John Ross vs. the 1835 Treaty of New Echota (from “Well, OK Then…”)

November 22, 2018June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

NOTE: I’m revising and reorganizing much of the content from “Well, OK Then” as part of an overall effort to ‘clean up’ this site. This post is one of those newer, better versions of something previously shared.

Chief John Ross was a “mixed-blood” Cherokee who nevertheless became the best-known and arguably the most effective tribal leader of his generation. His supporters tended to lean traditional – they were conservative, and old-school – wanting little or no contact with whites and uninterested in their version of “progress.”

Because he would not agree to voluntary removal, the U.S. found others in the tribe who would. They plied them with land and money and the argument that this was going to happen one way or the other – so they might as well make it as painless as possible. The signers of the Treaty of New Echota (1835) violated the most sacred of Cherokee laws while lacking the status to even speak for the tribe to begin with.

Ross was not impressed, and wrote this to Congress on September 28th, 1836:

It is well known that for a number of years past we have been harassed by a series of vexations, which it is deemed unnecessary to recite in detail, but the evidence of which our delegation will be prepared to furnish…
{A} contract was made by the Rev. John F. Schermerhorn, and certain individual Cherokees, purporting to be a “treaty, concluded at New Echota, in the State of Georgia, on the 29th day of December, 1835, by {U.S. Commissioners} and the chiefs, headmen, and people of the Cherokee tribes of Indians.” A spurious Delegation, in violation of a special injunction of the general council of the nation, proceeded to Washington City with this pretended treaty, and by false and fraudulent representations supplanted in the favor of the Government the legal and accredited Delegation of the Cherokee people, and obtained for this instrument, after making important alterations in its provisions, the recognition of the United States Government.
And now it is presented to us as a treaty, ratified by the Senate, and approved by the President, and our acquiescence in its requirements demanded, under the sanction of the displeasure of the United States, and the threat of summary compulsion, in case of refusal…

Chief Ross knew his facts and his audience. He wastes little energy on extraneous issues or the details of past problems. He goes straight to what is essentially contract law – and accuses the U.S. of making a fraudulent deal. Abusing Indians might not have been all that un-American, but bogus contracts were certainly close.

By the stipulations of this instrument, we are despoiled of our private possessions, the indefeasible property of individuals. We are stripped of every attribute of freedom and eligibility for legal self-defence. Our property may be plundered before our eyes; violence may be committed on our persons; even our lives may be taken away, and there is none to regard our complaints. We are denationalized; we are disfranchised.

Ross doesn’t talk about the land, or his people’s culture, etc. He doesn’t badmouth the individuals who signed the Treaty of New Echota, beyond indicating they had no right to do so.

He instead highlights elements of the situation which were more likely to resonate with his audience. After establishing the invalidity of the treaty, he argues that it violates their property rights. Few things were more sacred to real Americans. John Locke argued that protection of property – which he defined as “life, liberty, and estate” – was the sole function of government. Jefferson replaced “estate” with “pursuit of happiness,” but lest there be any confusion, the Fifth Amendment specifically defends “life, liberty, and property” from government intrusion without “due process.”

Which this, clearly, was not.

Ross then throws in freedom (liberty), the right to defend yourself before the law, and personal safety. Those are the big three – life, liberty, and your stuff. They’re held together by the underlying assumption that such “natural rights” are every man’s refuge in a nation built on such ideals.

It’s a brilliant approach. He has facts and reasoning on his side. Unfortunately, facts and reasoning weren’t going to decide this issue – the results were determined before he’d even bought his ticket. The U.S. was concerned only with rhetorical cover at this point. The Treaty gave them that – they knew damn well it wasn’t legitimate… they just didn’t care.

Ross does speak to the ethical abhorrence of the situation, albeit briefly:

We are deprived of membership in the human family! We have neither land nor home, nor resting place that can be called our own. And this is effected by the provisions of a compact which assumes the venerated, the sacred appellation of treaty.
We are overwhelmed! Our hearts are sickened, our utterance is paralized, when we reflect on the condition in which we are placed, by the audacious practices of unprincipled men, who have managed their stratagems with so much dexterity as to impose on the Government of the United States, in the face of our earnest, solemn, and reiterated protestations.

Then, like a good five-paragraph essay, he repeats his main point by way of conclusion.

The instrument in question is not the act of our Nation; we are not parties to its covenants; it has not received the sanction of our people. The makers of it sustain no office nor appointment in our Nation, under the designation of Chiefs, Head men, or any other title, by which they hold, or could acquire, authority to assume the reins of Government, and to make bargain and sale of our rights, our possessions, and our common country.
And we are constrained solemnly to declare, that we cannot but contemplate the enforcement of the stipulations of this instrument on us, against our consent, as an act of injustice and oppression, which, we are well persuaded, can never knowingly be countenanced by the Government and people of the United States…
{We} appeal with confidence to the justice, the magnanimity, the compassion, of your honorable bodies, against the enforcement, on us, of the provisions of a compact, in the formation of which we have had no agency.

It’s almost like he thinks governmental power is derived through the consent of the governed. “No removal without representation!”

Not really very catchy, I guess.

Ross’s complaints would fall on deaf ears. The powers-that-be had already undermined Cherokee sovereignty via two Supreme Court cases. In the first one, Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831), the Court refused to hear the actual case – a complaint by the Cherokee that the State of Georgia kept passing laws which infringed on their guaranteed sovereignty within their own boundaries. The Court determined that the Cherokee certainly weren’t American citizens, but neither were they exactly a sovereign nation – at least not any more. Their relationship with the U.S. was like that of a “ward to its guardian.”

In other words, they were Dick Grayson to America’s Bruce Wayne. And they would never turn 18 in the eyes of the law.

The second case was brought by a white guy – a missionary to the Cherokee by the name of Samuel Worcester. Georgia had passed a law requiring non-Cherokee to get permission from the state before going onto Cherokee land – without bothering to include the Cherokee in the process. Worcester ignored the prohibition and kept doing his thing, and was arrested and jailed. In Worcester v. Georgia (1832), the Supreme Court declared that only the federal government could deal with the tribes – Georgia couldn’t do that.

The decision was considered a victory for the Cherokee, but it didn’t really change anything. President Jackson is often quoted as having said “Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it!” There’s no record of such as statement, but it was certainly consistent with Jackson’s general attitude towards the Court, the Natives, and anyone else who disagreed with him about anything ever.

The Court’s decision did not, in any case, shape or limit anything Jackson or Congress chose to do in relation to the Tribes thereafter. That the other two branches could ignore such a decision with impunity was a pretty clear indication of the status of a bunch of “savages” vs. the segment of “all men” actually represented.

So it’s 1836 and the Treaty of New Echota has been signed, by influential Cherokee if not by those actually authorized to do so. Stand Watie, Major Ridge (it’s a first name, not a title or rank), Elias Boudinot, and others, led nearly 10,000 of their countrymen to Indian Territory.

This was NOT the “Trail of Tears.” This was the “voluntary” part, more or less. It was several years before the remaining Cherokee were rounded up by force and driven to join their people far to the west. The suffering on this journey is well-documented and not one of the prouder moments in U.S. History.

The later arrivals, after so many months of death and suffering, were not particularly happy to see their earlier counterparts, already established in what would later be known as “Oklahoma.” The signing away of their lands wasn’t received much differently than if they’d offered up a few hundred of their virgin daughters for debauchery and eventual beheading. It was not only wrong, it was specifically against Cherokee law and carried the strongest possible consequences.

Several of the leaders of the “Treaty Party,” whose names had validated the removal treaty, were assassinated on the same night, not long after the remaining Cherokee arrived. It’s assumed that John Ross was behind this, or at the very least was aware of it before it happened, but no one knows for sure.

Whatever the justice or injustice of this decision, it isn’t the sort of thing that smooths transitions or promotes unity. The tensions weren’t new – full-bloods already tended to be pretty conservative while mixed-bloods were far more receptive to change and some elements of white culture – but this didn’t help. These same divisions will reappear in less than a generation when the white guys start dragging the Five Civilized Tribes into their “Civil War.”

It’s worth noting that the time period between Indian Removal in the 1830s and the start of the Civil War in 1861 is considered something of a “Golden Age” for the Five Civilized Tribes. This might be partly a sort of historical “spin” to offset white guilt over removal, but it’s not without merit.

The Tribes had brought their Black slaves with them to Indian Territory. The story of slavery among the Five Civilized Tribes is a whole other tale, but the short version is that by and large, slavery among the Tribes was far less onerous than that practiced by white southerners. Slavery is still slavery, of course, but it generally lacked the malice and violence brought to mind when discussing early American history.

For a quarter of a century, then, the ‘Red Man’ and the ‘Black Man’ lived in relative peace and quiet in Indian Territory. They rebuilt their governments, their schools, their presses, their churches, and their lives. They learned to adapt to the realities of this new territory and enjoyed a rare generation free of white interference.

Until that war thing, at least. Once that started, it was all pretty much downhill for the Cherokee and every other “civilized” tribe. For good.

This Land Is Whose Land? (From “Well, OK Then…”)

November 22, 2018June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

The first European nation to lay claim to what is now Oklahoma was Spain, via wanderings sent forth from New Spain – what today is Mexico.

Other than periodic expeditions hoping perhaps there was more to the Great Plains than met the eye, the Spanish weren’t particularly enamored with the northeastern-most reaches of their claims in the New World. They weren’t looking to colonize or expand on the same scale as their Anglo cousins, and the whole area was just… flat. And hot. And completely bereft of gold, more gold, or all the gold.

The neglect became permanent after the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 by the English, with substantial assistance from a suddenly very-Protestant God. Spain was already struggling to maintain its role as a major player back home in Europe, and no longer had the energy for shenanigans in the Western Hemisphere – not without a greater payoff.

Little surprise, then, that the French met with little resistance when they claimed a big ol’ chunk of the New World as “Louisiana Territory” in 1682. The original boundaries looked a little different than they would 121 years later when Jefferson made his famous “Purchase” of the same name, but Oklahoma was included in both versions.

The French did exactly nothing, near as we can tell, in this part of the Territory while under their purview. Not that we needed them here, getting their… Frenchness all over us. But still – it would have been nice to be wanted, you know?

The area changed hands again at the end of the French and Indian War – the same one most of you remember from American History class. You may recall that it wasn’t the French vs. the Indians; they were allies against the British colonies along the eastern coast of North America. Like most things, it was complicated – part of a larger “Seven Years War” going on in Europe, and mixing itself into pre-existing issues between the colonies and the locals, etc.

It was at the conclusion of this war in 1763 that the British first got serious about raising taxes on the American colonists to help offset some of the costs of their “protection.” This sparked a whole other series of events more familiar to the average student and leading to seriously overpriced fireworks every summer.

In any case, the Treaty of Paris (1763) transferred proud ownership of all this flat, red dirt to the British, despite a secret agreement handing it over to Spain only a year before. It says something about the status of pre-settlement Oklahoma that Spain didn’t even fuss over this double-dealing; their primary concern involved other territories included in that exchange.

That explains, however, how land arguably belonging to the British could be returned to France by Spain in the year 1800. These were the days of Napoleonic hegemony – the proverbial “little general” who wanted to take over all of the known world.

EXCEPT OKLAHOMA BECAUSE WHY BOTHER AND HEY T.J., WANNA BARGAIN ON SOME BIG, FLAT, USELESS LAND?

Um… hello?! Potential state here! Home of natural resources and flora and fauna and stuff? Wind, sweeping down the plains? Hawks with questionable work ethics circling above? I get that we’re not the prettiest state in the room, but we’re at least… OK, right?

*sigh*

And people wonder why to this day we’re one giant inferiority complex, with a side of paranoid delusion. Texas proudly waves its ‘six flags’ representing various stages of its history. We had three prior to statehood, playing ‘hot potato’ with us like the homely friend of the popular girls they were really looking to – um… “homestead.”

But finally, a nation that needed us! That could appreciate us! Say what you like about the early U.S., they were some exploring and expanding fools! President Jefferson sent out Lewis and Clark and Co., who began mapping the entire area of –

Hey! Where are you going? Meriwether! Bill! Down here, big fellas! It’s me, Okla –

*sigh*

Sunnuvabitch. The Dakotas. They’re all hot’n’bothered for Nebraska and the Dakotas. Seriously?

Fine. We’ll waive our *mumble* wheat for someone *murmur* can appreciate *grouse* land we belong to is grandma’s crusty *obsenitiesandbitterness*.

There was thus very little to discuss between our inconspicuous transition into United States Territorial-ness in 1803 and the involuntary arrival of the Five Civilized Tribes via “Indian Removal” in the 1830s.

Meanwhile, white America was expanding much more quickly than expected. Immigrants were packing the shores, and those already here were spawning like blind prawn. While encounters with Amerindian natives had produced mixed results since the time Columbus first mislabeled them, five tribes in the southeastern part of the country had adapted far better than most, and conflicts had been relatively minimal.

The Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole, while distinct peoples in and of themselves, became collectively known as the “Five Civilized Tribes” (5CT). Keep in mind, of course, that this was not a self-selected title – it was bestowed by white Southerners in the area. This use of “civilized” wasn’t drawn from someone’s textbook definition or discerned anthropologically; it meant that these Indians were a lot more like the white folks around them than them other Indians, who were generally considered savage, wild, and dangerous. Decadent, actually.

Boo, savage Indians!

The 5CT, in contrast, were largely agricultural. They were far less nomadic, more highly educated, and far less likely to practice hit’n’run raids on white neighbors. Many converted to or at least adapted elements of Christianity, even wearing uncomfortable shoes and learning English in order to facilitate good relations.

If the primary cause of conflict with Natives was cultural, as is often asserted, then the 5CT should have had little trouble with the wave of white settlement surrounding them. If it were purely an issue of gold or other mineral wealth, as our textbooks like to emphasize, the problem would have been substantially more localized.

But the U.S. found it necessary to violate a number of its own fundamental values and laws in order to kick FIVE distinct nations out of an area roughly the size of THREE entire states. They did so at enormous cost to themselves and unforgivable loss of life to those removed. This was driven by something bigger than gold, something fundamental to an expanding nation.

White homesteaders wanted land. They needed land. They deserved land.

Not that they were likely to come right out and put it that way. From President Andrew Jackson’s First Annual Message to Congress, December 8th, 1829:

The consequences of a speedy removal will be important to the United States, to individual States, and to the Indians themselves. The pecuniary advantages which it promises to the Government are the least of its recommendations…

“Pecuniary”? He’s been reading Jefferson’s letters again. Not bad for an uneducated orphan kid, actually.

“Pecuniary” means financial, or profitable. Perhaps fiscal growth was the “least” of many reasons to move the Indians, but he sure didn’t waste any time mentioning it.

Like, first.

It will place a dense and civilized population in large tracts of country now occupied by a few savage hunters. By opening the whole territory between Tennessee on the north and Louisiana on the south to the settlement of the whites it will incalculably strengthen the southwestern frontier and render the adjacent States strong enough to repel future invasions without remote aid…

See? Not all of our motivation is selfish and monetary. They’ll also make a nice buffer between us and the Apache. Why should we be carved open and burned alive if we can throw a few Chickasaw in the way instead?

It will separate the Indians from immediate contact with settlements of whites; free them from the power of the States; enable them to pursue happiness in their own way and under their own rude institutions; will retard the progress of decay, which is lessening their numbers, and perhaps cause them gradually, under the protection of the Government and through the influence of good counsels, to cast off their savage habits and become an interesting, civilized, and Christian community.
What good man would prefer a country covered with forests and ranged by a few thousand savages to our extensive Republic, studded with cities, towns, and prosperous farms embellished with all the improvements which art can devise or industry execute, occupied by more than 12,000,000 happy people, and filled with all the blessings of liberty, civilization and religion? …

There we go – the “besides, it’s good for them” defense. We used a variation of this to justify slavery, you may recall – saving all those crazy Africans from their ooga-booga religions and cannibalism and such, freeing them up to play banjos around the fire and partake of the finest Christian civilization.

It’s quite a mix of values, though, isn’t it? Removal will leave them alone to do their own thing, but it will also force them to become more like us – which is the opposite of being left alone and doing their own thing. Besides, Jackson explains, what good is a bunch of trees and land when we could pack in cities and industry and corporate-style farming?

Maybe he hadn’t been reading Jefferson after all.

The tribes which occupied the countries now constituting the Eastern States were annihilated or have melted away to make room for the whites. The waves of population and civilization are rolling to the westward, and we now propose to acquire the countries occupied by the red men of the South and West by a fair exchange, and, at the expense of the United States, to send them to land where their existence may be prolonged and perhaps made perpetual.

The term ‘Manifest Destiny’ hadn’t been coined yet, but the ideology permeates Jackson’s language. There are no individuals making choices, or cultures colliding – merely inevitable progress “rolling to the westward.”

Doubtless it will be painful to leave the graves of their fathers; but what do they more than our ancestors did or than our children are now doing? … {White settlers} remove hundreds and almost thousands of miles at their own expense, purchase the lands they occupy, and support themselves at their new homes from the moment of their arrival.
Can it be cruel in this Government when, by events which it cannot control, the Indian is made discontented in his ancient home to purchase his lands, to give him a new and extensive territory, to pay the expense of his removal, and support him a year in his new abode? How many thousands of our own people would gladly embrace the opportunity of removing to the West on such conditions! If the offers made to the Indians were extended to them, they would be hailed with gratitude and joy.

Jackson may be overdoing it a bit, even by the standards of the day. His primary purpose was most likely not to convert anyone adamantly opposed, but to assuage any guilt on the part of those already looking for an excuse. That’s why we talk about “audience” and “reason” when we do document analysis, kids – dead white guys can be sneaky.

Whatever else Jackson was, he was a genuine champion of the “common man.” As a creature of his times, that rarely included the 5CT or anyone else with meaningful pigmentation – it meant white homesteaders.

Like the generation of Founders on whose shoulders he consciously stood, he recognized the connection between land and opportunity, land and character, land and democracy.

He was generally plainspoken, but that didn’t mean he had no understanding of human nature. He knew that sometimes lofty goals and hard decisions required… framing. He was no diplomat, but he was certainly willing to play the demagogue here and there if he believed his cause was deserving.

And there was no higher cause than this American nation. These people. This potential. He may have hated Indians, or he may have not. It didn’t matter. America had a destiny, and that destiny needed more land.

That chunk of Louisiana Territory that kept getting tossed around and ignored is about to become useful.

This Land Is Whose Land? (From “Well, OK Then…”)

January 25, 2017June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

The first European nation to lay claim to what is now Oklahoma was Spain, via wanderings sent forth from New Spain – what today is Mexico.

The area changed hands again at the end of the French and Indian War – the same one most of you remember from American History class. You may recall that it wasn’t the French vs. the Indians; they were allies against the British colonies along the eastern coast of North America. Like most things, it was complicated – part of a larger “Seven Years War” going on in Europe, and mixing itself into pre-existing issues between the colonies and the locals, etc.

EXCEPT OKLAHOMA BECAUSE WHY BOTHER AND HEY T.J., WANNA BARGAIN ON SOME BIG, FLAT, USELESS LAND?

*sigh*

Hey! Where are you going? Meriwether! Bill! Down here, big fellas! It’s me, Okla –

*sigh*

Sunnuvabitch. The Dakotas. They’re all hot’n’bothered for Nebraska and the Dakotas. Seriously?

Fine. We’ll waive our *mumble* wheat for someone *murmur* can appreciate *grouse* land we belong to is grandma’s crusty *obsenitiesandbitterness*.

There was thus very little to discuss between our inconspicuous hitchhiking into United States Territorial-ness in 1803 and the involuntary arrival of the Five Civilized Tribes via “Indian Removal” in the 1830s.

Meanwhile, white America was expanding much more quickly than expected. Immigrants were packing the shores, and those already here were spawning like blind prawn. While encounters with Amerindian natives had been a mixed bag since Columbus first mislabeled them, five tribes in the southeastern part of the country had adapted far better than most, and conflicts had been relatively minimal.

Boo, savage Indians!

White homesteaders wanted land. They needed land. They deserved land.

Not that they were likely to come right out and put it that way. From President Andrew Jackson’s First Annual Message to Congress, December 8th, 1829:

The consequences of a speedy removal will be important to the United States, to individual States, and to the Indians themselves. The pecuniary advantages which it promises to the Government are the least of its recommendations…

“Pecuniary”? He’s been reading Jefferson’s letters again. Not bad for an uneducated orphan kid, actually.

“Pecuniary” means financial, or profitable. Perhaps fiscal growth was the “least” of many reasons to move the Indians, but he sure didn’t waste any time mentioning it.

Like, first.

It will place a dense and civilized population in large tracts of country now occupied by a few savage hunters. By opening the whole territory between Tennessee on the north and Louisiana on the south to the settlement of the whites it will incalculably strengthen the southwestern frontier and render the adjacent States strong enough to repel future invasions without remote aid…

It will separate the Indians from immediate contact with settlements of whites; free them from the power of the States; enable them to pursue happiness in their own way and under their own rude institutions; will retard the progress of decay, which is lessening their numbers, and perhaps cause them gradually, under the protection of the Government and through the influence of good counsels, to cast off their savage habits and become an interesting, civilized, and Christian community.
What good man would prefer a country covered with forests and ranged by a few thousand savages to our extensive Republic, studded with cities, towns, and prosperous farms embellished with all the improvements which art can devise or industry execute, occupied by more than 12,000,000 happy people, and filled with all the blessings of liberty, civilization and religion? …

Maybe he hadn’t been reading Jefferson after all.

The tribes which occupied the countries now constituting the Eastern States were annihilated or have melted away to make room for the whites. The waves of population and civilization are rolling to the westward, and we now propose to acquire the countries occupied by the red men of the South and West by a fair exchange, and, at the expense of the United States, to send them to land where their existence may be prolonged and perhaps made perpetual.

Doubtless it will be painful to leave the graves of their fathers; but what do they more than our ancestors did or than our children are now doing? … {White settlers} remove hundreds and almost thousands of miles at their own expense, purchase the lands they occupy, and support themselves at their new homes from the moment of their arrival.
Can it be cruel in this Government when, by events which it cannot control, the Indian is made discontented in his ancient home to purchase his lands, to give him a new and extensive territory, to pay the expense of his removal, and support him a year in his new abode? How many thousands of our own people would gladly embrace the opportunity of removing to the West on such conditions! If the offers made to the Indians were extended to them, they would be hailed with gratitude and joy.

Like the generation of Founders on whose shoulders he consciously stood, he recognized the connection between land and opportunity, land and character, land and democracy.

That chunk of Louisiana Territory that kept getting tossed around and ignored is about to become useful.

NOTE: A more easily printable version of this post is available on “Well, OK Then…”

Sam Patch (Part Two)

July 29, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 1 Comment

When Andrew Jackson was elected President in 1828, it was an unabashed victory for ‘the common man’.

After six presidencies of consciously ‘elite gentlemen’ – rich, white, educated males – Jackson was a game changer. Sure, he was a white guy – but he grew up all kinda poor, and lacked a formal education until early adulthood.

The expansion of voting rights and other civic validity which allowed such a thing, and which continued to expand during and after his presidency, is even named after him: “Jacksonian Democracy.” It’s a trend of which we’re generally proud two centuries later. Maybe the “all men” created equal in 1776 were a fairly limited bunch, but over time we’ve stretched that to cover quite a variety of colors and socio-economic statuses. Heck, we even let girls vote now – that’s getting serious.

To celebrate this ‘victory of the common man’, Jackson broke with the restrictive traditions of his predecessors and threw open his inaugural celebration at the White House to all comers. It wasn’t HIS victory, after all – it was THEIR victory. Why not let THEM celebrate it as fully as anyone?

In return, the ‘common man’ trashed the place.

Celebrants stood on and broke furniture, wandered into the private, personal rooms and made souvenirs of the bathroom fixtures and any nice undergarments they discovered in the bedrooms. When the front entrances grew congested, they tromped through the muddy gardens and came in the windows, further destroying the rugs and furniture and generally wreaking havoc.

Jackson bailed almost immediately. The help finally had to lure out the unwashed masses with bowls of alcoholic beverages and trays of deserts, which were hurriedly filled and rushed to the peripheries of the grounds in an effort to Pied Piper the common man the hell out of the White House.

Jackson’s entire Presidency was spotted with such tensions. In his determination to defend and assist the ‘common man’, he pushed through legislation that crippled the economy. In order to open up homesteads for the ‘little people’, he oversaw Indian Removal. His fervent defense of his not-quite-divorced-from-her-first-husband wife led to innumerable conflicts before he took office, and his transferred outrage in defense of similarly soiled Peggy Eaton a few years later crippled his cabinet throughout his time in power.

That’s the difficulty in defending the ‘common man’. They’re dirty, and they do stupid things. One might argue that’s why they’re ‘common’.

It’s not merely an income issue; economic equity is no easy task, but it’s at least tangible. Social capital is more difficult. In a pinch, I can give you money – but I can’t give you decorum. I can buy you a house – but I can’t stop you from leaving trash in the yard or easily explain how to use the space properly.

The sociology of it all is rather tangled and unsatisfying.

Sam Patch jumped off of cliffs near waterfalls, off of the topmost masts of ships, and from other daunting heights – often into the narrowest of survivable apertures, disciplining body and breathing precisely to allow him to emerge unharmed.

It was noble, in a way. Kinda cool, and so counter to the carefully crafted ‘nature experiences’ built by the well-to-do. Each leap was intensely primitive compared to precisely arranged visitations of the finest majestic sights available only to the elite. Even the rhetoric – “Some things can be done as well as others,” or “There’s no mistake in Sam Patch” – was marvelously stark compared to the noble blithering which filled the finest bourgeois journals.

Patch was a bacon cheeseburger to the artisanal foraged essence of kimchi of his day. But he was a bacon cheeseburger with a tall draft beer. Or seven. And greasy. Dripping on the shirt. And falling apart halfway through. And leaving the wrapper in your yard.

It’s easy two centuries later to belittle Timothy Crane and his precious little recreation area with its froo-froo bridge. He charged for… nature! If he really cared about art, if he really valued beauty, he’d make it available to all – without cost or restriction!

Others did just that. Idealists in some parts of the north opened their parks and benches, their landscaped gardens and artistic efforts to all, just as Nature and Nature’s God had done before them. In return, the common man trashed the place, vandalizing, urinating, and harassing the better elements until they no longer frequented such places.

What gives a man value? Is it his ability to earn a certain income? Behave a certain way? Contribute something useful? How far beyond the Golden Rule can or should society go in its expectations of all peoples, whatever their status or background?

How do we draw a clear distinction between the sort of ‘behaving decently’ we might reasonably ask of all well-intentioned people, and the limiting mores of middle or upper class privilege, with its own rules and codes – many designed over the decades for the sole purpose of separating the cream from the whey?

When we speak of universal rights, and of the value of people, it shouldn’t be so difficult to untether those rights and that underlying value from expected levels of education or behavior. When we move past the fundamentals, though, and drift into questions of equity, opportunity, social standing, lifestyles, and a wider range of values, it’s much murkier. What do people deserve? And from whom?

I may dig the Ramones, but I’d never invite them to dinner among proper company. I love the reckless abandon of some of my students, but I’m not sure I’d risk putting them in charge of anything potentially life-altering for myself or those around them.

I admire Sam Patch and his giant wet middle finger to the system, but I recognize even while singing his praises that he wasn’t merely rejecting a loftier lifestyle – he was completely unqualified and incapable of living out one had it been handed to him. There’s too much correlation between his rejection of the system and his inability to function within it. Jackson gloried in the baseness of the common man – he seemed to equate it with a sort of primitive purity, which strikes me as… intentionally naive.

Or maybe Jackson’s exaggerated faith in the little guy was merely something with which he fed his own power struggle, and maintained his own outrage. Maybe it just got him from where he was to where he was determined to go. When Philadelphia gave him a beautiful white horse in 1833, Jackson named it ‘Sam Patch’.

I appreciate the sentiment, but should I pass, and you get a gerbil or something, please don’t honor me in this specific way.

I don’t have a satisfying conclusion or moral to the tale. Patch resonates with me, but I’m still not sure I’ve managed to explain to myself just why. I suspect it’s that, while I find his dysfunction offensive and his self-destruction unnecessary, it’s still much easier to cheer for him than for the manufactured pretense and gilded desperation of men like Crane. Maybe it’s as simple as that.

RELATED POST: Sam Patch (Part One)

Sam Patch (Part One)

July 23, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 1 Comment

“Some things can be done as well as others.”

It’s not much of a catch phrase two hundred years later, but at the time, this line of Sam Patch’s was golden. It probably helped that he’d say it right before jumping off a waterfall. That would add a little drama, I’d think.

He’d stand near the crest – or, years later, on platforms or ladders built high above even that – and jump. Body position and breathing were critical from such heights. Knowing where you could and couldn’t safely enter the water at such speeds was pretty important, too. It also helped if you could swim.

Patch was fond of staying underwater after a leap for longer than seemed possible, creating tension and sparking nervous chatter among the crowd. On at least one less-public occasion he swam underwater to a sheltered cave area in order to hide out and panic his friends.

The problem with this is that if you’ve actually died this time, everyone thinks you’re just screwing with them. They figure you’re with Elvis somewhere, laughing at their gullibility.

Sam Patch grew up in early 19th century America, a transitional era during which Jefferson’s agricultural ideal was giving way to a more modern, urban, industrial society, albeit inconsistently, in scattered areas throughout the north. Patch grew up in a mill town, located along the Blackstone River near Providence, Rhode Island. Nature was harnessed and partially consumed, but still managed to assert itself beautifully and violently through displays like Pawtucket Falls.

However stunning the surroundings, these were necessarily utilitarian times. You didn’t come to Pawtucket if things in your life had gone according to plan; the remnants who found work in the mills were either without a male head of house, or stuck with one of little use. You came because you needed work, and Pawtucket was happy to oblige.

These were days when owning land – even a little bit of land – was key to everything else: economic opportunity, social status, political participation. Almost as crucial were one’s extended family – social connections as well as surname. Neither were guarantees of anything, but both were essential to real opportunity in the realities of the times.

Patch had neither. He was, depending on your point of view, either a dirty, uneducated, ne’er-do-well, or the ideal candidate for a great American success story. Paging Horatio Alger… please meet your party at the waterfall…

You know all those nostalgic looks back to less safety-fied and sanitized times, when kids could play outside and get dirty or hurt and the species survived just fine? Patch’s adolescence was the epitome of this. Boys would jump from the main bridge above the river into ‘the pot’, a drop of about 50 feet into an opening carved by centuries of erosion. When that ceased to be terrifying, they’d jump from a nearby building instead, making a leap of around 80 feet straight down with a rather narrow margin of error.

A mistake of a few horizontal feet meant serious injury. If you were fortunate, you’d die suddenly and violently; if not, you’d experience untold broken bones and damn near drown before being hauled to shore and carried back to town to linger a day or two before an intensely painful death. With an audience.

So why do such a thing? Because they were boys, full of testosterone and competition and the rough sort of democracy available to the un-landed, the un-connected. Of course you could get hurt – that was the whole point. But if you had nerve, and skill, and didn’t…

There’s something insanely equitable and meritocratic about such behavior. Too innocent to be Social Darwinism, it nevertheless recognizes that there’s no ‘winning’ without a very real chance of ‘losing’. Without risk, there can be no glory – individually or nationally. Sam Patch and his ilk were in their own rough ways an idyllic, Tom Sawyer-ish, rough-edged version of the American dream – or at least its opening chapters.

Which isn’t the same as being part of the American reality, by the way. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Sam’s first public jump came in defiance of a man named Timothy Crane. Crane was probably not a bad man (in the dinner theater sense of the word), but he did reek of calculated sophistication, and that was bad enough. He’d purchased, ‘improved’, and privatized a public park-ish area near the mills, after which he began charging a small fee to enter.

Besides offsetting his costs, the fee was designed to screen out ne’er-do-wells. The park was designed for the ‘right’ kind of people, who were far more likely to both appreciate and take care of the area. Free admission, he feared, would allow the dregs and drunkards to spoil the space. Their inability to pay was indicative of far more than income level – it was a tag of behavior and education.

You don’t really think those high dollar condos near the mall are that much nicer than the mid-range apartments ten minutes away, do you? Sure, you’re closer to the trendy restaurants – but mostly you’re paying too much for a condo in order to be surrounded by other people who can afford to pay too much for a condo.

It’s the same reason ‘golf’ somehow grew to be thought of as a real sport – the need to justify some basic elitism. Come on, you really thought it was THAT expensive to mow some grass and let people knock a tiny ball into a few holes in the ground? Please.

Crane’s crowing accomplishment was to be a rather ornate bridge which he had built and promised to have maneuvered across the chasm in front of Pawtucket Falls on September 30, 1827, for all to see. You have to keep in mind this is pre-Netflix, pre-Xbox, and even pre-television. Any potential entertainment was a big freaking deal, and this was no exception.

Schools and factories closed, and everyone came out to watch this engineering marvel finalize the glories of man-shaped nature, of improving and standardizing the bucolic. There are few things more American than making nature your bi-atch.

The mechanics of the process took much of the afternoon. At one point there was a small slip and one of the rolling logs being used to help guide and ‘roll’ the bridge across fell into the waters far below. The engineers recovered, but in the short time it took for them to readjust their contraptions, Sam Patch appeared on a rock at the edge of the cliff by the waterfall. He told the few people near him that Mr. Crane had done a great thing, and that he – Patch – meant to do another.

And he jumped.

Nothing in this prevented Crane from finishing his bridge, but for the crowd gathered that day the defiant message was clear. Patch, in channeling this brand of skill and moxy into such a primal act, was providing a sort of artistic and social contrast to the contrived high class aspirations of men like Crane. He was striking a blow for the common man.

Patch built on this theme several times in subsequent years, and eventually became something of a celebrity. Unfortunately, once you’re a celebrity – even in the 19th century equivalent of having a reality show – you’re not the common man anymore. The glories of having come from a dysfunctional family with no resources are all very well – but you’ve still come from a dysfunctional family with no resources. In other words, add a little notoriety, the stresses of minor success, and the chances you’ll become a complete wreck are pretty high.

In a few short years, Patch had a reputation as a drunk – usually the fun kind, but sometimes just the drunk kind. He somehow found himself bestowed with a pet bear, who he began taking with him and apparently lived with as a pet of sorts. And yes – the bear jumped off the same cliffs, bridges, and falls as Patch.

Well, if by ‘jumped’ you mean ‘was pushed or thrown’. Yeah, I know – but they were different times. And the bear seemed to be fine, so… go figure.

How many of YOUR friends can throw a bear off a cliff repeatedly and it’s still their friend?

On November 13, 1829, Sam made his last jump. Something went horribly wrong. It may have been the drinking or a related difficulty, but descriptions from those witnessing the event suggest he died in mid-air from something internal. His body positioning gave way and he fell limply for at least half of the 125 feet he spent in the air, striking the water with an impact which would have been fatal had he still been alive.

Less than a year before, Andrew Jackson had been elected President of the United States. I’m going to argue the two events are related.

RELATED POST: Sam Patch (Part Two)