ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to explore how the paradigm of natural history has been and continues to be mobilized by the Park Service and historical scholarship on Shenandoah National Park as a means to de-privilege local histories and successfully incorporate problematic sites of recent human settlement into the narrative of National Park land. It considers the role of the Children of Shenandoah, a group of descendants of the removed families who, operating as activists and public historians, have worked with the Park Service to change that narrative. Patrick Wolfe has argued persuasively that the racialization of Native people through federal administrative efforts such as Blood Quantum effectively achieves the disappearance of Native people. The idea of preservation to which the National Parks hew relies on stabilization—temporal, geographical, environmental, and social. At the heart of the National Parks model is a contradiction: the mandate to preserve an ever-changing landscape for the enjoyment of future generations.
