Colorblind Settler Racism and Historical Storytelling in St Augustine, Florida

THE “OLDEST CITY” NARRATIVE: COLORBLIND SETTLER RACISM AND HISTORICAL STORYTELLING IN ST AUGUSTINE, FLORIDA A dissertation presented By Camille Petersen to The Department of Sociology & Anthropology In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy In the field of Sociology Northeastern University Boston, Massachusetts November 2020 1 THE “OLDEST CITY” NARRATIVE: COLORBLIND SETTLER RACISM AND HISTORICAL STORYTELLING IN ST AUGUSTINE, FLORIDA A dissertation presented By Camille Petersen ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology in the College of Social Sciences and Humanities of Northeastern University November 2020 2 Abstract This dissertation examines place-based national origins stories told in the context of the City of St Augustine and Florida tourism. Using data from two commemorations and a national monument, I examine how discourses of race and settler colonialism structure the narratives at the city, state, and national levels. Historicizing the USA as a settler colony brings together research from native studies and indigenous scholars to help sociologists move beyond the Black/White binary and more fully understand the ideological work that historical storytelling does. The City of St Augustine and the state of Florida rely on heritage tourism and colonial charm to lure visitors and new residents by the millions each year. Using Critical Race Discourse Analysis (CRDA) for this extended case study, I find that colorblind racialized discourses and representations function not only to promote racist attitudes but to shore up the dominant settler colonial ideology which claims that the USA is a White nation and White settlers are rightful owners of the land. Furthermore, the narratives dismiss colonial racist violence and centralize only White characters in the present, contributing to the maintenance of a Eurocentric White worldview in which Indians and Afro-Americans exist only in the past or on the margins. Finally, tales of resistance to racialized domination are silenced in the tourism narratives, despite an accessible archive of Indian and Black resistance in Florida. In the first chapter I lay out the theoretical interventions made by scholars in various fields and position them as contributions to a historically specific sociological understanding of race and ethnicity as a global and local power structure, proposing a an analytic of historical storytelling rather than memory or heritage. The settler colonial (as opposed to postcolonial) context of the USA is the key intervention from native/Indigenous and Settler Colonial studies and serves as the theoretical framework to understand the contradictory ideology of colorblind racism throughout the dissertation. In the following three empirical chapters, I identify the key tropes of colorblind settler racism as an 3 ideology which forms the basis of our national origins story and prevailing cultural norms of Eurocentric Whiteness. In the first chapter I am analyzing ethnographic and textual data from the city of St Augustine’s 450th celebration, commemorating 450 years since the “encounter” between Pedro Menendez and Indigenous inhabitants at what would be named St Augustine and settled by the Spanish. As a commemoration, the 450th serves to celebrate settler colonial heroes who teach us lessons about meritocracy and the American Dream through the lens of the ‘moment of encounter’ in St Augustine as the birth of multicultural America. In the next chapter I use data from the state-wide “Viva Florida 500!” marketing campaign and year-long commemoration, including a historical “courtroom drama” written and performed for the occasion and a promotional video from the “Florida Brand” advertising campaign. In this chapter I show how settler ideology functions through historical storytelling in a knowledge economy at the confluence of history, archaeology, and marketing. Settler tropes pervade the heritage landscape through these various industries and are presented to the public as official truth, explicitly and implicitly in the images and characters chosen to represent the state. In the final empirical chapter, I analyze the historical storytelling at the Castillo de San Marcos National Monument, finding that the stories told in the museum and by the St Augustine visual landscape at large are descendent from explicit settler colonial plans to make this land “our own” through institutional and legal means. The preservations of the National Park Service and Antiquities Act do ideological work to promote the idea of a White nation that “rightfully” owns land stolen through the Discovery Doctrine. Throughout this research, the findings show that diversity and inclusion of non-White historical figures in the ‘stock story’ narrative of the USA promotes racism and White Supremacy just as well as exclusion does, and both moves continue to coexist. 4 Acknowledgements First, I would like to thank my committee for their thoughtful and engaged work to help me through this process. To Liza Weinstein, for being there from the early drafts to the final product, whose contributions helped me become a scholar and researcher in addition to helping me write this dissertation. To Chris Chambers, who since day one always believed in me and supported my intellectual and personal growth through the hardest of times. To Matt Hunt, whose class was my introduction to the sociology of race and ethnicity and whose commentary helped me ground my work in the discipline. Last but certainly not least, to Tiffany Chenault whose mentorship extends to teaching and navigating the politics of professional life. I thank the Department of Sociology & Anthropology for funding the summer research projects that got this dissertation research off the ground. Steve Vallas, Linda Blum, Nina Sylvanus, and Carrie Hersh also extended helping hands to guide me through research and teaching, and I thank them for their time and contributions. I am also indebted to David Tames and Jean Ormaza who helped me see myself as they saw me, as a mentor, a teacher, and a rad person. I want to extend especially heartfelt thanks to the close friends I made at Northeastern, Miguel, Mollie, Lauren, and Elisabeth for their unwavering companionship and support over the years. To my cohort whose scholarship and activism continues to inspire me, and to all the musty bars and cafes in the greater Boston area which hosted our every grad school grievance and gaiety. Additional thanks to my mom, brother, and Floridian friends for keeping an open mind to my analytical deconstruction of our hometown. Finally, I would like to thank my mother and grandmother, whose support and upbringing allowed me to get where I am today, the first in my family to earn a doctorate degree. Special eternal thanks to my mother, who nurtured my creativity and intellect since before I can even remember. 5 Contents Introduction: Historical Narratives of Race and Nation: Settler Storytelling and the Idea of America .......................................................................................................................................... 8 Ideologies of Race and the Coloniality of Power: The Whiteness of the Modern World System 12 Historical Storytelling: Race Ideology of the Nation in Place-Based Tourism Narratives .......... 21 Settler Colonialism and Historical Storytelling ............................................................................ 24 Florida as a Case Study in the Social Construction of National Racial Ideology......................... 25 How to Deconstruct Discourses and Representations: Critical Race Discourse Analysis and Visual Sociology ........................................................................................................................... 29 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 35 Theoretical Foundations: Heritage, Settler Colonialism, and White Supremacy ................ 37 Heritage ......................................................................................................................................... 48 Is Multiculturalism the Answer? ................................................................................................... 50 Settler Colonialism, or, Why Whites Even Need Heritage in the First Place ............................... 52 Race and White Supremacy in the Settler Colonial USA ............................................................. 56 Internalizing the Nation: Settler Subjectivity and White Supremacy ........................................... 62 Florida as a Site in the Social Construction of Settler Subjectivity and Ideologies of Race ........ 65 “Unbroken History and Enduring Spirit”: St. Augustine’s ‘Oldest City’ Storytelling in the Narrative Construction of a White Settler Nation ................................................................... 70 The St Augustine Story at the 450th .............................................................................................. 74 Periodization in the Settler Project ............................................................................................... 78 Construing “Race Relations” in Colonial Florida ......................................................................... 80 Florida: An American Story.........................................................................................................

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