From Santa Fe to Jerusalem:
Governor Lew Wallace and the Idea of Empire in Ben-Hur

Monica S. Cyrino (University of New Mexico)

In his autobiography (1906), Lew Wallace looked back upon the two vocations of his adventuresome life, as an American warrior-statesman and as a popular novelist. Wallace described how his long career as a soldier, lawyer, politician and diplomat had influenced his choice of literary subject matter when it came to writing his novels. “Although his novels were set in exotic locations, in the historical past, they narrated military encounters, political struggles, and cultural conflicts between ‘civilization’ and ‘savagery,’ much like the ones that Wallace himself had experienced” (Allmendinger, 2002, xiii). In the many confrontations he faced in defense of American rights, Wallace always sided with what he deemed to be the forces of ‘civilization,’ represented by the expanding power of the United States under the doctrine of Manifest Destiny. His novels reflect this allegiance to the ‘civilizing’ influence of an empire seeking to conquer – and often convert – a savage, godless nation. In his novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1880), Wallace depicts the Romans as a brutal, pagan regime, weakened both by moral corruption and spiritual deficiency, while the noble and civilized Jews fight to gain their political and religious freedom from the oppressors occupying their land. The hero, Ben-Hur, demonstrates his warrior’s courage by defending his people against the Romans, yet his triumph is only complete when he reaches the enlightenment of Christianity. Wallace explained that his own religious awakening after a lifetime of realpolitik inspired him to write the story of Ben-Hur’s spiritual victory.

But Ben-Hur can be read autobiographically in another significant way that reveals the ambiguity inherent in many American popular representations of Rome. In 1878, Wallace was appointed Governor of the Territory of New Mexico by President Rutherford B. Hayes, during the height of the unrest on the southwestern frontier known as the Lincoln County Range Wars (1878-81). From his gubernatorial post in Santa Fe, Wallace finished the bulk of the novel Ben-Hur, which was published two years later. “It was his… experience of the desolate, dangerous, and faction-ridden New Mexican Territory which doubtless helped to shape the content, the textures and the underlying ideological content of Ben-Hur” (Mayer, 1998, xiii). This paper will explore the context in which Wallace worked while he wrote his novel and the effect it had on the themes, narrative and aesthetics of his depiction of the cultural clash between the ancient Romans and Jews. On the aesthetic level, this paper will ask: how did his experience living in the high desert landscape influence his depiction of the Holy Land? Did his contact with the different races and cultures in New Mexico shape his portrayal of the multicultural characters in his novel? On the narrative level: how did his exposure to the Wild West affect the development of a story that anticipates one of the most archetypal plots in the Western genre, where the hero defends his frontier community against ‘savages’? Did the bloody feuds Wallace tried to arbitrate between ranchers and outlaws give him any insight into the volatile conflicts in ancient Judaea? Did he witness any gunslinger duels that inspired his depiction of the famous chariot race? On the thematic level: did Wallace’s experience as the official charged with furthering the territorial and military claims of a remote, expansionist federal government serve as a parallel for the experience of the Roman procurator in Jerusalem? Did his negotiations with the notorious outlaw Billy the Kid evoke the role of Pontius Pilate in the case against Jesus? And finally, this paper will ask: if Ben-Hur offers an allegory of empire, who do the Romans really represent in the novel? Do the demands of Rome on Jerusalem suggest Washington’s claims on Santa Fe? Does Rome really represent the nascent imperial power of the United States?