A Victory Column for Peace
Astoria Column
A tall monument juts skyward above the hills of Astoria, rising over a sweeping view of the Columbia River entering the Pacific Ocean. It commemorates the explorers and settlers who colonized the region. It is a triumphal salute to Euro-American determination and bravery, built in the tradition of ancient Roman columns which memorialized the heroic victories of an expanding empire.
Hostile nations grow by amassing foreign territory and subjugating the people who live there. The survivors of these subjugations are forced to abandon their way of life and live within the culture of those who defeated them. There is little glory in defeat and no voice in subjugation. The winners glorify the conquest and write its history. The long record of conquest and domination is recorded on stone, papyrus, and paper—and on monuments of victory that glorify the valor of the conqueror.
Trajan, who ruled the Roman Empire around the year 100, wanted to be remembered as a glorious victor in conquering the Kingdom of Dacia and extending the realm of Rome to the Black Sea. As a monument to defeating the Dacians, who lived in the region which now is mostly Romania, Trajan had a victory column built near Quirinal Hill when he constructed the Roman forum which bears his name. Trajan’s Forum remains as part of modern-day Rome, and Trajan’s Column still stands there in testimony to his victory over Dacia.
Trajan’s Column - photo by JOE Planas
A twin of Trajan’s Column was built atop Astoria’s Coxcomb Hill in 1926. They are both 125-foot-tall victory columns with interior staircases spiraling upward to viewing platforms. Each is wound with a frieze that narrates a story of valor. Trajan’s Column depicts military activities. The Astoria Column depicts exploration and settlement. The results are the same. The columns honor bravery in the face of danger, triumph over hardship, and destruction of native populations and occupation of their homelands.
It wasn’t a military war like the Roman conquest of Dacia, but the Euro-America colonization of Clatsop-Nehalem lands wiped out a people with the same deadly results. The Clatsop and Nehalem tribes had traded goods throughout this coastal region for thousands of years. They naturally began to trade with Euro-Americans as they arrived, resulting in contact with smallpox and malaria. These deadly diseases decimated tribal members in the early 1800s. Those few who remained were overwhelmed by the fast-encroaching pioneer settlements. With little resistance to soldiers, the tribes grievously submitted to giving up their land and way of life and were relocated. It wasn’t a traditional military campaign, but this invasion of Euro-American colonialism was just as fatal.
The next column on the next hill could tell a different story, if ever we choose to live peacefully on this shrinking planet. The stories told by the twin columns stir memories of triumph and remind us of what once was deemed right and honorable—when doing battle brought glory and honor, when conquering other nations extended empires, when peace was subjugating your neighbor. These were times past when nations felt justified in destroying others in the name of manifest destiny. May the next column on a hill tell of a new time in a new age of courage and valor, when war is put to rest and seizing territory through genocide is ended. It would be a new time, when all nations would join in harmony to find common ground for the common good. Such a time would call for a soaring column on a tall hill dedicated to peace prevailing in the world.