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.

Land Ownership and the Foundations of Democracy, Part One (What Made This Particular Destiny So Manifest?)

November 22, 2018June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

Land was a big deal when our little experiment in democracy began. Why?

Let’s ask the Founding Fathers. They seemed bright.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…
(Declaration of Independence, 1776)

Consent of the governed? As in, the people being ruled make the rules, and all that? Huh – big responsibility. Harder than it sounds.

Given the number of reality shows based on the challenges of a dozen or so people living together in a free house with unlimited alcohol and no jobs, running an entire country based on the collective will of the masses seems… problematic. “Come at me, IDAHO!”

And the rallying cry had been “No taxation without representation!” The phrase has survived, but over the years we’ve lost sight of something rather obvious in these words, and inherent to our founding ideology: If paying taxes means you deserve to have a voice in your government, then it’s not unreasonable to suggest that having a voice in your government is contingent on your willingness and ability to pay taxes.

In other words, you have to own something valuable enough to be taxed. Like, say… land.

So we have two issues in play as the Founders wrestle with outlining this new government – the connection between paying into the system and thus earning a voice in the running of that system, and the practical challenges of who exactly “consents” to that government on behalf of the whole. Little wonder our progenitors might try to reconcile them in concert – hopefully without overtly dialing back those fancy new ideals they’d been proclaiming to justify the entire project.

They weren’t starting from scratch. There were some longstanding assumptions about land ownership – or the lack thereof – with which they could begin.

If it were probable that every man would give his vote freely, and without influence of any kind, then, upon the true theory and genuine principles of liberty, every member of the community, however poor, should have a vote…

You gotta pay close attention when any argument begins with “in theory…”

But since that can hardly be expected, in persons of indigent fortunes, or such as are under the immediate dominion of others, all popular states have been obliged to establish certain qualifications, whereby, some who are suspected to have no will of their own, are excluded from voting; in order to set other individuals, whose wills may be supposed independent, more thoroughly upon a level with each other.”
(Alexander Hamilton, Quoting Blackstone’s Commentaries on The Laws of England, 1775)

So, in order to assure that everyone’s political voice is more or less equal, we’re going to have to deny a political voice to some – to those without the ability to provide for themselves. Otherwise, the entire representative system may be undermined through the ability of the wealthy to manipulate the indigent.

Ironic, huh?

Then again, Hamilton was kinda Machiavellian about such things. Maybe someone less… cynical?

Viewing the subject in its merits alone…

That sounds a whole lot like “in theory” again…

…the freeholders of the country would be the safest depositories of republican liberty. In future times the great majority of the people will not only be without landed, but any other sort of property. These will either combine under the influence of their common situation, in which case the rights of property and the public liberty will not be secure in their hands; or, which is more probable, they will become the tools of opulence and ambition, in which case there will be equal danger on another side.
(James Madison, Speech in the Constitutional Convention, August 1787)

No help here from the ‘Father of the Constitution’. Apparently handing power over to men without land leads to either a tyranny of the masses (mob rule) or a system in which the ignorant and easily agitated are led about by the manipulations of the wealthy and power-hungry.

My god, we wouldn’t want that. Can you imagine?

It appears that while our new nation was taking the concept of self-rule well beyond anything previously attempted, there were still substantial concerns over appropriate limits. This isn’t a dilemma unique to starting new nations. It’s one thing to talk about student-directed learning, for example, but quite another to hand them the chalk and the wifi password and tell them you’ll check back in May.

Get too idealistic, and the system devolves into chaos. Maintain too much structure – aka, limitations – and you quickly become just like whatever system you were trying to get away from. It’s like trying to balance Jello on your nose while you learn to unicycle.

Hey – you know who we didn’t ask? Jefferson! I mean, you can find quotes from Jefferson to prove just about anything, right?

You have lived longer than I have and perhaps may have formed a different judgment on better grounds; but my observations do not enable me to say I think integrity the characteristic of wealth. In general I believe the decisions of the people, in a body, will be more honest & more disinterested than those of wealthy men: & I can never doubt an attachment to his country in any man who has his family & peculium in it…
(Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Edmund Pendleton Philadelphia, Aug. 26, 1776)

I had to look up ‘peculium’. It means ‘stuff’ – including family, income, etc. Not quite the same as land, but still property – still evidence of competence via one’s successful estate. In other words, no help from T.J.

Jefferson here confesses to a sort of paradox – he doesn’t believe for a moment that wealth indicates personal integrity or even political wisdom. At the same time, he finds it easier to trust the input of someone who’s invested in the success of the nation of which they’re a part.

It’s the difference between shopping at Bobo’s Grocery Extravaganza and working there, or between working at Bobo’s and investing your life savings in Bobo stock. If I’m a shopper and Bobo’s fails, it’s merely inconvenient. If I work there and it fails, it’s a problem.

But if my kids’ college savings and my retirement are all tied up in Bobo’s, I’m going to go above and beyond to do a great job every time I’m there. I may clean up even when that’s not part of my job, or study up on products I’m not actually required to know about. I’ll certainly be ultra-friendly to every customer who walks in the door. Heck, I may come in on my day off just to kinda help out.

Because I’m invested.

Land ownership suggests one is not only capable, but invested in the nation’s success. If I’m a landowner, I care very much about the next election, the local statutes, the state questions. Crazy Harold who lives under the bridge talking to his urine may be a nice guy, but he’s not overly concerned with researching the finer points of foreign policy.

Well, unless his pee tells him to.

So it seems that whatever else they argued about, our Founding Fathers were largely in agreement about one thing. Landowners were reliable, and self-sufficient. Their voice was their own. Those without? Not so much.

Keep in mind this was a new country – a baby nation. The Declaration was as much a birth certificate as a break-up letter, and our forebears were trying something entirely new. They were idealists, sure – but they were also educated, and realists, and had some idea of the ways in which people tend to behave.

If this ‘self-government’ thing didn’t work, America would fail. If America failed, then democracy had failed. And if democracy failed here, it effectively failed everywhere – in many cases it would never even begin.

The Dark Ages would return – tyranny and ignorance. Monsters once again rule the earth. It would be what we in the social sciences call “bad.”

It was John Adams (of all people) who best explained how the young nation could be both a land of opportunity and pragmatically defend itself against fools and freeloaders.

It is certain in Theory, that the only moral Foundation of Government is the Consent of the People.

There’s that “in theory” again…

But to what an Extent Shall We carry this Principle? Shall We Say, that every Individual of the Community, old and young, male and female, as well as rich and poor, must consent, expressly to every Act of Legislation? No, you will Say. This is impossible…

Adams probably talked too much, but I do love how he steps his audience through his reasoning. It’s very Socrates, very Holmes, very Bill Nye the Government Guy. Franklin may have been the poster child of the Enlightenment in the New World, but Adams was its lesson-planner and incessant blogger.

But why exclude Women? You will Say, because their Delicacy renders them unfit for Practice and Experience, in the great Business of Life, and the hardy Enterprizes of War, as well as the arduous Cares of State. Besides, their attention is So much engaged with the necessary Nurture of their Children, that Nature has made them fittest for domestic Cares. And Children have not Judgment or Will of their own…

How did Abigail not kill him regularly?

I know a number of impressive women both professionally and personally. They are varied and wonderful creatures, but very few qualify for the epithet ‘delicate’. Clearly John was not in the room during childbirth.

But will not these Reasons apply to others? Is it not equally true, that Men in general in every Society, who are wholly destitute of Property, are also too little acquainted with public Affairs to form a Right Judgment, and too dependent upon other Men to have a Will of their own? … Such is the Frailty of the human Heart, that very few Men, who have no Property, have any Judgment of their own…

There it is – the same basic argument which was made time and again by our Framers. You gotta pass the 8th grade reading test to take Driver’s Ed, you gotta keep a ‘C’ average or better to play football, and you gotta have your own land to vote. It’s nothing personal. It’s simply an imperfect indicator of minimal competence.

Doctors gotta have degrees to doctor on you. Accountants have to be certified to do spreadsheets on your behalf. Barbers have to have special certificates confirming their competence to snip your hair off with scissors. None of these hold the power over the vast numbers of people a voter does. None could do the damage possible at the hands of the unqualified citizen.

Or so they reasoned. Personally, I think they were overreacting. I mean, pretty much everyone can vote today, right? And things are going –

OK, maybe they weren’t overreacting.

But Adams doesn’t leave it at that. He elaborates on a solution, a counterbalance. He looks at the long game.

Power always follows Property. This I believe to be as infallible a Maxim, in Politicks, as, that Action and Re-action are equal, is in Mechanicks. Nay I believe We may advance one Step farther and affirm that the Ballance of Power in a Society, accompanies the Ballance of Property in Land.
The only possible Way then of preserving the Ballance of Power on the side of equal Liberty and public Virtue, is to make the Acquisition of Land easy to every Member of Society: to make a Division of the Land into Small Quantities, So that the Multitude may be possessed of landed Estates.
If the Multitude is possessed of the Ballance of real Estate, the Multitude will have the Ballance of Power, and in that Case the Multitude will take Care of the Liberty, Virtue, and Interest of the Multitude in all Acts of Government.
(Letter to James Sullivan, May 1776)

It’s all kinda understatement to say that the first century of American history was largely shaped by this need for land.

Some of it was primal and selfish, of course. At times, shiny rocks were in the ground or particularly nice lumber stuck up out of it. But those were the temporal motivators. The ethical Under Armour of expansion as a whole was this political – almost spiritual – paradigm.

To be a City on a Hill, one must have a hill. To be a republic – a government of-the-by-the-for-the – one must have qualified voters. The most universal way to demonstrate basic responsibility, competence, and character, was land ownership. Thus the almost sacred role of land in both the founding and expanding of this new democracy. It was, to many Framers, the most obvious and tangible measure of a man’s legitimacy, his investment, and his potential value as another voice in the national discussion.

Without widespread, relatively easy access to land, democracy wasn’t possible, and this grand experiment would fail. If democracy failed here, it effectively failed everywhere – it would, in fact, never even begin elsewhere.

Dark Ages. Tyranny and ignorance. Monsters rule the earth.

Every homestead was a 160-acre, individually-sized portion of national ideals. Its role was not asserted so much as perceived – much like many other “self-evident” truths bandied about in those days. And as if that weren’t enough, the issue wasn’t solely terrestrial.

Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever He had a chosen people, whose breasts He has made his peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue. It is the focus in which he keeps alive that sacred fire which otherwise might escape from the face of the earth. Corruption of morals in the mass of cultivators is a phenomenon of which no age nor nation has furnished an example.
(Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782)

I’m no authority on Jefferson, but you don’t know that – so let’s just play along and not make trouble, alright?

“Those who labor in the earth…”

I suppose he could have just said “farmers,” but this paints a more vivid picture to set up where he’s going. It’s not about a role in the economy or the food chain – it’s about the agency of individuals, applied not merely to ground or soil but to the “earth”. It’s a wide-angle lens on an idealized way of life – Jefferson’s strength.

“…the chosen people of God, if ever He had a chosen people…”

Wow. Jefferson getting all allusion-y up in here. The most obvious antecedent would be the Israelites of the Old Testament. Jefferson wasn’t a huge fan of biblical literalism, but that wouldn’t negate its value as a frame of reference.

The addition of “if ever he had a chosen people” may be read as emphasis (“that’s a miracle if ever I saw one!”) or a touch of skepticism (“if there are such things as miracles, this would be one”) – an ambivalence consistent with his few recorded thoughts on scripture. But the power of the image – the holy role of the Hebrew children –he utilizes quite intentionally.

It wasn’t much of a leap from Old Testament progenitors to fresh young Americans – the City on a Hill, the people whose destiny was quickly becoming manifest, and a culture who a century later would carry their “white man’s burden” well past the boundaries of the continent.

But for now the issue was land – or at least the way of life it promoted.

Farmers worked 365 days a year. Soil still needing tilling on your birthday, cows needed milked on Christmas, and no matter how sick you might be, those crops weren’t going to reap themselves. It was labor-intensive and the hours were long, and yet after doing all you could do, all day every day – you waited.

You waited for the rain. You waited for the growth. You waited for the births. You waited for the universe to do its part.

Sometimes it didn’t. Often, even when it did, it took too long and was too slow and there was no way to rush it, but many ways to ruin it. This combination of intense human application and eternal patience is inconceivable generations later. Almost nothing works that way anymore – at least not the sorts of things to which you set your hand on purpose, to carry proudly from cradle to grave.

Sometimes enough years and sufficient survival teach similar lessons in the 21st century – but they come too late to shape much more than our troubled reflections. The laboring Jefferson extols, however, produced “substantial genuine virtue” – a type of perspective and wisdom unavailable minus the requisite experiences.

You won’t find accounts of farmers going rogue in meaningful numbers, he claims. Presumably this is related to all that “virtue” and “sacred fire,” but it also seems unlikely that any successful farmer could have found the time or energy to be particularly corrupt. The natural consequences of immorality or irresponsibility would be an immediate, self-inflicted deterrent. Like playing in the traffic or juggling chainsaws, any screw-ups would be painfully self-correcting.

Agriculture… is our wisest pursuit, because it will in the end contribute most to real wealth, good morals and happiness. The wealth acquired by speculation and plunder, is fugacious in its nature, and fills society with the spirit of gambling. The moderate and sure income of husbandry, begets permanent improvement, quiet life, and orderly conduct both public and private.”
(Thomas Jefferson, Letter to George Washington, 1787)

Jefferson had a distrust of bankers, stock markets, or anything financial industry-ish – so much so that he took great personal pride in never having the foggiest idea how to make his estate solvent. (He died in substantial debt.) Farmers raised essentials. They produced raw materials which could be woven into clothing, smoked for pleasure, eaten to survive. “Real wealth.”

Bankers scribbled numbers in little books, in stuffy rooms, producing nothing, but somehow always taking from you. Farmers dealt in uncertainty, but financiers gambled. While farmers produced, money men “plundered.” The soil, properly tended, would always be there – would always prove reliable. Paper numbers and percentage points never were.

Jefferson is claiming an essential role of land beyond voter qualifications. He’s claiming it as a lifestyle – a moral anchor, social stabilizer, and the only true source of economic security. Husbandry grows in men the essential traits of a fledgling democracy – applied labor, determination, patience, and pragmatism. It’s the wisdom of the earth in the hands of the earth’s masters.

Those Enlightenment-types thought science-y thoughts, but they were still quite comfortable with a little melodramatic sheen to their carefully chosen words. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to spend twice as much time on how you say something as you did on what you were actually saying. Sounds tiring.

*ironic yawn*

I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America. When they get piled upon one another in large cities as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe.”
(Thomas Jefferson, Letter to James Madison, 1787)

Uh-oh.

As yet our manufacturers are as much at their ease, as independent and moral as our agricultural inhabitants, and they will continue so as long as there are vacant lands for them to resort to; because whenever it shall be attempted by the other classes to reduce them to the minimum of subsistence, they will quit their trades and go to laboring the earth.”
(Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Mr. J. Lithgow, 1805)

So let’s recap…

Land ownership allows the property owner to demonstrate his capability, his competence, his potential to be a useful voice – a valid voter. It suggested he was invested in the success of the nation.

Land ownership promotes solidity, character, ethereal virtues reflected in wise words and actions – valuable in and of themselves, sure, but especially necessary in a nation relying on the people themselves to provide effective leadership – directly or through their choices regarding representation.

Land must be available to meet the demands of an expanding nation. Without sufficient, arable land, the ideals on which the nation was founded lack the requisite elements to survive. It’s not an optional ingredient – it’s the eggs in the democracy omelet, the flour in the ‘Mericake.

Finally, in a nod to inconveniently unfolding realities, Jefferson argues that even the POTENTIAL of land ownership – its availability – provides an essential safety valve, a check on the industrializing leaven of Europe as it attempts to leaven the entire American loaf. That he so easily adjusts his faith to accommodate current events I leave to you to interpret as you see fit.

None of our Founders could have anticipated just how quickly this baby nation would begin filling up – the locals spawning and immigrants flowing in as fast as boats could carry them. If these fancy new ideals were going to expand with them, we needed to act quickly.

Opportunity. Responsibility. Chosen people. If it fails here, it fails everywhere. Darkness. Tyranny. Monsters rule the earth.

They were going to need more land. And looking west, it was largely taken…

Rabbit Trails: Criminal Intimacy & Pernicious Polygamy

May 28, 2017June 23, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

I’ve been trying to follow up on a previous post about the “divorce industry” in Oklahoma Territory (1889 – 1907), but I keep getting sidetracked by odd search results and unexpectedly engaging-but-off-topic tangents. I’m finally admitting that my ADHD (Abstemiously Distracted History Dysfunction) has won, and figure I might as well share some of the results.

KANSAS CITY, Mo., Oct. 24.—Last June Judge Field, of the circuit court, granted a divorce to Ira Welch from his wife Ida on the ground of infidelity. Mrs. Welch had not received notice of the suit and the only evidence introduced was the affidavits of Welch and others. Mrs. Welch now brings suit to have the divorce set aside on the ground that she did not receive notice and that publication was not properly made.

OK, so first off – Ira and Ida Welch? How adorable is that!

It sounds like a fairly typical midwestern divorce case so far. It’s not clear how Mr. Welch ended up in Kansas City, but clearly Mrs. Welch hadn’t come with him. While the Midwest was known for its generally lax divorce laws during this period, I’m not aware of Kansas City being particularly notorious in that regard. Whatever the reason, after legal requirements had been met – probably the posting of newspaper notices giving Mrs. Welch a window of time in which to show up and make her case – the court had granted Mr. Welch a divorce.

Now the ex has found out and shown up. She’s in “not so fast, buster” mode – understandable, if inconvenient for Mr. Welch. But this one’s about to get weird, even for a contested midwestern divorce.

She admits criminal intimacy with T.R. Burch, general western manager of the Phoenix insurance company with whom she lived for two years at the Palmer house in Chicago.

“Criminal intimacy” presumably refers to adultery, although it’s certainly a far more colorful term. And it’s not like they just got drunk at an office party and had a moment of passion on the couch – she lived with him for two years! That certainly suggests things with Mr. Welch weren’t going well. What to do, what to do?

She admits also that she purchased a foundling after the Eva Hamilton method and attempted to palm it off on Burch as their child for the purpose of black mail and the attempt failed.

A “foundling” was an unattached child – an orphan, or possibly a kidnapped baby or a child sold off for whatever reason. Apparently you could pick up a kid or three for next-to-nothing in those years. As to the “Eva Hamilton” reference, Hamilton was part of a wild, dysfunctional tale of sex, lies, and stabbing the nanny which unfolded in the press only months before. She, too, had tried the “but I gave birth to your child!” angle using faux offspring she’d only recently purchased, and was at the time of this report sitting in prison ostensibly for murder, but more honestly for being a bit of a ho.

Back to the tawdry Mrs. Welch:

She also admits criminal intimacy with Isaac Warrell, a capitalist of Chicago and several other prominent Chicago men.

Well sure – why not at that point?

So how, exactly, did she explain her opposition to this divorce?

She alleges, however, that her husband had full knowledge of her intimacy with all these men and that her immoralities were practiced with his consent, he receiving the greater part of the money that she extorted from her gentlemen acquaintances.
The case goes to trial tomorrow.
“Another Eva Hamilton” (Oklahoma City Daily Times, October 25, 1889)

Oh, well then – if her husband knew and approved, that’s a great reason to stay together.

Mr. Welch was granted his divorce.

As I returned to searching for “divorce mill” anecdotes, this story popped up:

TOLAGA, Oklahoma, Sept. 22.—Yellow Bonnet, a Cheyenne Indian, has applied for a blanket divorce from his four wives. It is the first time that an Indian has applied for a divorce in Oklahoma. Yellow Bonnett recently embraced the Christian religion, but his wives refused to become Christians.
The New York Times (September 23, 1895)

My first inclination was to question the term “blanket” divorce, given the slang and mindset towards Amerindians at the time. Pretty sure I was reading too much into the term, however.

Still, I couldn’t help but follow up. Apparently his wives had reached some sort of agreement amongst themselves that he had to divorce all or none of them. The fear was that if he divorced them individually, he’d get down to one last wife and decide to keep her, thus leaving the others cut off.

So they locked arms and insisted on all or nothing. Good for them.

And… “Yellow Bonnet”? Really?

Next result…

OKLAHOMA DIVORCE TANGLE
Mrs. Harris Sues Mason After He Is Reconciled with His Wife.
GUTHRIE, Oklahoma, Dec. 3.—A very sensational case closed in the Probate Court at Newkirk to-day. Some time ago George M. Mason, a jeweler well known in several Colorado cities, came ot Oklahoma City from Denver to try to get a divorce.

Ah, that’s more like it. This is Oklahoma’s “Divorce Industry” in action!

Soon after his arrival he began to lavish attention on Mrs. Anna Harris, a dashing widow, boarding house keeper. Recently Mrs. Mason arrived from Colorado, effected a reconciliation, and the couple prepared to start for the Centennial State.

See, Colorado joined the Union in 1876, the nation’s centennial. What made this timing particularly interesting was—

Actually, never mind. BECAUSE I’M FOCUSED NOW.

The widow first attempted suicide.

Whoah, there – suicide? Not to downplay her suffering, but that’s the go-to response when your man-toy reconciles with his old lady? I mean, yell, sure. Curse, throw stuff at him – but suicide?

The doctors pumped out her stomach, and she had Mason arrested for stealing $150. She claimed to have left it with him for safe keeping.

Did he have the audacity to even come and step to her and ask to hold some money from her until he got his check next week?

That trifling, good-for-nothing type of brother. Silly widow – why didn’t she find another?

The evidence developed that she had received the money from a well-known merchant, and had given it to Mason with the understanding that in return he was to pay attention to her alone. The Judge discharged the prisoner, declaring there had been no theft, simply a breach of contract.

That’s hilarious. By which I mean sad. If we use sad to mean seriously messed up.

Here’s a tip for all you young ladies (or middle-aged widows) out there – if you have to pay him not to run around on you, the relationship is not going well.

One last try. Surely I’m due for something useful and on-topic…

Citrus J. O’Donnell… comes into the court to ask for some sort of relief. Citrus himself seems to have rather hazy notions of the sort of relief he wants, but he thinks he is entitled to something of the sort. He says he does not want a divorce, but he thinks the court ought to look after his wife a little.

OK, I have to admit this caught my attention.

And… “Citrus”? My apologies to “Yellow Bonnet.”

He explains that he married Mrs. O’Donnell three years ago and that since then she from time to time has married other men, five in all. Citrus asserts that he has labored with his polygamous spouse and has earnestly sought to wean her from her pernicious theories of wholesale partnership, but all in vain.
After several months of marital tranquility and happiness with Citrus, Mrs. O’Donnell has been accustomed to steal away quietly, swoop down on some neighboring city and gobble up another husband. A few months later she returns, dangling another scalp from her belt and with another marriage certificate added to her souvenier collection.

We’re, um… we’re going to assume those “scalps” are metaphorical. Otherwise we have a very different legal situation here.

Citrus… doesn’t want a divorce; he wants his wife. And he comes into court to ask the law to do something for him. It strikes us that in equity Citrus is entitled to some sort of relief. If he cannot do better perhaps he might find relief in praying earnestly for brains.
The Guthrie Leader (February 26, 1895)

*pause*

That does it. I’m going to need to try some better search terms.

Rabbit Trails: Mary Sallade & The One-Eyed Pickpocket

May 27, 2017June 23, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 2 Comments

I’ve been looking into the “divorce industry” in Oklahoma Territory (1889 – 1907). I’ve posted once on the topic, and I’m a bit overdue in following up. This particular line of inquiry evolved from my interest in author and Renaissance Woman Helen Churchill Candee, who came to Guthrie to sever her own marital bonds in 1896, and who stayed long enough to write about life there – multiple times and quite effectively.

So I spend more time than seems reasonable searching online newspaper archives for terms like “divorce” or “Oklahoma.” I’m not sure this makes me a crack researcher, but it has certainly led me down some weird paths. Not every result fits what I’m after – they’re just keyword searches, after all – but history is a twisted, taunting little minx. Pick any topic – ANY topic – and start scratching at it. Something fascinating will almost always unfold… and yet leave you with a congress of unknowns, smirking and smug like Alice’s cat.

MRS. MARY F. SALLADE IS MARRIED
Her Third Husband Harrison E. Havens of Enid, Oklahoma.
Mrs. Mary F. Sallade, who figured in court several times as the accuser of the proprietors of resorts in West Twenty-fourth Street, between Broadway and Sixth Avenue, has been married for the third time.

OK – so third time, huh? Surely that was a bit unusual for that era. And… “accuser of the proprietors of resorts…”? There’s got to be a story there, one with which the Times assumed readers were already familiar.

She is now Mrs. Harrison Eugene Havens, having been married April 3 by the Rev. Dr. Parkhurst. Enid, Oklahoma, will soon be her home. Mr. Havens, who is a lawyer, procured for her a divorce from her second husband, whose name was Sharpe.

Ah, the plot thickens! Divorce Husband No. 2 while hooking up with your lawyer. Sly little thing, wasn’t she?

Mrs. Sallade gave $500 security for the appearance in court of George Appo, to answer the charge of having stabbed policeman M.F. Rein. Appo is missing and Mrs. Sallade may lose her money.
The New York Times (April 18, 1895)

Um… what? Who is – and he stabbed – and… WTF?!

George Appo, it turns out, was a notorious pickpocket and con man, easily recognized as the half-Irish, half-Chinese guy with one eye non-surgically removed. Several months after this piece was published he was sentenced to six months in a New York penitentiary for assaulting Officer Rein.

None of which explains how or why Mary Sallade was involved. But no matter – I should get back to that Oklahoma divorce stuff. I so rarely have the time to properly—

*sigh*

OK. One quick Google search. That’s all. Then back to my original quest.

Police officer Michael Rein charged Appo with stabbing him while placing him under arrest for creating a disturbance. Under cross-examination, however, Appo’s counsel, Frank Moss, challenged the veracity of Rein’s story and the media coverage of the event.

Sensationalized media coverage distorting the facts in 1895? The more things change…

The officer testified that after the confrontation with Appo, he returned to the precinct house, undressed, and slept in the station that evening. Only the next day, he admitted, did he bother to notice the stab wound…

So it really wasn’t even a proper stabbing? That would explain the relatively short sentence.

Appo was… represented by Frank Moss, but his five-hundred dollar bond was furnished by Mary F. Sallade, a prominent figure in moral reform circles in New York and sometimes called “the female Parkhurst”… Such encouragement bolstered Appo. He insisted that “no matter what the police tried they could not again drive him into the ranks of crooks”…

Sallade was “a prominent figure in moral reform circles”? The Sallade now on Husband No. 3, who helped her dump Husband No. 2, and seems to have brought her all the way to Enid, OK?

There’s another reference which presumably meant something to contemporaneous readers – “the female Parkhurst.” From context, we can reasonably infer he must have been some sort of reformer, perhaps a—

Wait, “Parkhurst”? Parkhurst. Where have we heard—

The guy who married Mary to her third husband, who helped her divorce her second husband, while she was putting up bail for the ne’er-do-well who’d supposedly stabbed a cop but now it seems like maybe he really didn’t? THAT Parkhurst? He was a household name of some sort?

But I’m not Googling him. I’m just not. Too much to do! Be strong.

Dammit.

On Valentine’s Day in 1892 an obscure minister delivered a sermon that changed the fate of New York City. The jeremiad by the Rev. Dr. Charles H. Parkhurst inspired a campaign that unmasked New York’s first major police scandal, that contributed to the creation of a five-borough city and that placed Theodore Roosevelt on the road to the Presidency…
“Parkhurst proved that one just man could singlehandedly defeat a powerful and evil machine like Tammany Hall and reform an entire police department”…
“Taking on Tammany, 100 Years Ago” (Selwyn Raab – The New York Times, February 14, 1992)

*sigh*

He has his own Wikipedia entry. The Rev. Parkhurst mentioned in such casual passing as having hitched Mary Sallade to Husband No. 3 helped take down Tammany Hall, a task normally more closely associated with political cartoonist Thomas Nast, who popularized our current image of Santa Claus. I have no doubt they both connect directly to Kevin Bacon from here.

Rev. Dr. Charles Parkhurst is not to be confused, of course, with Charley Parkhurst, the cross-dressing (possibly transgendered) stagecoach driver and cowboy from a few short decades before. Born biologically female, and orphaned, she lived most of her life as a male and was best-known by the nickname “One-Eyed Charley.” Wanna guess why?

None of which helps Mary, who lost her bail money:

A week later Appo failed to appear for his trial, thus forfeiting Sallade’s bond. Appo later defended his flight as self-defense.
A Pickpocket’s Tale: The Underworld of Nineteenth-Century New York, by Timothy J. Gilfoyle (2007)

Sallade comes up a half-dozen times more in Gilfoyle’s book. She gave Appo honest employment at “the Sallade Dress Factory” and is listed as one of the few “evangelically motivated reformers” who reached out to men like Appo offering pathways to redemption, no matter how many times they fell back into a life of crime. Appo mentioned her specifically near the end of his life, giving thanks to those who’d cared.

Fascinating. And I want so badly to make some sort of “Sallade” and “Dresses/Dressing” remark, but…

I’ve got a semi-legit post to compose. Surely the next result will be more useful.

BROOKLYN DIVORCE CASE: Aged Mr. and Mrs. Meinekhein in an Oklahoma Court.
PERRY, Oklahoma, Dec. 23.—Although seventy years old, with hair (when not dyed) as white as cotton, so her husband says, Mrs. Lucinda C. Meinekhein, school-teacher, of Brooklyn, N.Y., has come to Oklahoma to fight her husband, B.G. Meinekhein, in his divorce suit, which began to-day.

Ah, here we go. He came here to get an easy divorce, and she showed up to contest it!

Wait – did that say she was SEVENTY YEARS OLD?

Menekhein was married to Lucinda in 1868, and he says she treated him very cruelly. One charge is that she doused him with cold water several times while he was in bed. Mrs. Meinekhein introduced many love letters, purporting to have been written by Meinekhein to New York City Women.
The New York Times (December 24th, 1896)

She was a teacher? What color did she dye her hair normally? And these letters… how long ago had they been—

Nope.

But “Lucinda”? And what prompted the cold water? Was it just “you’re an a-hole!” cold water or was it “take a cold shower, you lecherous old goat!” cold water? If I research such an unusual name, surely–

Nope.

No more distractions. I have a post on the divorce industry in Oklahoma Territory to get compose. We’ll try again next time.