An accusation I hear a lot back
home as a European transplant, living in the US, is that America has no
history.
“How can you bear to live
somewhere there’s no culture?” I’ve been asked, more than once. “Aren’t you the
one who likes reading about the past?”
Yet, everywhere I’ve travelled
since moving to this continent, I’ve found that history, and in particular
nineteenth-century history, is very much alive and well in the popular
imagination. Canada and the United States’ comparative youth makes this century
(my century) loom even larger, and the sites and monuments that comprise their
visible history, while fewer in number, seem to have a greater influence on the
shaping of the countries’ current national identities.
Today I want to talk about two
very different places I’ve visited in the last month — Fort George in Ontario,
Canada and Iolani Palace, once home to Hawaiian royalty in Honolulu.
Fort George
Located in Niagara-on-the-Lake,
Fort George was a British military structure that housed soldiers and saw
combat during the War of 1812.
Today’s reconstruction allows
visitors not only to explore buildings designed to mirror those of the early
1800s (living quarters, workshops and the original powder magazine), but also
to watch and interact with costumed ‘soldiers’. These re-enactors march, play
the fife and drum and shoot rounds from their muskets, with such serious
commitment to the tasks at hand that it’s easy to imagine adversarial American
troops ranged on the other side of the narrow river.
These volunteers bring the place
to life (indeed it almost felt at times like we’d accidentally wandered into
1812!) but I couldn’t help but consider their motivations. What was so
attractive to these men, women, and, in many cases, children, about
reconnecting with the past, and indeed with Canada’s close ties to the British?
In one way it was surreal to hear
‘The Girl I Left Behind Me’ played so far from England, but then, that’s how it
was sung by the Redcoats the world over — no matter how far the march, how deep
the ditch or how exhausting the labour, there was always something connecting
you to home.
Iolani Palace
At Iolani Palace in Honolulu I
certainly wasn’t expecting to see this same reach and influence of empire. But
this spectacular royal home (built 1879-1882) out-European-ed many of the stately
houses I’ve seen in Britain and beyond.
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| Portraits at Iolani Palace |
It had electric lights before
Buckingham Palace, a fact that dazzled visiting dignitaries and notables (I
didn’t realise that Robert Louis Stevenson was once received there). Its
reception rooms were decked out with portraits of European, as well as
Hawaiian, royals. And, while the palace’s exterior seems designed for the temperate
climate and in keeping with Hawaiian styles and traditions, once inside the
dining room, ballroom, or music room you could have guessed you were anywhere.
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| The Music Room at Iolani Palace |
The palace also served as a gaol
for nine months in 1895 for the then independent kingdom’s final queen, Liliʻuokalani,
who was forced out of power by the mainland-backed provisional government. In
one of the upper bedrooms you can see the quilt she and one of her ladies in
waiting stitched during this period, sections of brightly coloured fabric
telling the stories of Hawaii’s unification, royalty and republic.
Visiting an American state with a
royal past was as strange as hearing stirrings of British spirit in Canada.
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| The veranda at Iolani Palace |
And Iolani Palace also shared
something else with Fort George — the site’s reliance on reconstruction and
detective work. Many pieces of the royal family’s furniture and other
possessions were sold and scattered, but the team here has worked, and is
working tirelessly, to recreate a version of the Palace Hawaii’s kings would
have recognised.
Where else in North America would
you like to see the Secret Victorianist visit? Let me know — here, on Facebook or by tweeting @SVictorianist.
