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Staff at Redwood National and State Parks recently flagged nine books about local tribal histories in an effort to comply with orders from the Trump administration to scrub federal parks, monuments and statues of material that “disparages Americans past or living” or that emphasizes anything but the nation’s “beauty, abundance, or grandeur.” 

President Trump’s Executive Order 14253 and U.S. Secretary of the Interior Order 3431 — collectively titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” — direct government employees to “restore Federal sites dedicated to history … to solemn and uplifting public monuments that remind Americans of our extraordinary heritage, consistent progress toward becoming a more perfect Union, and unmatched record of advancing liberty, prosperity, and human flourishing.”

Federal land managers were ordered to conduct reviews for “inappropriate content” and to replace such content with material that “focuses on the greatness of the achievements and progress of the American people or, with respect to natural features, the beauty, abundance, and grandeur of the American landscape.”

The executive orders also prohibit partisan or “anti-American” ideology, and across the country they’ve been interpreted as prohibitting references to everything from slavery and civil rights to LGBT issues and climate change.

A Washington Post story published Monday highlights the absurdity that has resulted from attempts to comply with these orders. 

At the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument in Mississippi, staff members asked the Trump administration to review an entire exhibit on the Black teen’s brutal 1955 killing by White men and his mother’s decision to publicize it — though the park’s staff warned that its removal would leave the site “completely devoid of interpretation.”

At Arches National Park in Utah, park managers wondered whether a sign about the damage that graffiti and invasive species leave on the iconic red rock landscape violates a Trump directive to focus solely on America’s natural beauty.

And at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park in West Virginia, staff members have asked federal officials to decide whether a document that describes an abolitionist’s murder by a mob might “denigrate the murderers.”

These revelations and more come from an internal government database that was recently leaked and posted online by a group describing itself as “civil servants on the front lines.” An introductory note from the group accuses the administration of “trying to use your public lands to erase history and undermine science.”

The leaked documents identify hundreds of signs, exhibits, books, films and other items that were apparently flagged for review in response to the executive orders. Among them is a list submitted by managers of Redwood National and State Parks, who wrote, “The following books are sold by our Cooperating Association [the nonprofit Redwood Parks Conservancy] that focus on local tribal histories.”

The list is as follows:

• “California Through Native Eyes” by William Bauer Jr.
• “Adopted by Indians” by Thomas Jefferson Mayfield
• “We are Dancing for You” by Cutcha Risling Baldy
• “We are the Land” by Damon Atkins
• “Project 562” by Matika Wilbur
• “California Indians and Their Environment” by Kent Lightfoot
• “Sisters of the Earth” by Lorraine Anderson
• “Grave Matters” by Tony Platt
• “Notable Native People” by Adrienne Keene

Those titles don’t focus exclusively on local tribal histories (many different tribes and voices are represented). But it’s conceivable that some of the content could be interpreted by this administration as disparaging of long-dead Americans. 

Bauer’s book, for example, collects oral histories of Native peoples and “uses their recollections of the California Indian Wars to push back against popular narratives that seek to downplay Native resistance,” according to a synopsis from the publisher. It’s hard to imagine an account of, say, the Indian Island Massacre that doesn’t make its perpetrators look bad. 

“We Are Dancing for You,” by Cal Poly Humboldt Associate Professor Dr. Cutcha Risling Baldy, focuses on the revitalization of the women’s coming-of-age ceremony for the Hoopa Valley Tribe through a feminist lens. However, it also addresses methods of dismantling colonial power. Is that concept inherently demeaning to colonizers? (We emailed Dr. Risling Baldy on Friday seeking comment on the administration’s orders and her book’s inclusion on the submitted list but hadn’t heard back by the time of publication.)

One thing that’s clear from perusing the leaked database is that national parks staff and other federal employees have no idea what criteria will be used to enforce the executive orders. At this point it’s still unclear which of the plaques, maps, films and books will ultimately be removed or recast by the Interior Department, though some have already been axed, the according to the Washington Post.

The Outpost reached out to local parks employees and to the Redwood Parks Conservancy for comment. We haven’t yet heard back from anyone at the nonprofit. Parks employees referred us to Patrick Taylor, interpretation and education manager for the National Park Service at Redwood. An email to him was forwarded to the Department of Interior press office, which issued a blanket response that has been submitted to multiple media outlets reporting on this issue:

The narrative being advanced is false and these draft, deliberative internal documents are not a representation of final action taken by the Department. We are aware that internal working documents were edited before being inappropriately and illegally released to the media in ways that misrepresented the status of this effort. Employees who altered internal records and leaked in an effort the [sic] hurt the Trump administration will be held accountable.

On Thursday, the Outpost drove up to the Thomas H. Kuchel Visitor Center in Orick to see if any of the flagged books remain on the shelves. Unfortunately, that visitor center is closed on Wednesdays and Thursdays, so we drove a bit farther north to the Prairie Creek State Park Visitor Center, whose merchandise is likewise managed by the Redwood Parks Conservancy. We found each and every title on the list in stock. Some, but not all, of the titles are also being sold on the nonprofit’s website.