Date

3-22-2024

Department

College of Arts and Sciences

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy in History (PhD)

Chair

James Ricker

Keywords

Charles Lummis, Southwest, California, Spanish, New Mexico, Pueblo

Disciplines

History

Abstract

Charles Lummis was a complicated and contradictory figure in the American Southwest. He was a classmate of Theodore Roosevelt at Harvard, and later an unofficial advisor to the president in the matter of American Indian issues; He took on the Albuquerque Indian School and helped found the Sequoya League, a group that fought for Indian rights and assisted in the purchase of land for a California tribe after they had been evicted from their home. Charles Lummis was also a major force in cultural preservation, working to save the California missions, through his group, the Landmarks Club. He was a controversial figure in all aspects of his life, making as many enemies as friends. Although largely ignored by many historians, his impact upon the American Southwest and California is still felt in the region today. Since his death in 1928, historians have analyzed his life and work, focusing on aspects such as his Indian rights activism, his cultural preservation work, as well as his tenure as Los Angeles City Librarian. While the scholarship has been limited, the majority has focused on his cultural preservation and Indian activism. However, there is a significant intersection where these two aspects of Lummis’s work met and that has not been explored by many researchers. This is especially true when considering Lummis’s favorability of the Spanish over the American Indians. He believed that the scholarship about the Spanish conquest of the New World was incorrect, and sought to revise the story of how the Spanish took control over the Americas and the natives that inhabited it. However, Lummis’s dedication to the positive Spanish heritage of the American Southwest often stood in contradiction against his activism for the rights of American Indians and the celebration of their cultural history. Charles Lummis sought ways to celebrate the Spanish legacy in the American Southwest and return the region to a time of romance, heroism and chivalry, much like the fictional Don Quixote.

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