God's Country, Uncle Sam's Land: Faith and Conflict in the American West (review)

The American West deserves to be called "God's Country" for many reasons. Its history is saturated with religion, as Todd Kerstetter's book shows convincingly enough. But the region can also be called "God's Country" because it is the stuff that myths are made of. In some of its mythic versions, the West is a vast wilderness, a realm of infinite freedom beyond the reach of all humanly created norms and structures. In other mythic versions, it is the frontier, the place where norms and structures meet the wilderness and tame it. The taming has usually been legitimated—and, Kerstetter argues, often actually motivated—by religious values, symbols, and language. And the historical actors who have done the taming have often been sent, supported, or funded by the federal government. Hence "God's Country" has always also been "Uncle Sam's Land."

But the writing of history can also be (and perhaps inevitably becomes) the stuff of myth. Kerstetter has shaped his own version of the story of the interaction between religion and federal policy in the American West. His opening chapter samples some of the many ways religion has figured in the mainstream life of the West, concluding that the region has generally been hospitable to a wide variety of religious views and practices. But this is merely preparation for his main task: three long chapters, each a detailed case study of an intolerant federal government in conflict with an out-of-the-mainstream religious group. The three groups are perhaps the most obvious and salient examples: the Mormons, the Ghost Dancers (especially the Lakota), and the Branch Davidians. Thus the theme of Kerstetter's story is the continuing confluence of religion, the federal government, and violence.

In his telling, religious groups have suffered attack by U.S. forces when their ideology, values, and behavior based on ideology and values went beyond what the mainstream society could tolerate. In each case, the government struck back with excessive ferocity. But the government was always confronting a genuine threat to established norms. "In each case local authorities either lacked the resources to establish order or simply did not exist. . . . [But] each episode shows how the government or its representatives can run amok even when pursuing legitimate ends." (177, 176) Beyond the technical legal rationalizations for each attack, Kerstetter seems to find a broader legitimacy. Each group was defined as America's enemy because it "threatened law, order, and mainstream Judeo-Christian values. . . . As the United States expanded its borders and, to greater or lesser degrees, welcomed new citizens, it needed to create cultural unity for a cohesive society." (177, 24) And too much difference, Kerstetter implies, threatens America's precarious unity and cohesion.

Before considering Kerstetter's thesis, it is important to say that he has done his homework well. His story is chock full of historical detail, generally well researched, and always clearly presented. The reader will find each case study a useful survey of scholarly knowledge about the episode under study.

Like any good historian, though, this author wants to give the reader more than a compendium of interesting facts. He concludes that the past offers a valuable lesson for the future: "If other groups collide with mainstream values to the threat of nonmembers, the government should exercise its duty to protect citizens. In such a case, however, it is to be hoped that the future 'barbarians' perceived as threatening America's garden will receive a more civilized response than their predecessors received. Did religion make a difference in the West? Indeed it did—and does." (177) In other words, religious diversity makes future collisions likely, and the result is not predictable. Hence we do well to dwell on the lessons of governmental excesses in the past.

But can we learn the right lessons if the data are all poured into a preconceived mold that assumes religious differences to...