Strange Lands: The Lexicon of Settler-Colonial Landscapes in Charles Fletcher Lummis's and Arthur Groom's Portrayals of the American West and the Australian Outback

In 1892, the American journalist Charles Fletcher Lummis published a book titled Some Strange Corners of Our Country in which he described for his fellow citizens various distinctive aspects of the landscapes and cultures of the American Southwest (a term he is credited with coining). In this book, he argued for the protection of what struck him as fascinating and unusual landscape features while simultaneously promoting a nascent tourism industry in the region. In 1950, the Australian journalist Arthur Groom published I Saw a Strange Land: Journeys in Central Australia, a book that portrayed the landscape and people of Central Australia with a similar goal of describing a vast but little-known region to his fellow citizens and of encouraging protection of the landscape and promoting tourism. Lummis and Groom, though separated by some 45 years in time and 8,000 miles in geography, were both Anglophone settler colonists engaged in a process of incorporating arid and semi-arid regions into their respective nation's imaginaries while simultaneously championing a sometimes contradictory and morally ambiguous effort to preserve the character of the natural landscape. In each case, the author wrote for a distant urban audience that resided in a significantly more mesic climate. Each writer is a key figure in the transformation of the perception of their respective nations' arid zones from forbidding and desolate wastelands into popular and accessible tourist destinations. Admittedly, the appearance of the word “strange” in their respective titles may seem a slender coincidence upon which to hang a hefty thesis; however, through the use of an ecocritically informed comparative settler-colonial analysis, I wish to argue that the parallels are not accidental but rather derive from the common response of the Anglophone settler-colonial imaginary's encounter with arid landscapes, whether in the United States or in Australia. I offer this comparative method as one example of how local and regional studies can be integrated into a global framework. A focus on the specifics of a small number of locales—in this case, the US West and the Australian Outback, two mythically charged but ecologically fragile and embattled places—allows one to balance a rigorous attention to the sorts of particularized details that place studies demands with a more theoretically informed and globally conscious means by which to interpret those details and to ponder their implications. Whatever its limitations might be, this sort of comparative method has the advantage of moving place studies away from the ever-threatening tendency toward provincialism. It suggests that yes, we must study particular places in detail, but it offers that we must also analyze how local places are integrated into and express larger global forces and processes. In this case, the global systemic process being analyzed is Anglophone settler colonialism, a process that did not end with the “closing of the frontier,” as it were, but one that continues to operate in the contemporary world. As Edward Cavanagh and Lorenzo Veracini note, “there is no such thing as neo-settler colonialism or post-settler colonialism because settler colonialism is a resilient formation that rarely ends.” The settler-colonial imaginary, that is, is as potent today as it was 100 years ago and continues to shape both social policy and individual decisions, including those that pertain to how we1 inhabit arid lands. Numerous historical, cultural, and ecological similarities between the US West and the Australian Outback render them comparable. A partial list would include the following: – the European exploration, claiming, and mapping of these arid and semi-arid lands in a manner that included itemizing biological, geological, and other “natural resources”; – the suppression and displacement of Indigenous peoples; sometimes this took the form of outright warfare or other violence, such as forcible child removal, but often it is reflected today by a marginalization if not a total erasure and collective forgetfulness of prior Indigenous presence; – the creation of a regional frontier mythology that was crucial to the formation of a national identity; this mythology persists in many ways, including in the proposition that people allied with rural frontier culture are more real or authentic representatives of national identity than are other citizens: real Australians live in the Outback, real Americans live in rural areas, especially in the West; – the development of homesteading schemes designed to put lands recently taken from Indigenous populations under the control of an idealized class of yeoman farmers and to incorporate those lands and their productivity into market economies; – the introduction of generally unsustainable commercial enterprises such as pastoralism (sheep and/or cattle ranching), irrigated agriculture, and mining as well as their related cultural expressions; – the embrace of afforestation efforts and tree-planting projects such as Arbor Day as a response to the perceived deficiencies of native scrub steppes and grasslands; – the creation of dust bowl conditions, problems with invasive species, water shortages, native species decline, and other ecological difficulties; – the testing of nuclear weapons and the storage of nuclear and other highly toxic waste; – the construction of a growing tourism economy, including a system of national parks; – the development of “New Age” spiritual practices that often appropriate the spiritual traditions of the colonized indigenous communities; – a burgeoning contemporary crises in rural economies and the outmigration of settler populations; – a growing ecological awareness that challenges historical settler land tenure practices and that seeks to restore some aspects of precolonial environmental conditions; – and a revival of Indigenous communities that works to reclaim lost lands and cultural heritage. These sorts of parallels, I would argue, like the appearance of the word “strange” in Groom's and Lummis's titles, are not coincidental; they are the result of comparable settler-colonial imaginaries expressing themselves in comparable arid and semi-arid ecologies. As we know from evolutionary biology, similar organisms in similar environments are likely to evolve in parallel fashion. While the details, nuances, and complications are necessarily place-specific, the broad outlines are clear enough. And as we struggle to rectify the sorts of problems highlighted in the list above, an awareness of the broader context, and a sharing of common experiences, can only serve to provide insight and guidance. While both popular and academic discourse commonly portray the European settlement of the US West as a unique historical undertaking, an event, as it were, without a parallel evolutionary counterpart, such a position becomes untenable when a globally aware settler-colonial analysis is applied. It is true that any historical event is uniquely responsive to particular local distinctions of ecology and culture, but it is likewise true that the frontier settlement of the US West was part of a much wider phenomenon: the expansion of English-speaking (and other European) settler societies around the globe.2 In places such as Canada, New Zealand, southern Africa, Australia, and the United States, Anglophone settler colonialism followed similar patterns that, though inflected by local circumstances, were clearly products of a common cultural heritage and a common settler imaginary. Yet even the New Western historians, who in the past few decades have cogently critiqued the frontier mythology of the US West, have tended to see that process strictly within a US context and so to have implied, if inadvertently, the uniqueness of that experience. To cite only the most prominent examples, Patricia Limerick's foundational work The Legacy of Conquest makes passing mention of Canada, but no reference to Australia or New Zealand. Richard White's It's Your Misfortune and None of My Own mentions Australia several times, but only as a trading competitor with the United States; and New Zealand rates but a single mention for sharing with the United States the problem of invasive species, a tantalizing reference to a potentially rich but in White's book undeveloped area of comparative analysis (214). Donald Worster's Rivers of Empire briefly mentions Australia by noting that Elwood Mead, before his appointment as Commissioner of the US Bureau of Reclamation in 1924, had from to as of the Rivers and in we see a of an area of comparative analysis that to the focus on the US experience. I cite these not to the of these which is clearly but to that even in these and studies the US the a of that to the of US As has however, the settler and were more common than the of American Americans to them for as cultural practices its practices is part of the settler-colonial of the of settler-colonial can be to the of a settler-colonial the settler-colonial of those that have within the is the of did not that for the United A not necessarily a cultural on the most of even in arid to and for or that can its from cultural As I have argued for the vast of people in the United States, landscape cultural and traditions and the by which they are and the in which these are from their and more heritage and are to but with other Anglophone settler And I that a of the of of landscapes is one of these settler-colonial It be clear by that, with the in both the United States and Australia of dust species and other ecological the Anglophone cultural heritage can be in the arid and semi-arid regions of the West and the I would that it is this between mesic culture and arid place that a key of the settler-colonial of both the West and the The more mesic landscapes of New and other of while by no means the so that this between and place is both in the and to the of those In as we in the serve as the more natural which arid regions are and it clear that that the of the In book The an analysis of Australian from a settler-colonial Arthur that the which on and is for the landscapes of much of Australia, especially the and landscapes of the arid and semi-arid that more than of the book is to the Australian but I have struck time and by how and many of are to the comparable in the United My of the between and ecological in the US West was by to analysis of Australia. suggests a rarely context for the sorts of environmental that have not in Australia but in the United the of and practices that in one to the and the cultural and social practices in on analysis, it that of a that the as a for ecological and that makes an environmental of and is with of would a cultural like the US Bureau of Reclamation for the of into and other no the in water or to the local is being in such efforts is not the but rather the Anglophone settler-colonial imaginary's of its mesic which for what a landscape to As Arthur is of in the that an idealized and that the and as a and makes arid landscapes seem to to when the is to the arid landscapes of Australia those lands seem to be, if only in any number of ways, The is that to of the a landscape the it and this is true even if we have in As of and as of we as it were, a While settler evolve time in response to the of the environments (and as I is no they to so to the often settler-colonial societies to local ecologies. In this context, it be that Lummis's and Groom's use of the word “strange” in their respective titles is not a coincidence but rather aspects of Anglophone settler-colonial to the West and the separated in by some Lummis's and Groom's the in the development of each nation's historical A frontier of was the US frontier the the of Lummis's New of were and tourism was a each author to that, even if the lands they are they can be in and to this the in and in the and colonized Indigenous populations had the of their lands had their cultural practices were under and their were being sometimes into and settlement the time that, these Indigenous societies were also being into national frontier and for tourism. of these are upon in their respective Charles Fletcher a the of his while engaged on an from to in and which he time in New several years as a for the he a that his and so to New to with a in his that local his of a that other and had to in to he he would be this he the region and the and that form the for Some Strange Corners of Our features he include the the and the of which are as national or in part to Lummis's and his efforts his Arthur Groom was in the Australian of in and on a cattle his when he was a In his he as a on the In Groom to to like as a In he published a with the has to with on a in and on his While in he the protection of and in by the US he with and to the of such In with Groom on the of the in Groom was for his to a in is the Arthur Groom In and on that had but to the of Groom two to Central Australia that form the for I Saw a Strange these regions he I to see if Central was the to tourist development in any and I to what of protection the native and and the they might be to preserve the of for the and of of the of Groom several often sometimes with and to and between what have in part to the of his the tourist in the including in the West such as the and and other tourist such as and the the is it that Lummis and Groom the landscapes they so as to them to that in their titles and to to it in their they some and landscape and the are today distinctive to of of a from around the the in which they the word I would that their work the to which an arid landscape as it were, seem when perceived and by It be within the of Anglophone landscape and and for have that the settlement of Australia were a because of the between and local The of the Australian arid and semi-arid regions is not a perception unique to Groom but features as a of Anglophone from more mesic lands. when through the Australian Outback, that the landscape of the of was and it is to put on the this landscape to the Western than even the most and of American because is no with what we as The of the are of the that southern The however, response several of key it to the arid Australian landscape to more and more mesic I would that one has on the of the of the landscape is that such not in the of from also in the through which and of that it as a sort of that As has from and land not the Australian it as an or the of the are similar to the of southern similar to the of to seem to be into the of The of however, which are such as and and such as and are with and that, though well to their arid are the and of or they that is, on the of what the word and so seem not in but in spiritual and seem and even a to Lummis a similar though response when with the of the In the southern of the are many of and as around as a with which them like but of from the or to the than a it a The of these have their are and The sort of Lummis is common and in the American and other are no more or than are or but they are not in New and so are to incorporate into the Anglophone as of In to with his Lummis to with what he be The is to these from they be to any with which he his audience be and so in his for they to more especially example of the between place and that Arthur and that in the of the is the In the word natural of a into the being by As however, many Australian are and only and and if not most of the any other of water but into the are not like the but rather And so the is by of the landscape but must be by an such as or The for the the as it is and in the from the it is to colonists the word on the Arthur is well in Groom's while describing the of Groom that on the is separated from to the the of The is both and by the such Groom that a his him no The word as a for with the advantage of with Groom when the a people and to the for and water as of through two miles of the and on and to in away to the when Lummis the of the US he is, if even more In the in particular the he has with the word the he in of landscapes, as well as his of New to of as an and landscape which the of the can be The few of the American are and The is the only of them and the only one which like an The are clear in but in time of they not so much of water as of I have them in with which in and it is a that the of those who are such are The them in its these have but one of them has a in the on the of some away into the a their and are by the The for is a clear as through the only a or so in but a of It is or miles and its is a with and that the of the the place to the to small and and it upon the arid and a as as that which its on but In his in a and landscape that the and a as they they a landscape that the Anglophone and and It is not only and that Lummis but of the “strange” is the most common he in this of his book titled American In he the as which he and that what it is to encounter an in the other times, Lummis for “strange” such as the and and the and While these however, I also to that especially their are not but evolve to to in from other with and In to one key between US and Australian is that Americans have the advantage of a was especially to more so than was contemporary In to The of in a that Australian analysis, that the of the between the and the be in for such in a by the A is more than an on which the an a only in being likewise a water in the and we have no word for between an and a have the that the of the the for that of these more are The landscape and Lummis are describing had colonized by for years and only recently and into the US In such circumstances, it makes that the landscape would many an especially is that historical is also a more than for describing the of the in in who for the US his in describing the of the Southwest only the in and and that as we are to many he a was the of or by the is a of appropriate as can be by and the upon any of the of United on a analysis of more than landscape such as and he that these form in the and he their by that he was not a he not his but more recently has similar to its as a a of than especially features of the natural which a clear in places in the natural landscape and in such To these for the of as a for landscape I would the that because is more arid than the to be for describing the features of arid landscapes such as those in the United Anglophone in the United States have from such as and And the that Groom and Lummis have such can be as a term in common use today in the Southwest but which only in Lummis's Lummis was a time when the landscape was to be integrated into is for in his titled in the which to the a word he with the Yet in his he as the more term of the word and while similar in Australia, commonly to as and is only one that I know Groom the word in several such as upon the that from a and a reference to of the many of are but the word is not a part of the of any of these so as I have to Australia only a few or places the and that or though such place are in the US These sorts of serve to that, in its to arid landscapes, like many is also and can incorporate as the environmental of its use can also include for the context such as and in the US West, or such as in Australia to to and I that in New a is an New for has a in the more common term is in a I has to with the of culture in the two “strange” that Lummis are the dust sorts of dust also in Central Australia, but Groom did not the region the appropriate and so did not have the of In to such dust which Lummis of so a character few in lands he to for a of he not than the of the with the has recently by the use of a but to the dust in the especially around this of from other no how can with contemporary some have that this of a word from is of in has the term globally to to a particular not any dust but an well and moving of dust that can to by from a comparable was when the word also in commonly in the to to the is also in Australia by to to the but it has not by the or It is no that such are is, a that in a arid and so it makes that it would a rich and to the features of arid lands and and be to distinctions of dust more would be to to Indigenous as one might local Indigenous for these sorts of dust The for to these as in the United States Australia have Anglophone especially these sorts of from the Indigenous of the more than landscape in for an American a small such as and are from Indigenous In Australia, the most landscape are to and to or As and its heritage to but also to and the we and to and so serve to to for in environments that from As of settler-colonial we have an to the of to more render the ecological details, and of and to render them The process of the of from other whether Indigenous or the of and the of is an and I we are only in the of might that the to which a more and appropriate landscape can serve as a of the to which Anglophone settler-colonial societies have to the ecological of their recently a I a if toward settler-colonial with Lummis and Groom wrote with the to the lands they Groom his book with the that protection of this land is more than And in many ways, they were It is that of the places they wrote are as or other of land While national and similar cultural are clearly products of the settler-colonial imaginary, and are not without their complications Indigenous it is that the of these two to these landscape features from their or the of commercial To this I would the of the landscapes they portrayed to those if only as a sort of of in in settler-colonial the perceived of the land is more with ecologically In most it efforts to “strange” lands to more to the through such as which to invasive species afforestation such as Arbor Day and similar which the of which water and to and other ecologically of settler-colonial As has in to more the features of has likely to the that of the land has so often In the we to a of landscapes as if we are to settler-colonial imaginaries and with The of a more and landscape and an informed landscape is a small but not toward the settler-colonial and with colonized

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