We accomplished 2 huge things in 2023: we changed our name and we are delighted to have hired our first executive director, Matt Igleski. Also, we have continued to add exciting new programs - more field trips, thanks to board member Lindsay Vacek; a Birding Gear Exchange thanks to board member Woody Goss; an expanded Native Plant sale thanks to a group of talented volunteers headed by Nancy Bradt, and much more. This in addition to serving as the voice of birds in ways large and small, most notably in 2023 through our efforts with Bird Friendly Chicago.
The rest of this column is about our move away from the Audubon name, which I’m very happy about. To me, the name represents a fairly unexamined part of our history: the role of naturalists in establishing white supremacy in our new country.
From Wikipedia, retrieved December 29, 2023, emphasis mine: “Audubon discovered 25 new species and 12 new subspecies.” You can also find this “fact” in a recent article by the National Audubon Society, a 2007 PBS article, and in numerous Google references (I stopped counting at 25.) Can we agree that people knew about these 25 species of birds before Audubon saw them? After all, the country was inhabited for thousands of years before Audubon arrived. Naturalists, by casting their observations as “discoveries” in a land devoid of people, helped to obscure the forced expulsion of the indigenous peoples who lived throughout this continent.
Audubon explicitly cooperated in this project when he collected the skulls of Mexican and Indigenous people and sent them to a prominent Philadelphia eugenicist, Samuel George Morton. I share this information with a trigger warning. The linked catalog of Morton’s skull collection gives a look at how the scientists of the time contributed to the justification of white supremacy, and contains the specific proof of Audubon’s involvement. In this catalogue are records of the body parts of 10 people from Mexico and Missouri which Audubon collected. They are described in the same manner one might catalogue, say, a bird that crashed into McCormick Place. For me, reading them was a good way to reflect on the role of naturalists and science more generally in the establishment of our nation. The records of Audubon contributions are on pages 26, 33, 87, and 88.
If you would like to delve more into the world of these naturalists, the American Philosophical Library has letters from fellow naturalists. One from John Bachman to Samuel George Morton, in 1837, mentions Audubon and describes the skull of Mad Wolf, which Audubon collected: “There are some points about the cranium of this grand rascal that I have no doubt some of your phrenologists will make much of”.
A little more context, from a Smithsonian article, describing Audubon’s time in Europe: “the world these creatures [birds] inhabited was America, still largely wilderness and a romantic mystery to Europeans, as Audubon discovered to his surprise. He answered questions about ‘Red Indians’ and rattlesnakes, and imitated war whoops and owl hoots until he could hardly bear to accept another invitation.”
It is definitely time to forge a new understanding of what it means to be an American bird enthusiast – one that includes all of us. In 2024, you can look for more exploration of the Indigenous heritage of the land we live and bird on from us.