What’s In Store For 2021: A Film and A Large-Volume Novel

Mid-1800's Northern CA Setting: (Soldiers/Pioneers/Catholic Missionaries)

With the release of 1845-1870: An Untold Story of Northern California, I have been hit with many questions regarding book signing events, who is carrying the book, and the big one—“What is going to come out of this whole book deal anyways?” Well, I have answers for these. In this day and age of “instant-gratification”—most people nowadays have no clue about what is involved with authorship. It is most definitely a process to research and write, but more than a process, it is time consuming. So, I am now living in a paradoxical world comparable to that of the twilight zone. I read, research, write, and repeat. This time though, it’s done under contract. With this new positioning I have been offered, I have plans laid out for the next couple of years. And I am excited to share these plans with everyone!

First and foremost, being a published author is not an instant process. Neither is film-making. It is all time-consuming, and to be honest, results are not instantaneous as most people who are in love with their televisions might think. I am currently locked into my Master’s degree program and scheduled to graduate in March of 2021. The resulting project from my whole history program is firstly, a large-volume non-fiction novel that will be published sometime in the Summer/Fall of 2021. This highly sourced and fully stocked volume will be the official edition that I plan to release that is the related narrative to 1845-1870: An Untold Story of Northern California. This volume will encompass the wide history and its in-depth look into the complex relationships between the Native American tribes of Northern California and the American settlers from back east. This book will be presented in a decorative way, and made for the serious collector of California state history!

In the meantime—the resulting project from the large-volume novel is planned to be pieced together and transformed into a film documentary. This large-scale film documentary project is not planned to be submitted and executed until later in the year of 2021. The formatting and script context will be done in collaboration with select Christian film-producers, and will be the first portions of the project to commence. Going into 2022, and mostly throughout the first-half of the year—will be spent dealing with the actual process of putting together the film. Hopefully by the end of 2022, there should be a promotional ad-spot for the up-and-coming historical documentary film. Again, this is the plan that has been etched. Time is tentative, and so are most plans. In retrospect, now that I’m in my mid-30’s, I really have come to love a total and complete the follow-through! Bring on the plans!

The following excerpt written is the overall argument for my large-volume novel--
The argument below will serve is the lay-out and format for the resulting film-documentary: 

“The idea of living and co-existing together in the form of tolerance is nothing new to world history. Look at King Cyrus of Ancient Persia and his doctrine of tolerance. As evidence; his doctrine inscribed in 538 B.C. is in cuneiform, punched onto a clay cylinder in the British Museum today.[1] In the mid-19th century United States of America, co-existence for a large minority of people was a far- fetched idea to even contemplate. The young nation was in the midst of a civil war. Politics were shattered.[2] States were broken. And, men, who would end up struggling and dying to make a new reality for themselves and their families. American culture was polarized in a multitude of ways. Personal security in a person’s life in the years leading up to industrialization seemed almost chaotic in any directional sense.

“Between 1845 and 1870 Northern California culture was deemed “wild, free, disorderly and grotesque” by famous American author Mark Twain.[3] The most noticeable differences seen in the new settlements of California’s northern region would have been the human interactions between both the local American Indian tribes and the American settler’s from the East. In my studies, both formally and in my own time, I have found that the traditionally taught and understood process of American settling is wrong. In my own understanding, I have found there to be a lot of animosity and hostility from both sides. In fact, these negative feelings were not something that could have started out as being “generalized” in the first place. The reason for this is because it was a small minority of people from both groups, with no apparent capacity for human dignity and zero respect for a human life.

“It was from this small minority group I have mentioned, that animosity and hostility turned into real-life violence and murder—over the combination of extreme cultural lifestyle differences and personal hardships. It is the research into the cultural differences through primary sources that will serve to better understand the well-renowned conflicts of 19th century Northern California. I believe that these critical cultural polarization's, if explained correctly, would be beneficial to both society and history for further cultural understanding and transparency on the topic. I believe that this research topic will fully uncover the “truths” that lay buried in Northern California’s wild and unstable history. The resulting project that comes from this research topic would be nothing less than beneficial for everybody’s understanding.

“The research questions related to my topic that I intend to address in my project are broken down into three categories: cultural, political, and military. Under the cultural umbrella, I will look to answer whether religious inseparability was a viable explanation for cultural conflict? I also look to answer whether moral and ethical lifestyle choices, for both settler and native, were documented as a cause for malicious cultural conflict. Politically, I seek to find whether the United States truly did seek both justice and peace in the far-west. I also seek to find whether or not the state of California did their best to handle and process the local American Indian tribes. And militarily, did the government protect American citizen lives effectively, and was force absolutely necessary to restore order in those times?

“My tentative conclusions about this topic is that there is a lot of information not necessarily kept “at the top of the stack.” It is for this reason that I believe there is a lot of uncovered information that needs to be pulled, dusted off, and examined (or re-examined). Information is of no use to any human society when it is not presented to the general public at all. When nobody has (or even knows) the correct information on what had happened behind the scenes; no one would know the true catalyst for the malicious and hostile events that would precede and snowball over the course of the last half of the 1800's. Misrepresenting history is something that I cannot personally sit idle-by and watch happen over the course of my own lifetime. A principle that most people in America can come to appreciate about their own history.

“There are formal research methods that are typically employed with this type of large-volume project. I plan to do much of my framework “freehand”—in other words, I will be employing unorthodox methods of research and development to uncover my own findings. Asking myself questions and giving myself answers in relation to my topics events is one approach I will use. I like to review relevant secondary sources to discern and determine whether or not there are deeper possible leads into primary source information. Richard Cobb said it best in the terms of my own research: “The most gifted researchers show a willingness to listen to the wording of the document, to be governed by its every phrase and murmur … so as to hear what is actually being said, in what accent and with what tone.” This is one method of employment that I will use and that I feel speaks from wisdom and experience.”
 

- Daniel L. Smith,
ComplexAmerica.Org


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Resources:

[1] Leston, Dr. Stephen, and Christopher D. Hudson. "Captivity and Hope." In The Bible in World History: How History and Scripture Intersect, p. 127. Barbour Pub, 2011. Print.
[2] "Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs, Accompanying the Annual Message of the President to the Second Session of the Fortieth Congress." Office of the Historian. Last modified December 3, 1867. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1867p1/message1.
[3] Smith, Daniel L. "Foreword." In 1845-1870: An Untold Story of Northern California, p. 8. Anchorage: Publication Consultants, 2019. Print.