Enshrining Gender in Monuments to Settler Whiteness: South Africa’s Voortrekker Monument and the United States’ This Is the Place Monument

Cynthia Prescott,Rebecca Weaver-Hightower,Nathan Rees

doi:10.3390/h10010041

Cynthia Prescott, Rebecca Weaver-Hightower + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/h10010041

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Abstract

This essay examines two monuments: the Voortrekker Monument in South Africa and the American This is the Place Monument in Utah. Similar in terms of construction and historical purpose, both employ gender as an important tool to legitimize the settler society each commemorates. Each was part of a similar project of cultural recuperation in the 1930s−1940s that chose as their object of commemoration the overland migration in covered wagons of a group of white settlers that felt oppressed by other white settlers, and therefore sought a new homeland. In a precarious cultural moment, descendants of these two white settler societies—the Dutch Voortrekkers of South Africa and Euro-American Mormons (Latter-day Saints or LDS) of Utah—undertook massive commemoration projects to memorialize their ancestors’ 1830s−1840s migrations into the interior, holding Afrikaners and Mormons up as the most worthy settler groups among each nation’s white population. This essay will argue that a close reading of these monuments reveals how each white settler group employed gendered depictions that were inflected by class and race in their claims to be the true heart of their respective settler societies, despite perceiving themselves as oppressed minorities.

Highlights

In South Africa and the western United States, the focus of this essay, these monuments celebrated the planting of new settler societies and—at least implicitly—the conquest of indigenous lands and peoples (Prescott 2019)
In reality the Voortrekkers invaded the lands of the Ndebele and Zulu, six of the twenty-seven frieze panels depict hordes of generic, stereotyped, anonymous and half-naked indigenous African men armed with clubs or spears savagely attacking formally attired Boer settlers sculpted with distinct facial features granting them individuality
Minimalizing the presence and power of white women in the This is the Place Monument—and excluding indigenous women altogether—did more than just reaffirm colonization as a male-driven process—it helped reimagine Mormon settlers as core participants in the national project of nation-building, rather than radical others whose Americanness and even whiteness were suspect through their practice of polygamy

Summary

Introduction

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. In South Africa and the western United States, the focus of this essay, these monuments celebrated the planting of new settler societies and—at least implicitly—the conquest of indigenous lands and peoples (Prescott 2019). These public commemorations of European-descended explorers, statemen, and generic mother figures were grounded in idealized depictions of individuals as paragons of particular raced and gendered cultural values, presenting implicit arguments for the legitimacy of settler society. Mormons the most worthy settler groups among each scended Afrikaners upup asas the most worthy settler groups among each nanation’s white population (Prescott et al.2020). Both draw on a European tradition tion’s white population (Prescott et al 2020) To do so, both draw on a European tradition ofofbuilding granite or or granite-faced structures with relief sculptures on the buildingmassive massive granite granite-faced structures with relief sculptures on interior the inteorrior exterior

Figures and

Constructing

Detail

Containing Women

10. Mahonri “First Pioneer

Conclusions