1832

 

May: Captain Benjamin Bonneville leads an expedition of 110 men up the Missouri River, exploring in the next two years, large parts of Wyoming and Idaho, and sending a party south to Great Salt Lake and then into California. Back East, the story spreads that he is dead. 

He finally returns to civilization: 

A story is told of Captain Benjamin Bonneville. He took leave of absence, for two years, from the army to trap in the mountains around what is now Salt Lake City.

 

He caught beavers and otter and fished, and the Crows came and cleaned him out, and he kept out of the way for two years more. He was reported dead. He went to the adjutant-general and reported, but the adjutant says: “Bonneville is dead” – He says: “I am not dead.” – “Oh yes,” said the adjutant, “you are dead; you are as dead as a mackeral. Go away from here and don’t disturb the record.”

 

The Life and Deeds of General Sherman by Henry Davenport Northrop, J. H. Moore & Co., Philadelphia, Pa., p. 566.)

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THE PAINTER George Catlin heads up the Missouri River to paint and explore. During this journey (one of five he takes between 1830 and 1836, he visits eighteen different Indian tribes.

All pictures shown here are from the blogger's collection.
All by George Catlin.

 

I took pictures of pictures in the museum at Fort Mandan.
The white dots are reflections of lights behind me on the glass.

Many indigenous peoples considered killing a grizzly a high form of courage.

Preparing for a game of lacrosse.

A matter of two cultures.

 

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To William Lloyd Garrison

by John Greenleaf Whittier

 

CHAMPION of those who groan beneath

   Oppression’s iron hand:

In view of penury, hate, and death,

    I see thee fearless stand.

Still bearing up thy lofty brow,

    In the steadfast strength of truth,

In manhood sealing well the vow

   And promise of thy youth.

Go on, for thou hast chosen well;

   On in the strength of God!

Long as one human heart shall swell

   Beneath the tyrant’s rod.

Speak in a slumbering nation’s ear,

   As thou hast ever spoken,

Until the dead in sin shall hear,

   The fetter’s link be broken!

I love thee with a brother’s love,

   I feel my pulses thrill,

To mark thy Spirit soar above

   The cloud of human ill.

 

My heart hath leaped to answer thine,

   And echo back thy words,

As leaps the warrior’s at the shine

   And flash of kindred swords!

 

They tell me thou art rash and vain,

   A searcher after fame;

That thou art striving but to gain

   A long-enduring name;

That thou hast nerved the Afric’s hand

   And steeled the Afric’s heart,

To shake aloft his vengeful brand,

   And rend his chain apart.

Have I not known thee well, and read

   Thy mighty purpose long?

And watched the trials which have made

   Thy human spirit strong?

And shall the slanderer’s demon breath

   Avail with one like me,

To dim the sunshine of my faith

   And earnest trust in thee?

Go on, the dagger’s point may glare

   Amid thy pathway’s gloom;

The fate which sternly threatens there

   Is glorious martyrdom!

Then onward with a martyr’s zeal;

   And wait thy sure reward

When man to man no more shall kneel,

   And God alone be Lord!

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NOTE TO TEACHERS: History can help students learn empathy. I always felt that was a critical goal. I read a good description once of the destruction of Chief Black Hawk’s tribe in 1832; I made this part of one of my lessons. Around the same time the Cherokee tribe in Georgia was fighting to keep its land. But weapons were not the choice. The Cherokee used the law – hired lawyers – went to court – and eventually won their case before the United States Supreme Court. 

    Justice prevailed. Or so I made the students imagine. President Andrew Jackson refused to support the courts. And the Georgia settlers kept pressing in on the native lands. (State law did not recognize the testimony of an Indian against a white. So the settlers could pretty much act with impunity.) The Cherokee were soon driven out of the state and towards the setting sun. 

    Indeed, greed prevailed. 

 

    Black Hawk’s tribe tried to bargain for their land, tried to reason it out. Finally they had no choice except to fight.  

    Black Hawk himself spoke shortly after his defeat.  His words had power and eloquence. I thought my students could appreciate his sorrow. 

    My paragraph of explanation included these words: 

    It may surprise you to see that [Black Hawk] was not just a “fighter.” He thought about and felt deeply the mistreatment his people suffered. As you will note, he expresses the same emotions we might feel in his situation. 

          Here is part of what he said: 

    He has done nothing for which an Indian ought to be ashamed.  He has fought for his countrymen, against the white men, who came, year after year, to cheat them, and take away their lands.  You know the cause of our making war.  It is know to all white men.  They ought to be ashamed of it.  The white men despise [hate] the Indians, and drive them from their homes.  They smile in the face of the poor Indian, to cheat him; they shake him by the hand to gain his confidence, to make him drunk, and to deceive [trick] him.  We told them to let us alone, and keep away from us; but they followed us [and gave us no peace]...they coiled themselves among us like the snake.  They poisoned us by their touch.  We were not safe.  We lived in danger.  We looked up to the Great Spirit [god].  We went to our father [the president of the United States].  We were encouraged.  His great council [Congress] gave us fair words and big promises; but we got no satisfaction:  things were growing worse.   There were no deer in the forest.  The opossum and beaver were fled [gone].  The springs were drying up, and our squaws and papooses without...[food were] starving.

 

    We called a great council and built a large fire.  The spirit of our fathers arose, and spoke to us to avenge [seek revenge for] our wrongs or die.  We sent up the war- whoop, and dug up the tomahawk; our knives were ready, and the heart of Black Hawk swelled high...when he led his warriors to battle. 

 

    He is satisfied.  He will go to the world of the spirits contented.  He has done his duty.  His father will meet him there, and commend [compliment] him.  Black Hawk is a true Indian, and [will not]...cry like a woman.  He feels for his wife, his children and his friends.  But he does not care for himself.  He cares for the Nation and the Indians.  They will suffer.  He [is saddened]...by their fate.  Farewell, my Nation!  Black Hawk tried to save you, and avenge your wrongs.  He drank the blood of some of the whites.  He has been taken prisoner and his plans are crushed.  He can do no more.  He is near his end.  His sun is setting, and he will rise no more. 

 

    Farewell to Black Hawk! 

Source: The Progressive Speaker, by W.R. Vansant (1897).

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December 21: Fall River, Massachusetts is rocked by the mystery of young Sarah Maria Cornell’s death. Was it suicide? Was it murder? And how did her death relate to Rev. Ephraim Avery? 

It was well known that Sarah was a congregant at his church. But what connection to her death could he have? 

That morning, as The New York Times Book Review explains, in an appraisal of The Sinners All Bow by Kate Winkler Dawson, 

a farmer found the body of a woman hanging from a pole by a haystack. Her gloved hands were tucked inside her cloak, her shoes lay “neatly” on the grass beside her dangling feet. A cord was wrapped so tightly around her neck that it cut half an inch into her flesh.

 

Men from Fall River identified the deceased as Sarah Maria Cornell. One was her Methodist pastor, Ira Bidwell. Another was Thomas Wilbur, her doctor — who knew that Cornell was pregnant. Ephraim Avery had assaulted her, she had told him.

 

Bidwell rushed off to warn Avery. The coroner’s jury delivered a verdict of suicide, and Cornell was buried the next afternoon.

 

But when farm matrons prepared the body for burial, they discovered “rash violence”: bruises, scratches and large hand marks at the hips. In a trunk of Cornell’s belongings, anonymous letters were found that arranged secret meetings; and, inside a hat box, a scrap of paper read: “If I am missing enquire of the Rev. E.K. Avery.” These findings prompted a second coroner’s jury. The body was exhumed and a new verdict delivered: murder, by strangling.

 

In 1833, Avery stood trial. For nearly a month, his defense team dragged Cornell’s reputation through the mud. This was, according to a scholar Dawson cites, perhaps the first time that a victim was “put on trial in order to exonerate her murderer.” Avery was pronounced not guilty.

 

In her book, Dawson argues that Nathaniel Hawthorne based his book, The Scarlett Letter, written in 1850, on this case. The trial transcript still exists, as does Fall River: An Authentic Narrative, published the same year as the trial, and written by Catharine Read Arnold Williams. 

Dawson calls it the “first narrative book of macabre murder in America.” 

As Dawson explains in her own work, Williams was a popular writer on patriotic and religious subjects, not a crime investigator. She attended Avery’s trial and came away horrified by the “odious” tactics used “to prove the deceased a perfect fiend.” 

In the wake of Rev. Avery’s acquittal, Williams traveled to Fall River in hopes of uncovering the true facts of this “unhappy affair.” Hoping to uncover the truth, she interviewed more than 300 people and did what she could to defend the victim’s sullied honor. 

We know today that Sarah was a factory girl in what was then a factory town, “part of the wave of single women who found work in the mills of the Industrial Revolution. Avery, a married father of four, was a minister in the fledgling denomination of Methodism – whose “racy” fervor and “raucous” revivals appalled conservative Christians.” 

It’s certainly true that Hawthorne visited a waxwork show of murderers and their victims 12 years before he wrote “The Scarlet Letter.” In his journal, he described the effigy of Avery as “an ugly devil, said to be a good likeness.” Compared with Dimmesdale, Avery was a not-so-hot priest, but Cornell found him “captivating” enough. Cornell was not as refined and compelling as Hester Prynne, but she was a seamstress who had been impregnated by a clergyman and publicly shamed (albeit for shoplifting). Still, while it’s plausible that the case inspired Hawthorne, it’s a bit of a red herring.