History exhibits take us back in time, but they cannot escape the moment in which they were created. That is to say, every display of artifacts and narratives about eras past is consumed through the attitudes of today, filtered through the political and social consciousness of the contemporary visitors who go to see it.
Curators and historians have to be mindful of that reality, sensitive to the varied reactions of their audiences. Yet they also have an obligation to present the truth as they see it, based on their extensive research and experience in assembling shows that both teach and thrill.
Get it wrong and it can be disastrous, insulting, even damaging to the reputation of the venue presenting the material. Get it right and you serve the community well, educating, entertaining and bringing new guests through the museum doors.
“Expedition 1776: The Journey of Domínguez & Escalante” gets it as right as a curator can these days. Through riveting artifacts, vintage maps and dramatic text, this new exhibit at the History Colorado Center tells the story of two Franciscan priests who led an expedition through what is now New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Arizona, starting in a year that is better-remembered for events in Pennsylvania, where 13 conspiring British colonies made known their intention to separate from the motherland by issuing the Declaration of Independence.
It was a whole different story, at the time, in what would eventually become the Southwestern United States. Indigenous tribes still lived and thrived in the lands of their ancestors, though there was looming pressure from Spanish colonialists from the south to inhabit their turf.
The Domínguez-Escalante Expedition helped cut the trail for that. The party of 12 did not know exactly where they were going on their five-month journey, but we now know where their efforts ended up: aiding the eventual displacement of numerous tribes that followed and sparking generations of human trauma.
That was not the goal of fathers Francisco Atanasio Domínguez and Silvestre Vélez de Escalante when they left Santa Fe on July 29. Their primary interest was to preach and convert those they encountered to Christianity.
As the exhibition explains, that passion drove them through extremes. Their party of 12 crossed rivers and hills, braved cold and snow and the threat of death from both the rough terrain and the suspicious inhabitants of the land. The duo preached incessantly and with purpose. “Failing to convert someone meant condemning them to eternal suffering, giving their journey an urgent, sacred weight,” the wall text reads.
The exhibition brings the tale to life through a well-chosen set of artifacts, some from the state’s collection of historic objects, others borrowed from institutions near and far.
There are garments worn by clergy in the late 18th century and religious totems, and items used by explorers from around the same general time period: a saddle, a tobacco pouch, a cooking griddle, and things like a pistol and gunpowder horn. Near the end of the exhibit, there is an impossibly long musket, similar to the arms carried back in this particular day. The weapons make clear that the party was armed with more than crucifixes on its mission.
Simultaneously, there are artifacts from the same time period from Native American cultures, including ceramic jars, baskets and water pitchers. The dates of the objects do not always match up exactly, but juxtaposing relics from both cultures, made with different raw materials and in distinctive styles, helps visitors understand what each side saw during these early encounters.
There are also numerous maps, underscoring the expedition’s biggest impact on the continent. Domínguez and Escalante brought along on their journey a mapmaker named Bernardo de Miera y Pacheco, who used a quadrant and compass to create “stunning maps that shaped colonial settlements and trade routes for centuries to come. His work combined meticulous detail with artistic expression while documenting geographical features and Indigenous settlements,” the wall text reads.
The maps on display, from both before and after the expedition, are a wonder of early technology, showing how pre-tech mapmakers used everything from data gathered on early colonialist forays into these lands to the positions of stars to educated guesses to draw the land.
Sometimes they were canny, but other times dead wrong. One map on display shows the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Mountains as a single range. Another positions California as an island, surrounded by water on all sides from the land around it. The maps, mostly in gilded frames, are fascinating in their own right, though visitors also see how these primary objects evolved into the maps used by more-familiar explorers like Zebulon Pike and Lewis and Clarke.
But the exhibit is careful to show the complexity of these objects on display. The maps guided generations of intrepid settlers, but they also “fueled expansionist European policies, facilitated territorial growth, and legitimized imperial land claims,” visitors read.
The text gets even more direct: “These maps highlighted resources and geography while disregarding Indigenous sovereignty, portraying the West as land to be claimed.”
In that way, “Expedition 1776: The Journey of Domínguez & Escalante” is a balancing act, and a sophisticated one. It manages to be compelling, explaining how this group made its way against the odds, trekking into the unknown and returning, safely, to Santa Fe by the start of the next year. But also, it is aware of the audience who will see the show.
The subjects come off as courageous, crucial and groundbreaking. But also fanatical, self-righteous, menacing and, even if they were not aware at the time, dangerous.
This sort of equilibrium is difficult to achieve, but the museum’s staff pulls it off in a way that demonstrates broad respect for the way visitors will experience the exhibit while jumping over the minefields present in a country that is very much in the middle of a culture war over how to interpret American history.
It is practical, compelling and a model for how exhibitions can be done in this excitable moment — when presenting ideas with confidence can be perilous. It does not quite take the audacity of Domínguez and Escalante to venture into this current-day museum terrain, but there is definitely a bit of heroism in the trying.
IF YOU GO
“Expedition 1776: The Journey of Domínguez & Escalante” continues through Aug. 2, 2026, at the History Colorado Center, 1200 Broadway. Info: 303-447-8679 or historycolorado.org.