife of the mounds, revealing their significance for both Indian and non-Indian peoples. It examines both the literal destruction of Indian cultural artifacts and the narrative erasure of Indian peoples in histories of the city’s development. I will conduct research for two chapters and draft three others for my book on the mounds, under advance contract with University of Missouri Press.
Media Coverage
How St. Louis became known as 'Mound City' despite settlers razing those monuments (Media Coverage)
Author(s): Emily Woodbury, Senior Producer
Publication: "St. Louis on the Air," St. Louis Public Radio
Date: 6/27/2024
Abstract: Radio interview with author and NEH grant recipient Patricia Cleary, about her book Mound City, with Galen Gritts (member of the Cherokee Nation and founding member of the group Alliance for Native Programs and Initiatives in St. Louis, MO), and Osage artist Anita Fields.
URL: https://www.stlpr.org/show/st-louis-on-the-air/2024-06-27/st-louis-mound-city-osage-cahokia-mounds-native-americans-indigenous-colonization-history-monuments
Read This Now: Mound City by Patricia Cleary (Review)
Author(s): Emily Woodbury, Senior Producer
Publication: St. Louis Magazine
Date: 2/20/2024
Abstract: In "Mound City: The Place of the Indigenous Past and Present in St. Louis," author Patricia Cleary delves into St. Louis’ history with its mounds, including tourism, trade, repurposing, and destruction.
URL: https://www.stlmag.com/culture/Literature/read-this-now-mound-city/
Associated Products
Mound City: The Place of the Indigenous Past and Present in St. Louis (Book)Title: Mound City: The Place of the Indigenous Past and Present in St. Louis
Author: Patricia Cleary
Abstract: In the mid-1800s, daguerreotypist Thomas Easterly documented the rapid physical transformation of St. Louis, Missouri, with striking images of new buildings, roads, and railways, as well as vestiges of the Indigenous past and present. Perhaps most striking was the Big Mound, a massive earthen structure over 300 feet long. Part of a ceremonial district on the west bank of the Mississippi River, it was the largest of over two dozen mounds that once dominated the St. Louis skyline. When European colonists established St. Louis in the 1760s, they traded with nearby and distant tribes and recognized the mounds as antiquities. In the early 1800s, the city’s most distinctive feature earned it the nickname “Mound City.” Despite their renown, the mounds were gradually surrounded, claimed as sites for reservoirs and buildings, and razed in the name of progress. Even as the mounds were destroyed, business owners memorialized them with Mound City Brewery, Mound City Baked Hams, and Mound City Coffin Company. Such boosterism took place within the context of several discourses related to Indigenous peoples. Ignoring Indigenous peoples’ traditions on mounds, amateur archaeologists hotly debated whether the mound builders were ancestors of contemporary native peoples or peoples from farther afield. At the same time, the “myth of the vanishing Indian” was a corollary to policies of forced relocation and assimilation. The false notion that Indigenous peoples were disappearing served to rationalize white settlers’ claims to Indigenous lands and legacies. In an era of Manifest Destiny and Indian removal, the destruction and later celebration of the mounds shaped a civic identity both connected to and divorced from Indigenous history in the 1800s and 1900s. In recent years, Indigenous activism has underpinned efforts to protect and preserve the sacred mound spaces in St. Louis and to honor the cultures and legacies of native peoples.
Year: 2023
Publisher: University of Missouri Press
Type: Single author monograph
Copy sent to NEH?: No
Mound City: The Place of the Indigenous Past and Present in St. Louis (Book)Title: Mound City: The Place of the Indigenous Past and Present in St. Louis
Author: Patricia A. Cleary
Abstract: Provided by publisher: Nearly one thousand years ago, Native peoples built a satellite suburb of America's great metropolis on the site that later became St. Louis. At its height, as many as 30,000 people lived in and around present-day Cahokia, Illinois. While the mounds around Cahokia survive today (as part of a state historic site and UNESCO world heritage site), the monumental earthworks that stood on the western shore of the Mississippi were razed in the 1800s. But before and after they fell, the mounds held an important place in St. Louis history, earning it the nickname "Mound City." For decades, the city had an Indigenous reputation. Tourists came to marvel at the mounds and to see tribal delegations in town for trade and diplomacy. As the city grew, St. Louisans repurposed the mounds-for a reservoir, a restaurant, and railroad landfill-in the process destroying cultural artifacts and sacred burial sites. Despite evidence to the contrary, some white Americans declared the mounds natural features, not built ones, and cheered their leveling. Others espoused far-fetched theories about a lost race of Mound Builders killed by the ancestors of contemporary tribes. Ignoring Indigenous people's connections to the mounds, white Americans positioned themselves as the legitimate inheritors of the land and asserted that modern Native peoples were destined to vanish. Such views underpinned coerced treaties and forced removals, and-when Indigenous peoples resisted-military action. The idea of the "Vanishing Indian" also fueled the erasure of Indigenous peoples' histories, a practice that continued in the 1900s in civic celebrations that featured white St. Louisans "playing Indian" and heritage groups claiming the mounds as part of their own history. Yet Native peoples endured and in recent years, have successfully begun to reclaim the sole monumental mound remaining within city limits. Drawing on a wide range of sources-including maps, daguerreotypes, real estate deeds
Year: 2024
Primary URL:
https://fcc.on.worldcat.org/oclc/1430662485Publisher: University of Missouri Press
Type: Single author monograph