Deconstructing settler memory of an Indigenous past has become an important theme in Native American and Indigenous studies (NAIS) in recent years. In an important and timely study of the statue of Indigenous leader Massasoit, Lisa Blee and Jean M. O'Brien have created a work of scholarship that has implications not only for the field of NAIS but for any field of historical inquiry discussing the implications of monuments and historical memory; after all, “monuments are not simply mute and static objects cast in metal, marble, or stone. Their meanings are mobile and mobilized across a spectrum of views, and these meanings are deeply felt on a monumental scale” (6). Grounded in a framework of “memory work” through four chapters and an epilogue, Blee and O'Brien follow the statue of Massasoit from conception/casting by the settler group known as the Improved Order of the Redmen (IORM) to the myriad recastings of the statue in the art world and throughout the United States in various public and private settings. In their study they blend archival evidence with firsthand oral testimonies ranging from Native descendants in New England and throughout the United States to settler perspectives at the various statues in public view. While the IORM intended the 1921 original statue to commemorate the relationship between the English Pilgrims and Native peoples of the region, how individuals and communities have viewed the original statue and its various replicas has changed over time and region, providing a window through which Blee and O'Brien can deconstruct settler colonialism in the commemorative landscape utilizing the Massasoit statue as a case study.

This lens follows the sculptor Cyrus Dallin and the IORM in the years leading up to the 1921 unveiling and the events that followed as Dallin's original statue emerged again in new locations and the stories of encounter that Blee and O'Brien collected from both the archive and oral testimonies. Dallin played into a popular trend for statues of Native men in vaguely Plains regalia within the American public by creating multiple statues in a series where he exploited a familiar stereotype of Native peoples, equating Native peoples with nature, which “reflected Euro-American expectations of Indians as close to effete emotion and further from masculine intellect” (33). These statues played a specific role within settler memorialization; “the statues rescue viewers from the guilt of colonial violence by sympathizing with Indians while promoting imperial amnesia” (39). Throughout the course of this monograph, Blee and O'Brien explore their assertion that the “moment of national founding and its naturalization as an ongoing fact is embodied in the Massasoit memorial. It is a national founding premised on the transfer of land from Indigenous people to colonists, which can only be justified with the belief that honorable Native leaders promoted this process” (63). Other meanings ascribed to the statue, however, reflect Native agency and their stories, as reflected in the oral testimonies collected by Blee and O'Brien; “Indigenous people reject the project of freezing them in place and instead use the statue as well as locations of living history to explain settler colonialism as a structure” (118). As Native peoples utilize acts of public history and public memory as reckonings, Blee and O'Brien's work juxtaposed with the upcoming 1621 anniversary provides an intriguing perspective to consider about settler memory and memorialization. Scholars should visit this work when reconsidering the IORM, historical societies, colonial revival, and public historical events like pageants, plays, and cultural heritage tours. Revisiting the past with a view to understanding Indigenous experiences often creates an issue as “Americans confront their discomfort and grapple with a shared history of settler colonialism,” yet Blee and O'Brien ask, “What comes after discomfort?” (210, original emphasis). Monumental Mobility provides a framework of a case study of one monument and its many replications, highlighting the myriad ways in which settlers and Native peoples ascribe historical meaning to public works of art and commemoration. Future scholarship will determine what the next step for contextualizing and reimagining public history and memorialization should be.