goldfields

J.R. Poynter, author of Entewa, the Mountain Bird, had an attitude towards Native Americans that was typical of 19th century Americans — ambivalent. It may have been based as much on his reading of popular American authors as it was on actual encounters with Indians. At least it can be said that, although he asserts all his opinions are derived from “personal observation,” these are expressed in the language of romantic primitivism. He couldn’t help but see the California Indians from a distance and through the lens of Euro-American literature.

On the one hand, he asserts that the Indians of the Sacramento Valley are an ignorant and dirty lot, but on the other hand, their brothers of the mountains are as noble and independent as the valley Indians are degraded. This degradation he attributes to their contact with Spanish civilization.

With this mongrel race which is now found in and along the valley, we have no inclination to say but little if anything in extenuation of their habits and condition. Since the first establishment of the Missions in the country, they have gradually, step by step, receded from that glorious state of primitive independence and freedom, always taking from the Spaniard in their amalgamation, all their hateful habits and vices, without inheriting a virtue, or single principle, to guide them in their wanton and licentious course . . .

So their condition is the fault of their mixing with the worst of Europe: southerners and Catholics. Poynter has no qualms about labeling them filthy, lazy, uncouth and ill-shapen. (It’s pretty hard to read.) And yet their brothers of the mountains are just the opposite.

But leave the valley — go with us into the deep defiles and unknown fastnesses the yonder mountain, to the home of the Unco-sho-sho-nees, where the whiteman, until late, has never trod and his immoral nature is unknown.  . . . Is there anything at all in these Indians resembling those of the valley? No! you will unhesitatingly answer; for they are superior in war, nobler in person, loftier in bearing, prouder in feeling, and withal possess the means and capacity to lord it over these Indians of the valley, upon whom they look down with the most sovereign contempt, and whom they are, and ever have been, time out of mind, engaged in the most deadly hostility.

Poynter then goes on to tell a garbled legend of how the Unco-sho-sho-nees, or happy Sho-sho-nees, were driven from their eastern homeland and led by a young chief to the shores of the Sacramento Valley (then a great inland sea), where they lived “amidst delightful scenes and refreshing pleasures of their new homes.”

These then are Entewa’s people, strong, courageous, and free — true exemplars of the Noble Savage.

California Indians Hunting, from http://ushistoryimages.com/california-indians.shtm

And so you get a conversation like the following, between Giles, the young backwoodsman, and Weedow, a hardened old mountaineer. Enjoy the dialect dialogue!

“Nobler? how? w’y as to noblerty, I b’leeve an Ingen’s got more ern the pale-faces. I would’nt gin the free bo’n soul an’ ginerous heart of er Ingen, for all the good you might squeeze out’n a dozen of yer starch ear’d civilized pimps, struttin’ yer city streets ‘ith thir store clothes on, an’ ey’in er honest countryman, ‘ith a sassy grin — drot ther hypocritin picturs.”

“Pshaw! nonsense boy. When you’ve passed as many years, and learned on Ingens much as I know, you’ll change them senterments — never a nation yit could produce sich a sit of traitors, deceivers, hypocrits, thieves, murd’rers and abominators like the Ingen nation, and never will.”

“Good God, Weedow! I jist know better — ef you’d rob the white peeple of ther power, leave em the sense an’ courage they’ve got already, an’ treat ’em as the Ingens are treated, I tell yer, this yeath would knock the ‘sites’ off’en the devils own stampin’ ground; but it’s no use er talkin’ we’ve ollers differ’d and ollers will — I’ve lived too long and seed too much of Ingen life, young tho’ I am, to be mistaken ’bout this.”

There Poynter expresses the two sides of the white American view of Native Americans, and he never does find a way to reconcile them.

I came across this fun book titled Lost States: True Stories of Texlahoma, Transylvania, and other states that never made it, by Michael J. Trinklein (Quirk Books, 2010). This is a light-hearted and well-illustrated look at dozens of proposed states that never made it onto the map of the United States. Some were just wacky suggestions and others were serious proposals that were considered by Congress. Most are long-forgotten, but a few are still being promoted.

Many of these ideas tried to solve a geographic or economic problem: how should the Dakotas be split up, east/west or north/south, or, what to do with a territory such as Arizona/New Mexico that doesn’t have enough population (maybe call it Montezuma?)

There are some great names for states here. How about Absaroka, Deseret, Hazard, Muskogee (not in Oklahoma), Nickajack, or Yazoo?

California has generated more than its share of phantom states. Here is a little bit about each of the parts of California that might have been states in their own right (not counting recent proposals to divide California into 3, or 6, or 9 pieces)—

Nataqua: I wrote about Nataqua, the territory organized by Isaac Roop and Peter Lassen. It compassed an under-populated area of northeastern California and a swath of Nevada. Just one little problem: they drew the lines so that Susanville, the seat of government, was outside the boundaries.

Jefferson: Made up of southern Oregon and northern California, this was first proposed in 1941 and is still an idea that is alive and kicking. Otherwise known as Wildfire Country at the present.

The flag shows a gold pan with a double X, represented the two regions that consider themselves “double-crossed” by their state governments.

Shasta: A small version of Jefferson comprising the northernmost counties of California (but not Tehama or Butte counties), first proposed in 1957. It all has to do with southern California stealing the north’s water.

South California: Promoted in 1859 by Andres Pico (brother of the last Mexican governor of California) as a place for the displaced Californios. He wanted to call it Colorado. Although Mr. Trinklein doesn’t mention it, there were also American Southerners who wanted to make a separate state in the south of California where slave ownership would be legal.

Sonora: That indefatigable filibuster William Walker took over Baja California and might have hung onto it, but he got greedy and tried to take the state of Sonora as well. The Mexican army ran him off. He then tried the same thing in Nicaragua and Honduras.

And last and likely least of all, Rough and Ready: The town declared its secession from the Union as “the Great Republic of Rough and Ready” on 7 April 1850, largely to avoid mining taxes, but voted to rejoin the Union less than three months later on 4 July, because they didn’t want to miss out on celebrating the independence of the United States. Trinklein says that they also seceded when Nevada County declared itself a dry county, but I don’t know if that part is true.

Just a snippet from a book I was looking at yesterday. I always enjoy reading about women pioneers and the reaction they engendered when they arrived at a mining camp.

The book is The Pierce Chronicle: Personal Reminiscences of E. D. Pierce as transcribed by Lou A. Larrick. Pierce was a forty-niner who mined in California, Oregon, Washington and Idaho.  He was mining and trading at Scott’s Bar in Shasta County in 1850 or ’51 when the following occurred:

Among the new arrivals was Rev. D. H. Lowery and wife. She was the first Lady that came into camp at the northern mines. Some of the first discoverers of the mines had not seen a white lady for two years when they arrived. The miners telegraph line was hurled through the camp that a lady had arrived.

The men all quit work to come to see her, and seemed to stand and gaze with wonder and astonishment. If a locomotive with a train of cars had passed by it would not have created any more excitement, just to think for a woman to travel horse back two hundred miles in the month of Feb. in a mountainous country, through snow over a rough trail, having to camp out every night. It must have taken a persevering and determined mind and deserved to be applauded by every one.

I have no idea who Mrs. Lowery was or whether she was young or old. If she were young, then she would remind the men of a sister, wife, or sweetheart back home. If she were older, she would remind them of their dear old mother or grandmother. It didn’t matter. Just to see any woman was refreshment.

Isadore Meyerowitz and Peter Lassen moved from Indian Valley to Honey Lake Valley in the summer of 1855. It was a place they had visited as early as 1850, and they became permanent residents when they wintered over in 1855-56. They built a long low log cabin and started ranching in the valley.

Not knowing whether or not they were living within the boundaries of California due to the remote nature of the location, Lassen, Meyerowitz, and other residents of the area including Isaac Roop, decided to organize and declare their own territory. They named it Nataqua and drew up a set of territorial laws. Lassen was the first, and Isadore the second, to put their signatures on the document.

But Isadore’s term of life in Nataqua was short. In the summer of 1856 a boating accident claimed his life.

He and a companion known as Sailor Jack built a crude boat from a wagon bed. With two (or more) other men and Isadore’s Indian wife they set sail on Honey Lake. (Isadore’s wife’s name was never recorded.)

Once out in the middle of the lake, a gust of wind caught the sail and capsized the boat. At first they clung to the makeshift craft, but his wife kept slipping off, and she and Isadore both drowned. One man swam to shore and two others drifted with the boat until it reached the shore. It was a sad end to a sunny July day.

The bodies were never recovered. Isadore’s only memorial was a tribute written in Hutchings’ California Magazine a year later:

Isadore, for thy gentleness and kindness, many loved thee, and for thy true-hearted manliness many respected thee, and — as always when the good die — Isadore, many mourn thy departure.

(Illustration by Ben Barker on the cover of The Short-Lived Explorations of Isadore Meyerowitz, by Rosaline Levenson)

[I was trying to fix a missing picture in this post, but I can’t find the picture, and I can’t put the post back to 2018. So I’ll just post it again so as not to lose it.]

When I visited the Lassen Historical Museum last month, I bought a little book titled The Short-Lived Explorations of Isadore Meyerowitz, by Rosaline Levenson.  Knowing that Isadore was Peter Lassen’s partner, I was interested in reading the book. Ms. Levenson did an outstanding job of tracking down every possible bit of knowledge about Isadore’s life. It’s a short book though — very little is known about the man.

Isadore was either a Russian or a Polish Jew. As Levenson points out, parts of eastern Poland alternated between Polish and Russian rule, but given the spelling of his name, he was probably from a Polish area. The date of his birth and the date of his immigration are both unknown, but it is likely that he was younger than Peter Lassen, his partner.

Isadore and Peter Lassen settled in the Indian Valley of Northern California in the 1850s. There they ran a trading post and grew vegetables to sell to miners and travelers. Isadore spent seven years as the partner of Peter Lassen and like Lassen must have been of the same restless and independent nature. Some men who met him in Indian Valley in 1854 referred to him as “an intelligent Russian.” He could speak the local Indian dialect and was married to an Indian woman.

Isadore came to California in either 1848 or 1849. He was a Mason and his name appears on the roster of California Lodge No. 13 when it first met on November 17, 1849. Lassen too was a Mason, although attached to a different lodge, and the Masonic tie would have helped to form a bond between the men.

J. Goldsborough Bruff, to whom we are indebted for so much information about Gold Rush California and Lassen in particular, wrote the following about Isadore in a diary entry on November 14, 1850:

Here occurred an instance of Israelitish fraternal regard. My estimable friend Isadore went to the wagon, in which was a friend of his, a brother Israelite, whom he had previously served. He hinted to him his present situation, when the other offered him a purse of several thousand dollars, but he took only a small sum, to purchase some necessaries to carry out in the hills.

Next time: The Untimely Death of Isadore Meyerowitz