Category: History

Historian Jill Lepore has an excellent review essay in The New Yorker on the 1800 election. Here’s her description of the candidates:

To size up the candidates, what you need, for starters, is the word on the street—or, since the United States in 1800 is an agrarian nation, the word on the cow path. Adams: a Harvard graduate and Massachusetts lawyer who helped negotiate the Treaty of Paris in 1783 and served two terms as Washington’s Vice-President before his election to the Presidency in 1796. Distinguished, disputatious, short, ugly, hot-tempered, upstanding, provincial, learned (president of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences). Very clever wife. Suspected of wanting to be king. Loves England. Thinks his diplomats have to tread carefully with Napoleon. Signed into law the Sedition Act in 1798; depending on your point of view, this was either so that he could have anyone who disagreed with him thrown in jail or so that he could protect the country from dangerous anarchists.

Jefferson: former governor of Virginia, onetime Ambassador to France, Washington’s Secretary of State. Eminent, brilliant (president of the American Philosophical Society), surpassing prose stylist, author of the Declaration of Independence (with help from Adams), unrivalled champion of liberty, slave owner, grieving widower, rumored to have fathered children by one of his slaves. Tall, humorless, moody, zealous, cosmopolitan. Artistic. Loves France, not so worried about Bonaparte. Ardently opposes the Sedition Act. Reputed atheist.

It’s fascinating to see both how much and how little we’ve changed in 208 years. Take a look.

220 years ago today the delegates to the Constitutional Convention met for the last time to sign the document and send it to the 13 states for ratification.

Click image for larger version of Mike Wilkins’s Preamble, 1987, painted metal on vinyl and wood, 96 x 96 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Nissan Motor Corporation in U.S.A. Wilkins ordered the plates from each of the states.

California was admitted to the Union as the 31st state, and New Mexico Territory (which included present-day Arizona) and Utah Territory (which included present-day western Colorado and Nevada) were organized, by acts signed by President Millard Fillmore on September 9, 1850. That day, President Fillmore also signed an act paying Texas $10 million to relinquish its claims to the Rio Grande as its western border all the way into Colorado.

California was admitted as a free state — that is, no slavery — upsetting the balance between free and slave states that had held for nearly 30 years. The territorial organic acts for New Mexico and Utah stated: “That, when admitted as a State, the said territory, or any portion of the same, shall be received into the Union, with or without slavery, as their constitution may prescribe at the time of their admission.” This too was an undoing of the Missouri Compromise of 1820-1821, which had prohibited slavery in territories north of 36º 30′ (the southern boundary of Missouri). The question was now open in territories both north (Utah) and south (New Mexico) of that line.

Slavery in the territories became the prime issue of the 1850s, the election of 1860, and the coming of the Civil War.

It was on this day [September 8th] in 1900 that the worst hurricane in American history hit Galveston, Texas. At the time Galveston was a beautiful resort town on the eastern end of a barrier island, just off the Texas coast. But the highest point of the island was only 8.7 feet above sea level, and when the storm approached all the bridges off the island were flooded and people were trapped on high ground. The storm hit that evening and by the end of it, more than a third of the entire city was gone. There was barely any trace of the houses or even the streets that had been there before. In total, more than 3,600 houses were completely destroyed. About 37,000 people were on the island when the storm hit. More than 12,000 were still missing weeks later. The official death toll was about 8,000, but most historians think that number is much too low.

The Writer’s Almanac from American Public Media

On September 6, 1901, President William McKinley was shot while attending the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. Leon Czolgosz, a Polish citizen associated with the Anarchist movement, fired two shots at McKinley who was greeting the public in a receiving line.

McKinley died September 14, whispering the words of his favorite hymn, “Nearer my God to Thee, Nearer to Thee.” He was succeeded by his vice president, Theodore Roosevelt.

— Source Library of Congress.

Czolgosz died in the electric chair.

See The New York Times articles from the day of the shooting.

The conclusion of Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech in Washington 44 years ago today (and worth reading every year).

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right down in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I will go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day. And this will be the day, this will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning, “My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring!” And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

And so let freedom ring — from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring — from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring — from the heightening Alleghenies of
Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring — from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring — from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that.

Let freedom ring — from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring — from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring — from every hill and molehill of Mississippi,
from every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual,

“Free at last, free at last.

Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.”

While I was at Kit Carson’s grave in Taos last Sunday I remembered this story as told by Larry McMurtry in his excellent essay Inventing the West.

In the fall of 1849, however, real life and the dime novel smacked into each other with a force that Kit Carson would never forget. A man named James M. White was traveling with his family on the Santa Fe Trail when they were attacked by a raiding party of Jicarilla Apaches, who killed James White and carried off Mrs. White, her child, and a servant. Pursuit was not immediate, but pursuit was eventually joined. Kit Carson lived nearby and was asked to help. In the brief autobiography which he dictated in 1856 he says that the trail was the most difficult he had ever been asked to follow; but, near the Canadian River, the rescuers finally caught up with the raiders. Carson charged immediately but was called back. The commanding officer, Captain Grier, had been told that the Apaches wanted to parley. They didn’t. After taking a shot or two at the soldiers, they killed Mrs. White and fled. Here is the scene in Carson’s words:

There was only one Indian in camp, he running into the river hard by was shot. In about two hundred yards the body of Mrs. White was found, perfectly warm, had not been killed more than five minutes, shot through the heart with an arrow….

In the camp was found a book, the first of the kind that I had ever seen, in which I was made a great hero, slaying Indians by the hundreds and I have often thought that Mrs. White would read the same and knowing that I lived near, she would pray for my appearance and that she might be saved. I did come but I had not the power to convince those that were in command over me to pursue my plan for her rescue….

Kit Carson was illiterate. He could sign and perhaps recognize his name, but all his life he took orders—often foolish and sometimes barbarous orders—from his superiors: men who could read. He was never insubordinate. The dime novel found by Mrs. White’s still-warm corpse had to be read to him, or summarized. He was long haunted by the hopes that had been raised by that dime novel, hopes he had just failed to fulfill. Except for recording the fact that he married Josefa Jaramillo, his “Little Jo,” Mrs. James M. White is the only woman mentioned by name in his autobiography.

In his essay McMurtry explains that most of the traditions associated with the American West were inventions of pulp writers, artists and advertising men—and show business. He illustrates from the careers of Carson, “Buffalo Bill” Cody, Annie Oakley and others. Cody, McMurtry writes, “spent more than forty years peddling illusions about the West….” In the end, when he wanted to tell the real story, he found that “Americans, now as then, were perfectly happy with the illusion….”

The invading British burned the public buildings of Washington on this date in 1814.

On August 24, 1814, as the War of 1812 raged on, invading British troops marched into Washington and set fire to the U.S. Capitol, the President’s Mansion, and other local landmarks. The ensuring fire reduced all but one of the capital city’s major public buildings to smoking rubble, and only a torrential rainstorm saved the Capitol from complete destruction. The blaze particularly devastated the Capitol’s Senate wing, the oldest part of the building, which was honeycombed with vulnerable wooden floors and housed the valuable but combustible collection of books and manuscripts of the Library of Congress, then located in the Capitol building. Heat from the intense fire reduced the Senate chamber’s marble columns to lime, leaving the room, in one description, “a most magnificent ruin.”

Source: U.S. Senate Art & History

After 26 hours in Washington, the British moved toward Baltimore, where they met with resistance and the Star-spangled banner still waved.

The United Farm Workers of America (UFW) was formed on this date in 1966, initially as the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee.

1680: The Pueblo Revolt

1831: Nat Turner

1858: Lincoln-Douglas

… was killed on this date in 1057. But not as Shakespeare portrayed it. Here’s the story from the BBC:

Mac Bethad mac Findláich, known in English as Macbeth, was born in around 1005. His father was Finlay, Mormaer of Moray, and his mother may have been Donada, second daughter of Malcolm II. A Mormaer was literally a high steward of one of the ancient Celtic provinces of Scotland, but in Latin documents the word is usually translated as ‘Comes’, which means earl.

In August 1040, he killed the ruling king, Duncan I, in battle near Elgin, Morayshire. Macbeth became king. His marriage to Kenneth III’s granddaughter Gruoch strengthened his claim to the throne. In 1045, Macbeth defeated and killed Duncan I’s father Crinan at Dunkeld.

For 14 years Macbeth seems to have ruled equably, imposing law and order and encouraging Christianity. In 1050 he is known to have travelled to Rome for a papal jubilee. He was also a brave leader and made successful forays over the border into Northumbria, England.

In 1054, Macbeth was challenged by Siward, Earl of Northumbria, who was attempting to return Duncan’s son Malcolm Canmore, who was his nephew, to the throne. In August 1057, Macbeth was killed at the Battle of Lumphanan in Aberdeenshire by Malcolm Canmore (later Malcolm III).

… was signed into law by President Franklin Roosevelt on this date in 1935.

Edison film with Annie Oakley, 1894.

Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary accepted its first prisoners 73 years ago today.

Alcatraz is a 22-acre rock island in San Francisco Bay, 1½ miles from shore. For 29 years the federal prison system kept its highest security prisoners there, including Al Capone, Machine Gun Kelly, and the famous Birdman, Robert Stroud (played by Burt Lancaster in the film Birdman of Alcatraz). Reportedly, no one was ever known to have successfully escaped from Alcatraz, though Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers were never found after their attempt (as dramatized in the Clint Eastwood movie).

From 1868 to 1934, Alcatraz was a military prison. In 1969, American Indian activists occupied and claimed the island. Their occupation lasted 19 months.

Alcatraz Island became part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area of the National Park Service in 1972.

Alcatraz, from the original Spanish Alcatraces, is usually defined as meaning “pelican” or “strange bird.”

Click photo to enlarge.

… joined the Union as the 24th state on this date in 1821.

What state was next?