Sunday, August 28, 1774. Mother Seton.

 

St. Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton SC was born in the Colony of New York, in the city by that name.  Her prominent parents were protestants, as the overwhelming majority of those in the thirteen lower colonies were, with her mother being an Anglican daughter of an Anglican priest.  She married William Magee Seton, a wealthy 25 year old businessman, at when she was 19.  Both she and William were devout members of Trinity Episcopal Church.  Upon the death of her father in law, the family took in their six young in laws which added to their five children.

The undeclared war with Republican France that was fought on the seas between 1798 and 1800 rendered the merchant family bankruptcy, showing as an aside why the later War of 1812 was unpopular in New England, which depended upon trade with England.  In 1803 William was sent to Italy to convalesce due to tuberculosis but died in the British city of Leghorn where he was quarantine.  She was introduced to Catholicism while in Europe by Flippo and Antonia Filicchi, her husband's business partners, and converted in New York on March 14, 1805.  She began to become involved in education and then became a nun, founding a congregation dedicated to the care of children and the poor.

She died in 1821 at age 46.   Two of her daughters predeceased her.  A third, Catherine Seton, entered the Sisters of Mercy and is being considered as a candidate for a cause of Sainthood.

She was canonized in 1975.

Last edition:

Saturday, August 27, 1774. Resolution of the First North Carolina Provincial Congress.

Labels: 1770s, 1774, American Revolution, North Carolina

Blog Mirror: This Day in History: The War of 1812, the “forgotten” war

 

This Day in History: The War of 1812, the “forgotten” war

Wednesday, May 31, 1899. The Harriman Alaska Expediction departs.

The scientific Harriman Alaska Expedition left Seattle for the coast of Alaska.

Last prior edition:

May 30, 1899. Decoration Day.

Labels: 1890s, 1899, Memorial Day

Monday, August 30, 1943. Hornets

CV-12, the second aircraft carrier of World War Two to be named the USS Hornet, was launched.

CV-12 being launched.

CV-8, the USS Hornet that had been in the Doolittle Raid, was sunk in October, 1942.

CV-12 was the eighth U.S. Navy ship to bear that name, the first being a merchant sloop acquired by the infant U.S. Navy in 1775 and captured by the Royal Navy during the Revolution.  A second USS Hornet, also a sloop, was acquired in the Mediterranean during the First Barbary War, but served for only a year.

CV-8 was named in honor of a sloop of war commissioned in 1805.  She's served in the War of 1812, but had been lost due to a material failure at sea in 1829, going down with all hands.

The foundering of CV-8's namesake.

The fourth was a schooner acquired in 1814 that mostly served the Navy by running messages.

The fifth ship to bear that name was a captured and renamed Confederate steam ship.  Its career with the US Navy was brief, and she then went on to a brief career with filibusters, being renamed Cuba.

The Red Army captured Sokolovskym Yelna, and Taganrog.

In his second act of heroism, Lt. Kenneth Walsh, would push his deeds over the top as a Marine Corp aviator and win the Medal of Honor.  His citation reads:

For extraordinary heroism and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty as a pilot in Marine Fighting Squadron 124 in aerial combat against enemy Japanese forces in the Solomon Islands area. Determined to thwart the enemy's attempt to bomb Allied ground forces and shipping at Vella Lavella on 15 August 1943, 1st Lt. Walsh repeatedly dived his plane into an enemy formation outnumbering his own division 6 to 1 and, although his plane was hit numerous times, shot down 2 Japanese dive bombers and 1 fighter. After developing engine trouble on 30 August during a vital escort mission, 1st Lt. Walsh landed his mechanically disabled plane at Munda, quickly replaced it with another, and proceeded to rejoin his flight over Kahili. Separated from his escort group when he encountered approximately 50 Japanese Zeros, he unhesitatingly attacked, striking with relentless fury in his lone battle against a powerful force. He destroyed 4 hostile fighters before cannon shellfire forced him to make a dead-stick landing off Vella Lavella where he was later picked up. His valiant leadership and his daring skill as a flier served as a source of confidence and inspiration to his fellow pilots and reflect the highest credit upon the U.S. Naval Service.

Lt. Walsh had joined the Marine Corps in 1933 and retired in 1962, flying again in action during the Korean War.  He died at age 81 in 1998. 

The Lackawanna Limited wreck occurred when a Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad passenger train, the New York-Buffalo Lackawanna Limited collided with a freight train. Twenty-seven people were killed in the collision, and about twice that number injured, many from steam that poured into the railroad cars.

A Hairy Time

This is an advertisement commissioned by the Wyoming Department of Health, and my gosh does it bring home a really overlooked point about the past. . . and today.

Very well done, and very much worth the watching.

Not all that long ago getting a simple infection, and tetanus is more than a simple infection, could kill you.  Calvin Coolidge, Jr., the then Vice President's son, died from a staph infection resulting from a blister on a toe that he acquired playing tennis barefoot.  The infection killed the poor boy within a week of its occurrence.

Infections acquired at barber shops, sometimes deadly, were such a problem that they were a major topic of local physician's organizations.  Tetanus was only one of the killer diseases that lurked there. Even anthrax could be picked up from razor strop, if it had been made from a diseased animal.  Bacteria lurking in barbers brushes, used all day long on multiple clients, posed another danger.

And of course, as the story of Calvin Coolidge, Jr. shows, infections could be picked up anywhere, and kill you.

Memories of such things remained strong in my parents' generation.  My mother recalled that her father used to occasionally get a shave at the barbers, which was odd as this was well after the safety razor came about, and that he invariably developed "barber's cancer", a colloquial term meaning a bad rash from an infection.  The family tried to prevent him from doing this, but he would occasionally anyhow, and given the line of work he was in, it was probably in order to engage with members of the local public.  My father, for his part, never approved of going barefoot, regarding it as an invitation to infection.

Now, simple vaccinations eliminate the danger.

On the Coronation of King Charles III

Since the Act of Union in 1707, there have been only thirteen British monarchs, the first being Queen Anne.  The current royal family, if we discuss direct and not remote ancestry, dates back only to William of Orange, who was king from 1689 to 1702, prior to the Act of Union.  Anne was his successor and reigned until 1714.  She was in ill health most of the time.

Had the throne passed to Anne's nearest relatives, it would have gone to a member of the House of Stuart, who were Catholic. Anne was an Anglican, but she was the daughter of Charles II who became Catholic on his deathbed and who harbored strong Catholic sympathies, in spite of living a wild life, his entire life.  Indeed, his father Charles I was a High Church Anglican who teetered on that edge himself.  George I was chosen over 60 Stuart claimants simply because the Whigs had taken control of parliament, and he was a protestant.

I note this as people not familiar with the English monarchy, or perhaps more accurately the monarchy of the United Kingdom, seem to assume that the throne has always been inherited.  Not so.  It's been inherited since George I, when he was crowned the King over Catholic claimants who held undoubtedly better claims.

The second item of interest there is that the British monarchy is, therefore, by recent tradition, and by law, "Protestant", which his to say, Anglican.

Those watching the coronation yesterday, if they were not familiar with the process, would have been struck by how deeply religious it was.  I don't think people, or perhaps more accurately Americans, expected that, as Americans have the stupid Disney view of monarchy, in which there'd be a two-minute coronation involving beautiful people, rather than an hours long service.  Moreover, people with some religious knowledge, but not familiar with the process, would have been surprised that it was recognizable as a Mass, in Catholic terms.

Indeed, some commentators, including the Catholic Cardinal who participated in it, noted that it has "some" Catholic elements. 

"Some"?

Baloney, it's 100% Catholic in form save for the King having to take the mandatory oath that he support the United Kingdom's Protestant faith.

That became a topic running up to this because, in spite of the impressive performance, the Church of England is in real trouble in England.  It does remain strong in some places, but not in its old footholds.  In the United States and Canada, its North American expression, the Episcopal Church, is in really deep trouble.  In the UK, more Catholics attend services weekly than members of the Church of England, which is really something given that Catholics are a minority religion in the UK and have been at least since Elizabeth I forced the "religious settlement" on the country.  Lest that seem too encouraging for Catholics, all devout religious adherence has been on the decline in the UK for a very long time, a product of the disaster of the Reformation, which is playing out presently.

Be that as it may, at least to Catholic eyes, the absurdity of the English Reformation is brought to full light by such events.  The ceremony was so Catholic that the question has to be asked why the Church of England doesn't just come back into the fold, something which is becoming increasingly difficult in light of its recent accommodations to popular social trends.

Which brings me to my next observation.

I know one fallen away Episcopalian who is deeply anti-Catholic.  It's interesting how that tends to be the last thing that those raised in the "main line" Protestant Churches retain.  The Baby Boomer children of adherent Main Line Protestant churches may have chosen to ignore their faiths in favor of the world and its delights, but they remember the fables and hatred that the Reformation used to justify its actions, and still cite it as if they were buddies with John Calvin himself.  Odd.

I know that I'm personally tired of it.  But in part, that's because I'm tired of having to listen to two people I personally know debate religious topics as if it's a sport.  It isn't.  It's serious.  But then maybe I'm tired of people who argue just for sport as well.

Profoundly Christian, and frankly about as close to Catholic in form as you can get and not be Catholic, another interesting aspect of the coronation was reinforcing the United Kingdom's Christian heritage. 

And that's a good thing.

The Coronation really brought the monarchy haters out in droves, which was interesting.  Lots of "Not My King" and "Not My Queen" individual protests were here and there. Well, unless Parliament abolished the monarchy, if you are English or a resident of the English Commonwealth, he is your king.  You don't have to love him, but that doesn't mean he isn't the king.

This also brought out a lot of sanctimonious blathering by people who hail from former imperial possessions about the horrors of the British Empire. Well, whatever they may be, King Charles III and his mother Queen Elizabeth II weren't responsible for any of them.

Indeed, it's been eons since there was a king or queen really had extensive power.  Maybe since King Charles II.  The UK has been a constitutional monarch at least since Queen Anne.  If monarchy had been what people imagine, one of her Stuart relatives would have been the next monarch, not King George I.  So if people have a beef with the British Empire, it shouldn't really be with Queen Elizabeth, whom some proclaimed they could not mourn, or with King Charles III, whom some proclaim they cannot celebrate.

Let's make no mistake.  Colonialism in general was bigoted and racist by its very nature.  The underlying premise of it was that the European colonial power, and here we will limit this to European powers, was empowered by some sort of superior value which gave it a right to take the land of others and rule its people. That was the underlying thesis of colonialism everywhere. Generally the "superior" something they had was technology, which made it possible, but which didn't make it right.

But before we get too self-righteous about it, we probably need to take a look at in context, and over time, and then ask if the compulsion that gives rise to it is a universal human norm. That would not mean that it was right, but it might lessen the overall guilt.

Indeed, in spite of what people might now wish for claim, when European colonialism started the concept of one nation ruling over another was not only common, it was the norm.  In the early 17th Century when British Colonialism really started, Ireland and Wales were already unwelcome members, to some extent, of the United Kingdom, and Scotland wasn't all that keen on it. Figuring out who governed in the Low Countries and the German Principalities requires an epic flow chart.  Russia ruled vasts lands with no Russians. This condition would go on well into the 19th Century, and even to some extent into the 20th Century.  Contrary to what people claim, national feelings existed, but people didn't regard empires and monarchies that ruled over a collection of nations to be abnormal.

And it would have been extremely difficult for Europeans, early on, to be confronted with foreign cultures beyond their seas and treat them as equals given the varied states of development.  It's easy for us to say that the British should have landed at Jamestown in 1607 only after asking for permission, but frankly, it would have been impossible for them to have conceived it that way at the time.

This might not be the case for later European colonial efforts, but by that time competition between European powers nearly mandated acquiring colonies and a person would have to be naive to imagine that if the British had abstained, the French, Dutch, Germans, Spanish, and so on, would have done so also.

Indeed, frankly, if we were to land humans on Mars today, and find something waddle up and address us in some bizarre Martian tongue, I don't believe we'd abstain from colonizing the planet now.

Which gets to this point.  I can't really think easily of a people anywhere that had the power to colonize, and didn't do it.  Everyone did.  It seems to go back to our earliest days.  That doesn't make it right, once again, but it's obviously a common human trait.

Which means in turn that the only really valid criticism of empire that mean anything today has to come in terms of relatively recent historical context.

A conversation on this point the other day made me realize how different my "relatively recent" is.  The actual conversation was on British primogenitor in the monarchy.  I sincerely regard everything after 1066 as recent in terms of the British monarchy.  

Apparently, other people don't.

In this context, however, i.e., that of empire, I'd probably go back to 1800 or so.  If you are going to levy guilt on the British, therefore, you might have to start in 1858 when Parliament caused the British to officially take over India.  

There's a lot to blame the English for after that, but then there's a lot to blame the French, Belgians, Dutch and Germans for after that as well.

It's really the late 19th Century and 20th Century when you get into the full-blown "shouldn't you people have known better" type of situation. The Scramble for Africa is pretty difficult to justify in any sense.

Which takes us, I suppose, to this.  In its late stages, while it was still an empire, and should have known better, at least the British did a good job of trying to administer what it was administering well. Its actions weren't always admirable or successful.  The Bengal Famine of 1943 provides a shocking example of that.  And frankly, there's no way to reconcile the claim that the British were fighting for freedom only during World War Two, except comparatively.  I.e., the Axis wasn't seeking to liberate colonial peoples, but to enslave them to somebody else less democratic yet.   But, having said that, the British, more than any other colonial power, managed to depart from empire gracefully and with some rationale hope that the best things it had given to the people it had occupied would remain.

It didn't always work out, but to a surprising degree it did.  British Dominions largely did evolve into full-blown parliamentary democracies and largely separated from the UK peaceably, although this was notably not the case with Ireland.  Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Ireland and South Africa are all democracies today due to the British example.  So, frankly, is the United States, the UK's first failed imperial endeavor.

The coronation of King Charles III probably contains within it a series of lessons that will only be evident in the coming days.  But for those who want to protest it, well you probably would better spend your time on real problems of the world, of which there are many.

Related Items:

King Charles III

Britain's projection of its hopes and gossip on its royal family may be more useful than America's projection on its presidential families

The New Academic Disciplines (of a century+ ago).

I was listening to an excellent episode of Catholic Stuff You Should Know (I'm a bit behind).  Well, it's this episode here:

THE LITURGICAL IDEAL OF THE CHURCH

The guest, early on, makes a comment about the beginning of the 20th Century, end of the 19th, and mentions "archeology was new".  I thought I'd misheard that, but he mentioned it again, and added sociology.

He explained it, but it really hit me.

Archeology, and sociology, in fact, were new.  Many academic disciplines were.

Indeed, that's something we haven't looked at here before.  People talk all the time about the decline of the classic liberal education (at a time that very few people attended university), but when did modern disciplines really appear?

Indeed, that's part of what make a century ago, +, more like now, than prior to now.  Educational disciplines, based on the scientific method in part, really began to expand.

So, we can take, for example, and find the University of Wyoming recognizable at the time of its founding in 1886.

But would Princeton, as it is now, be recognizable in 1786?

And interesting also how this effected everything, in this case, the Church's look at its liturgy.

But also, everything, really, about everything, for good and ill.

The probable end of the filibuster

Be prepared for a lot of ill-advised historically inaccurate hoohah about the Filibuster.

The filibuster, as we all know, is a "time honored" U.S. Senate tradition that meant, at one time, that debate could go on endlessly.  I.e., a bill could be talked to death.

Nobody really likes talking endlessly to nobody, so the real filibuster wasn't possible until the Senate changed its rules to allow endless talking in 1806, but even then it wasn't used until 1837, and rarely used at all up until. . . the 1970s.

Yes, the 1970s.

So it's a feature of our modern Congressional dysfunction.

The Senate, not much liking the actual act of having to stand there and talk, has a rule that it requires 60% of the Senate to vote to move most bills forward and close the debate.

But they can modify their rules by a simple majority vote.

They should. There's no Constitutional requirement that every measure receive 60% of the vote.  Up until the Obama Administration, most things that could get 50% could get 60%, but since that time things are so polarized that nothing happens.

That's setting us up for coup round two.

And it's antidemocratic. The filibuster should go.

And yes, that will mean that a government with a thin, thin, majority, can pass legislation.  And probably will.

And that will mean that a minority that's barely a minority will probably almost certainly pick up seats in the off year election.

So be it.

Our government isn't functioning . . . at all.  It needs to.

Wednesday July 13, 1921. A rump Irish Parliament meets, a treaty ends, layoffs at the War Department, sinking empty ships, request for nature funding.

The Southern Ireland Parliament, that body set up by the British Parliament for Irish self rule in the south, convened, but only twelve Senators and two members of the House of Commons attended.  This was likely no surprise as the British had entered into an armistice with the Dáil Éireann a few days prior, that being the self-declared legislative body of Ireland that had declared independence.

The Dáil Éireann had made use of British election laws when the Sinn Fein ran members for Parliament in 1919.  They did well and those members refused to take their seats in Parliament, declaring instead that they were the Irish Parliament.  It was, at the time, a unicameral body with only the equivalent of a House of Commons. A Senate would be added in 1922, thereby effectively duplicating the structure of the anticipated Southern Ireland Parliament.

Fifteen-year-old Jimmie Bradley testified in front of Congress in support of funding for nature study.

The Anglo Japanese Alliance, entered into in 1902, expired.

The alliance had been the legal basis of the Japanese Empire entering World War One on the Allied side, although it can be debated whether or not the Japanese would have entered anyway.  At any rate, they did as a British ally.  The alliance had served Japan well in its naval development but at the time the Pacific members of the British Commonwealth were increasingly worried about Japan as a potential enemy.  Indeed, a conference of Commonwealth members was ongoing at the time the treaty was allowed to expire.

On the same day, the U.S. War Department laid off 21,174 employees as a cost savings measure.

Harding reviewed a portrait of Gen. Pershing, the hero of the recent war, from the U.S. prospective.

The United States Army Air Corps sank the German destroyer SMS G102, a war prize ship, from the air.  The Air Corps, under Billy Mitchell, was busy proving its ability to sink ships, which would soon prove to be to the irritation of the Navy.

President Harding was given a chair made from the remnants of the USS Revenge, a pre War of 1812 warship.

Laddie Boy got to sit on it too.

The ship only served six years before running aground off of Rhode Island in 1811.  Its remains may have been located about a decade ago.

Today In Wyoming's History: Wyoming Myths. Jean Baptiste Charbonneau

Today In Wyoming's History: Wyoming Myths. Jean Baptiste Charbonneau: 

Wyoming Myths. Jean Baptiste Charbonneau

Okay, we recently discussed Sacagawea and, in that context, discussed Jean Baptiste Charbonneau.  Surely we have this covered?

Well, mostly. But to complete the story we really need to address Jean Baptiste as, just like his famous mother, he's the subject of a Wyoming myth. And indeed, it's the same myth.

And its illustrative as to both, as the later life of Jean Baptiste Charbonneau is very well known, and demonstrable with finality.  We know where he went to school, what he did as a young man, a middle aged man, and in the context of his times, as an old man.  

And what he did not do is to go to the Wind River Reservation with his very aged mother.

But that's the myth.

It's hard not to feel sad about the life of Jean Baptiste, even though he probably didn't see it as sad himself.  He wasn't even one year old when he was packed by his mother, as slave to his father, across the western half of North America as his famous mother acted as a guide and interpreter for the Corps of Discovery.  He was a young boy when his mother gave him up to William Clark to be educated, and Clark in fact enrolled him in two successive schools, the first a Jesuit school and the second another private school, at great expense.  He was therefore well educated for this time and became even more so when met Duke Friedrich Paul Wihlem of Wurttenberg in 1823 while he was traveling in the United States.  Jean Baptiste was working at a Kaw trading post on the Kansas River at the time.  The Duke was being guided by Toussaint Charbonneau on a trip to the northern plains.  He invited the younger Charbonneau to return to Europe with him, which he did.  He apparently traveled with the Duke in Europe and Africa while his guest.

Upon returning to North American he resumed a Western life and worked as a trapper, hunter and guide.  He was later a gold prospector.  In 1866 he died in Oregon after some sort of accident which threw him into a frigid river and left him with pneumonia.  He was 61 years old at the time.

He lived a rich and varied life, and a fairly well documented one. That he died in Oregon is something for which there is no doubt.

None the less, Grace Raymond Hebard placed his death in 1885 on the Wind River Reservation, and the work of Dr. Charles Eastman likewise places him there. And this all dates to the the stories associated with Porivo, and her adult son who entered the Reservation with her.  As with his mother, who died in North Dakota, there is a grave marker for him on the Reservation.

His actual grave is known as to location, and is in Oregon.

As with his famous mother, his reconstructed myth does not serve him well, although unlike his mother he lived a fairly long life.  He would have lived a longer one if the Wyoming myth was correct, but that would not do his life justice.  It was remarkably adventuresome right up to the point of his death, and like his mothers it crossed back and forth between two worlds in a way that makes contemporary readers uncomfortable.

Today In Wyoming's History: Today In Wyoming's History: Wyoming Myths. Sacagawea and York

Today In Wyoming's History: Today In Wyoming's History: Wyoming Myths. Sacaga...: 

Today In Wyoming's History: Wyoming Myths. Sacagawea. An added footnote

Something I really should have footnoted in this item from the other day:

Today In Wyoming's History: Wyoming Myths. Sacagawea: Mural in the Montana State House by Edgar Paxson depicting Sacagawea and the Corps of Discovery in Montana.  Sacagawea's actual appearan...

When the Corps of Discovery went into winter camp after their first year of trekking across the western half of the continent they voted on the location and decided it by majority vote.

Both Sacagawea and York were given a vote.

Today In Wyoming's History: Wyoming Myths. Sacagawea

Today In Wyoming's History: Wyoming Myths. Sacagawea: 

Wyoming Myths. Sacagawea

Mural in the Montana State House by Edgar Paxson depicting Sacagawea and the Corps of Discovery in Montana.  Sacagawea's actual appearance, of course, is known only by description, but Paxon was a Montana artist particularly noted for his attention to close detail.  Having said that, she was just a teenager at this time and likely appeared younger than the female figure in this depiction.

Wyoming has an association with Sacagawea, sort of.

But not quite as close as we sometimes like to claim.

Route of the Corps of Discovery.  It wholly avoided Wyoming.

Sacagawea, the Corps of Discovery's justifiably famous guide, or pilot, or interpreter, has a real world close connection with our state in that she was a Shoshone.  Having said that, she was a Lemhi Shoshone. a name they would not have recognized.  To her band, and her times, she was a Akaitikka meaning "Salmon Eater".*  At the time of her birth in 1788 the Shoshone were widely spread throughout Wyoming, Montana and Idaho and, if you consider that their split with the Comanche had already occurred, but that the Comanche are an extension of the Shoshone people, they were widely spread indeed.**

She was born in Idaho what is now near the Idaho-Montana border.  No such border existed at the time, of course, and the Shoshone, including the Lemhi, ranged over wide territories.  Her band most likely ranged into northwest Wyoming, with it being certain of course that other Shoshone bands inhabited the area.

In 1800, at age 12, she was taken in a Hidatsa raid.  The Hidatsa are a Siouan people who are closely related to another Siouan people, the Crows.  Some consider the tribes to be the same, with the Hidatsa the parent tribe to the Crows.  It's important to note, however, that when the Sioux are referred to, its typically the Lakota and Dakota, and related groups that are meant. Indeed the Sioux and the Crows would be bitter enemies in the 19th Century, as would the Sioux and the Shoshone for that matter.

The Hidatsa were wide ranging and she was taken to a location that today is near Washburn, North Dakota. This means that the raiders had effectively traversed what is now Montana, an impressive feat for a raiding party.  The taking of captives in this manner was not unusual, and while this undoubtedly meant that the very young Shoshone girls life had taken a disastrous turn, her captivity by the Hidatsa, while real, was probably not terribly harsh.  In other words, she was a captive, but a captive with domestic duties that were likely not far removed from that of Hidatsa girls of the same age.

At age 13 she was sold to Toussaint Charbonneau as a "wife".  

Histories have sometimes addressed this in various ways, including using such terms as "non consensual wife", but there is no such thing.  Indeed, it's remarkable that even though the circumstances of her initial union with Charbonneau are well known, she's still usually routinely referred to as Charbonneau's "wife."  Effectively she was purchased as a slave, and if the niceties are stripped off of it, she was kept as a involuntary concubine at first, basically, or if you really want to strip the niceties off of it, as sort of sex slave with domestic duties, at first.  She was Charbonneau's second such slave, the first being the equally juvenile Otter Woman who was probably also a Shoshone captive of the Hidatsa.***

Edgar Paxon's depiction of Toussaint Charbonneau, notable perhaps in that its a flattering illustration.  In reality, of course, we have no period depiction for Charbonneau and his reputation has never been what can be called flattering.

In 1804 the Corps of Discovery visited Hidatsa villages in the fall in anticipation of their press across the the upper West to the Pacific the next Spring. They were in search of guides, and in that context hoped to find somebody who knew the territory. They were visited by Charbonneau, who was a French Canadian fur trapper.****  William Clark noted in his journal:

french man by Name Chabonah, who Speaks the Big Belley language visit us, he wished to hire & informed us his 2 Squars (squaws) were Snake Indians, we engau (engaged) him to go on with us and take one of his wives to interpret the Snake language.…

Spelling obviously had yet to be standardized and Clark puzzled out Charbonneau's last name.  He also used a lot of colloquialisms for the names of Indian bands.  The Snakes referred to the Shoshone, which is of course not what they call themselves (like most Indian bands, they call themselves "The People").  

It's of note, fwiw, and noteworthy without trying to be "woke", that the commanders of the Corps of Discovery did not appear bothered that  about Charbonneau's irregular situation with the two teenaged Indian girls.*****  They also didn't claim, as other writers have, that either of his girls were his "wives".  They only claimed that they were his "Squars", meaning his Indian women.  Polygamy was of course illegal in the United States, and Louisiana, the vast newly acquired territory, was within the United States, but there's no good evidence in this early entry that they regarded Sacagawea or Otter Women as wives, but rather simply his held women.  And of course Lewis and Clark were both fully acclimated to slavery, something they did not regard as abnormal nor wrong, and they had a slave with them of their own, York, who belonged to Clark and who was Clark's lifelong body servant.******

On that date in 1804 Charbonneau was contracted to be a guide that following spring and to bring one of his teenage women along with him as an interpreter.  They had no apparent early preference which one that would be.

Charbonneau apparently did, as that following week he'd bring Sacagawea into the Corps of Discovery camp and they took up residence there.  He did not bring Otter Woman.*******  Prior to the Spring she'd give birth to their son, who was named Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, who'd live into his sixties and whom would have an adventuresome life and be the subject of his own Wyoming myth.  We'll get to that one later.

Otter Woman disappeared from history.  She was left with the Hidatsa and while there are oral history references to her, the story grows thin and her fate is unknown. She likely merged into the tribe that captured her and lived the rest of her life as part of the Hidatsa, but its of note that her story does not resume when Charbonneau returned to the Hidatsa for a time after completing his role with the Corps of Discovery.

Charles Russell's painting of the Corps of Discovery arriving at the camp of her native band, which was then lead by her brother.  This reunion occurred, in real terms, only a few years after she had been kidnapped by the Hidatsa.  Note that Russel, who was keen on detail, depicts one of the Shoshone as already being armed with a rifle, which was no doubt correct.

Everyone is of course familiar with the yeoman role that Sacagawea performed for the Corps of Discovery and therefore we'll omit it here.  Suffice it to say, she became the star critical guide, and a sort of diplomatic delegate for the expedition, outshining Charbonneau who seems to have been widely disliked, although the full degree to which he was disliked can be at least questioned as he'd retrain an occasional guiding role for the US Army into the 1830s, that coming to an end when Clark died.  Prior to that, he and Sacagawea would briefly live on a farm in Missouri, where she gave birth to a second child by him, named Lizette.  The invitation to live in Missouri came from Clark.  About Lizette little is known, and she's believed to have died in childhood.

Russell painting depicting the Corps of Discovery on the lower Columbia, with Sacagawea with arms outstretched.  One of the impacts of her presence on the trip was the effect it had on Indian bands they encountered, which convinced them that their intent was not hostile.

Following the experiment with farming, the couple, which by that time they seem to have been, returned to the Hidatsa.  Sacagawea died of what was described as "putrid fever" in 1812.^ At the time, it seems that she left the security of Fort Manual Lisa, where they were living, to return to the Hidatsa in what would have been sort of a premonition of death.  It also seems that she had a daughter with her at the time, who may have been Lizette, or who may have been a subsequent child about whom nothing else was known.  Jean Baptiste was left in Missouri at a boarding school which had been arranged for by Clark.

And with Sacagawea's death in 1812, the myth starts to kick in.

Truth be known, in the 18th and early 19th Centuries deaths in the United States were not well tracked in general and they certainly weren't in the West.  Birth Certificates and Death Certificates were not issued.  Nobody made really strenuous efforts, moreover, to keep track of the deaths of Indians up until the Reservation period, which was far in the future in 1812.  That we know as much as we do with the post 1804 life of Sacagawea is testimony to how important in the Corps of Discovery, and hence notable, she really was.  Period recollections on her fate can be regarded as beyond question.

None of which has kept people from questioning it.

Grace Raymond Hebard, educator, suffragist, feminist, and mythologist.

In the early 20th Century the remarkable University of Wyoming political economy professor, Dr. Grace Raymond Hebard, took an interest in Sacagawea and, with scanty evidence, concluded that she had not died in 1812 but rather had traveled to the Southwest and married into the Comanche tribe, and then came to Wyoming after her husband was killed. These claims surrounded a woman who was known by various names, including "Chief Woman", or Porivo.

The woman in question seems to have come on to the reservation in advanced old age and to have arrived with an adult son.  White figures on the Reservation at the time, including a prominent Episcopal missionary, became fascinated with the elderly woman.^^  Of note, resident Shoshone had a difficult time speaking to her, which was a clue to her actual probable origin.  Be that as it may, her advanced aged and presence with an adult son lead the European American figures on the reservation to believe that she must be the famous female "pilot", Sacagawea, and the adult son, must be Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, apparently not aware that Jean Baptiste's life was very well recorded, including his travels abroad and ultimate death in his early 60s.  No matter on any of that, those in question wanted to believe that the figures must be Sacagawea and Jean Baptiste.

In reality, they were almost certainly surviving Sheep Eater Indians.  

The Tukudeka, or Sheep Eaters, are a Shoshone band who ranged in the mountainous regions of Wyoming, Idaho and Montana.  Like the Lemhi, they were named by outsiders for their principal foods source, which in their case was Mountain Sheep.  

The Sheep Easters are the Shoshone band about which the least is known.   They always lived in what European Americans regarded as remote areas.  They were highly adapted to their lifestyle and remains of their sheep traps and other high mountain artifacts are fairly common, but encounters with them were actually very rare.  They did not routinely share their existence with other, lower altitude, Shoshones. Their encounters with European Americans were fairly rare, and they didn't have hostile encounters with them until very late in the Indian War period.  The Sheep Eater War of 1879 was the last major Indian War in the Pacific Northwest for that reason.

Sheep Eaters were a presence on the Wind River Reservation as early as 1870, when the Federal Government acknowledged them as a band entitled to the Shoshone allotment, and Shoshone Chief Washakie accepted them as a Shoshone group, but they had no high incentive to come onto the reservation voluntarily and generally only did very late, as the era of Indian free ranging was drawing down.  In spite of their enormous success in their environment, they were not numerous and generally melted into the Reservation populations when they came in, but they were different at first.  Included in their uniqueness was a linguistic one.  Their language varied from other Shoshones to an extent.

Most likely the elderly woman and her son who came in onto the Reservation and were noted by the Episcopal and Reservation figures were Sheep Eaters.  Their language was different and they just showed up.  By the time that they did, the Sheep Easter era was drawing very much to a close.  Most likely the adult man and his elderly mother decided that they couldn't make it as a solitary two.  Or some variant of that, as in the son deciding that caring for his mother in the mountains had become too burdensome.

The figures noted very much took to them, although conversing with them proved difficult.  The degree to which they adopted their view of what she was saying to fit their romantic conclusion of the rediscovery of Sacagawea or that the elderly woman.  Whomever she was, she passed away in 1884.  If she was Sacagawea, which she was not, she would have been 96 years old, certainly not an impossibly old age, but certainly an old one, both then and now.

Dr. Charles Eastman.

By 1919 the myths regarding Chief Woman had spread sufficiently that they were referenced in a 1919 account on the Corps of Discovery in a second hand way, noting that that a sculptor looking for a model of Sacagawea had learned of her 1884 death on the Wind River Reservation and her supposed status as Sacagawea.  In 1925 Dr. Charles Eastman, a Sioux physician, was hired by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to locate Sacagawea's remains.  He also learned of Porivo's 1884 death and conducted interviews at Wind River.  Those interviews, conducted nearly forty years after her death, included recollections that she had spoken of a long journey in which she's assisted white men and, further, that she had a sliver Jefferson Peace Medal such as the type carried by the Corps of Discovery.  He also located a Comanche woman who claimed Porivo was her grandmother.  He claimed that Porivo had lived at Fort Bridger, Wyoming for sometime with sons Bazil and Baptiste and that ultimately that woman had come to Fort Washakie, where she was recorded as "Bazil's mother"  It was his conclusion that Porivo was Sacagawea.

Not all of Porivo's reputed accounts, if taken fully at face value, are fully easy to discount at first, but by and large they become so if fully examined.  Long journeys are in the context of the teller, and peace medals were much more common than might be supposed.  None the less, the retold story was picked up by Dr. Grace Raymond Hebard who massively romanticized it.  Hebard's historical research has been discredited, but her 1933 book caused a widespread belief to exist that Sacagawea didn't die in her late 20s but rather in her 90s, and not in North Dakota, but in Wyoming.  That suited Hebard's Wyoming centric boosting of her adopted state, and her feminist portrayal of an Indian heroine.  It provides a massive cautionary tale about the reinterpretation of history in the context of ones own time and to suit a preconceived notion of how the past ought to be a perfect prologue for hte future.

It is, however, simply, if unknowingly, false.

And the falsity of it gives Wyoming a claim on Sacagawea that it frankly doesn't merit.  One that lead to monuments in the state to Sacagawea, to include a tombstone or over Porivo's grave that identified her as Sacagawea, which is a sort of tourist attraction.

Indeed, there's no actual indication that Sacagawea ever set foot in Wyoming.  She may have, as a young girl, as the Lemhi Shoshone ranged over the mountainous regions of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.  Be that as it may, the Lemhi Valley of Idaho is named after them for a reason.  They're not one of the Shoshone bands that distinctly associated with the state prior to the Reservation era.  Be that as it may, during the known established period of her life, we can place her in Idaho, Montana and North Dakota, in terms of regional states, but not Wyoming. . . at any time.

That does not mean, of course, that she's not an admirable and important figure.  Nor does it mean that she was not an important Shoshone figure, and the Shoshone are an important people in Wyoming's history.  Its almost certainly the case that relatives of her, but not descendants, live on the Reservation today, although that claim would be even better for the Fort Hall Reservation in Idaho.  Through her son, Jean Baptiste, she likely has living descendants today, although not ones who would identify as Shoshone.

But giving people a long and romantic life rather than a short and tragic one doesn't do them or history any favors.  In reality, Sacagawea's life was heroic, tragic and short.  She was just a girl when she was kidnapped from her family, and still just a girl when she was sold to a man a good twenty years older than she was and of an alien culture to be a type of domestic slave, kept along with another similarly youthful domestic slave he already held.  In that capacity she went across half the continent and back with an infant, and did come to be hugely admired by the members of the Corps of Discovery.  It was that respect that lead, in part, to the post expedition opportunities afford to her and Toussaint Charbonneau, who seems to have evolved into her actual husband over time.  That also lead to the education of her son at the behest of William Clark.  It didn't save her, however, form a 19th Century death, still in her twenties.

She was a remarkable young woman by all accounts, and deserves to be remembered as such, and accurately.

*Lemhi comes from Fort Lemhi, which was a Mormon mission to the Akaitikka.

**Comanche is a Shoshone word meaning "Arguer"  The argument was over the adoption of horses, and the argument took place in southeastern Wyoming at the time that the Shoshones first encountered horses.  The Comanches were the early adopters of horses.

***The details regarding Otter Woman are extremely obscure.  It's known that she was in an identical status to that of Sacagawea in 1804 and the best evidence is that she was a captive Shoshone.  There are other claims for her tribal origin, however and additional assertions as to her fate.  Like Sacajawea, her history suffers from an unfortunate association with the work of Dr. Grace Raymond Hebert who places Otter Woman in the Corps of Discovery camp in the winter of 1804 and who even has her remaining in domestic union with Charbonneau in later years, along with Sacajawea.  In reality, she seems to have simply been abandoned in 1804 or 1805.  Charbonneau's reasoning for this isn't clear, but Sacajawea was pregnant at the time that Charbonneau was hired by the Corps of Discovery.  It is clear that the Corps desired that one of Charbonneau's wives accompany them to act as interpreter, and he may have chose her due to her pregnancy, not wishing to abandon her in that condition.

Of course, if Otter Woman was in fact not Shoshone, but Mandan or some other tribe as has been claimed, that would also explain why she was not chosen.  

What occurred to her is not realistically capable of being known.

****Toussaint Charbonneau was probably born in 1767 and was from a town that is near Montreal.  His first name means "All Saints Day" or "All Saints".  He had been a fur trapper for an extended period of time by 1804.  His reputation has never been particularly good and for good reason.  One of the earliest records regarding him, prior to his time as a trapper, notes him being stabbed by a woman in defense of her daughter whom Charbonneau was attempting to rape.  

Charbonneau appears to be almost uniformly disliked by people who associated with him over the course of his long life.  He appears to have been temperamental.  He also seems to have a predilection for young women as he had four or five Indian "wives" during his lifetime, all of whom were teenagers at the time of their "marriages".  This includes one who was a teen at the time of his death , which is notable as he was in his 76 at the time, assuming the 1767 birth year is correct (if it isn't, he would have been 84, which seems unlikely).  The name of at least one of his wives is unknown (the name of another was Corn Woman, leaving at least one, or perhaps, unknown as to name).  It's known that two of the four or five where Shoshone, if Otter Woman was Shoshone, and one was Assiniboine.

His estate was settled by his son Jean Baptiste, which is interesting in that it would indicate that he was in some sort of contact with his son at the time of his death in about 1843, at which time he was back in North Dakota.  It's also interesting in that it would suggest that Jean Baptiste may have been his only survivor.  The existing information confirms that he had at least two children, both by Sacagawea, and may have had a third by her.  Only Jean Baptiste is known to have survived but the information about the possible third is very limited.  This is notable as his having four or five native women in domestic arrangements, with only one bearing children, would seem to be unlikely.

Charbonneau's long life is testament to his lifestyle in the wild being of a generally healthy nature.

*****Nor were they apparently bothered by the fact that the enlisted men of the Corps of Discovery indulged themselves with the favors of Indian women, making treatment for venereal disease a medical necessity for the expedition.  This was at least in part due to the fact that some Indian tribes of the period offered Indian women as favors to visitors, although I'm not noting that in regard to the Shoshone but rather to other bands the Corps encountered early in its trip across the western half of the continent. This is significant here only in noting that while Clark in particular came to really respect if not outright adore Sacagawea, the overall view of the men of the Corps was of a rather isolated and not egalitarian nature.

******York had been a slave in the Clark household and had grown up with Clark.  His post Corps of Discovery fate is poorly documented but it seems that Clark likely freed York at some point, probably a decade or so after the expedition, and due to repeated York requests that he be set free.  During the expedition he became a fairly participating member and his slave status, therefore, would have started to wear off.  He seems to have entered the freighting business upon being freed, and it further seems that Clark had granted him a status approach freedom sometime prior to actually freeing him.  York died at approximately age 60, apparently from cholera.  His death in his sixties came a few years prior to Clark's in his sixties.

*******Hebard says that Otter Woman spent the winter of 1804/05 win camp with Sacagawea and Charbonneau and was reunited with them upon the Corps of Discovery's return. She has Otter Woman going to Missouri with them and then returning to North Dakota with Lizette.

In short, it seems that Hebard disliked abandonment and death, and who likes them?  She was an important Wyoming figure and educator, and a suffragist.  Never married, a person is tempted to see in some of this a large element of projection of a period feminist sort in which not only is Sacagawea an important figure in the Corps of Discovery, but a feminist herself, with Otter Woman as an unconventional companion, associate and friend.

The reality of it was much more harsh.  Charbonneau abandoned Otter Woman upon obtaining employment with the Corps of Discovery, which at least left the pregnant Sacagawea with support.  As noted above, her pregnancy may explain why she was chosen over Otter Woman.  At least some oral histories indicate that Otter Woman later married an Indian man, and irrespective of their accuracy this is likely.  Given her slave status, Charbonneau's abandonment of her may have been a better fate for her in real terms.

^There's always a temptation to speculate about what a disease like "putrid fever" is, but in the context of the times its impossible to know.  While in a year like this one its easier to understand than others, even routine diseases could be lethal at the time and a disease like influenza was a real killer.

On an unrelated topic that fits in to this period, it might be worth noting that the actual story of Sacagawea, like that of several other 18th and 19th Century Indian women heroines, was uncomfortable for their European American contemporaries as well as for later generations, and therefore its continually recast.  Sacagawea is, like Pocahontas or Kateri Tekakwitha, an uncomfortable example of a Native American who was acculturated to more than one culture.  This was much more common among Indians than modern Americans would like to believe.

In her case, she had spent the first twelve years of her life about as isolated from the European Americans culture for an Indian as would have been possible south of the 48th Parallel and perhaps about as much as possible outside of far northern North America. This would have changed once she was with the Hidatsa, particularly upon her enslavement to Charbonneau.  It would have changed even more upon her accompaniment with the Corps of Discovery and its notable that at the time of her reunion with the Lemhi she made no apparent effort, nor did they, to rejoin them.  By that time, of course, she had a child and in the reality of the 19th Century her die may have been caste, if not by her own will.  Indeed, her fate was was at that point similar to that of the Sabean women who plead for their attackers after becoming pregnant by them in legend.

But only a few years later she was found in Missouri, a farmer's wife, with the farmer being Charbonneau.  She felt sufficiently comfortable with European American society to surrender Jean Baptiste to Clark before returning to North Dakota.  Her going back and forth between the Indian world and the European world is not seamless, but its not absent either.  This is true of many other period Native Americans including some very well known ones.

^^The Episcopal connection is what caused this thread to be written, although we'd debated doing it for years.  On one of our companion blogs, Churches of the West, a recent comment was posted about the Episcopal church in Atlantic City, with it being noted that the church had been moved from another location and that "Sacagawea" had been baptized there.

It's perfectly possible that the church had been moved from the Wind River Indian Reservation or some other locality in Fremont County, but Sacagawea wasn't baptized there.  Porivo may very well have been, given her close connection with the resident Episcopal missionary at the time.  It isn't known if Sacagawea was ever baptized, but if she was, and its quite possible that in fact this occurred, she would have been baptized as a Catholic.  Charbonneau had been baptized as a Catholic in his infancy.  It's additionally clear that Charbonneau, in spite of his lifestyle, gave his children distinctly French Catholic names and that a known descendant of Jean Baptiste Charbonneau was baptized as a Catholic.

The First Supreme Court. Who were they, and how many of them were there?

There were only six.  That number was set by the 1789 act establishing the Court.

The original Supreme Court heard very very few cases and much of its initial duties surrounded organizing the Court. The cases it heard were important, but the justices themselves had extensive extra obligations as they were also circuit judges, riding a circuit, for circuit courts.

John Jay was the first Chief Justice.  He served for six  years and went on to become Governor of New York.  He as confirmed in 1801 for a second term as Chief Justice, and declined it.

He lived for a long time after his retirement from politics, dying at age 84.

Jay was an opponent of slavery, although like many early opponents, had actually held slaves at one point in his life while still opposing slavery.

Scottish born James Wilson served until his death by way of a stroke at age 55.  He was one of the architects of the office of the Presidency.

His office did not cause him to escape misfortune and he spent his final years in poverty.

William Cushing served until his death at age 78.  He was the last Supreme Court Justice to wear a wig.  He was nominated to be Chief Justice and approved by the Senate, but declined the appointment. 

John Blair stepped down after five years on the Court, living another few years and dying at age 68.

John Rutledge  attained the position of Chief Justice on an interim appointment but he was subsequently rejected by the Senate. That and controversy surrounding his criticism of the Jay Treaty wrecked him and he stepped down prior to dying at age 60.

British born James Iredell maintained the position until his death at age 48, a death partially brought on by the burdens of riding circuit.

In 1801 the number of justices was reduced to five in an effort by outgoing President John Adams to limit Thomas Jefferson, his successors, picks.  That didn't last long and by 1807 the statutory number was seven, when a seventh judicial district was added. In 1837 it went to nine, by which time there were nine districts.  In 1863 it went to ten as there were ten districts.  In 1866 it was scaled back to seven, but then in 1869 it was put back to nine.

May 10, 1920. Carranza ousted, Flappers appear, Home Rule denied, Sims criticized.

On this day in 1920 it became clear that Carranza had been ousted from control in Mexico, the price he paid for trying to dictate who his successor would be.  Mexican rebels were now in control of 25 of 28 Mexican states.

We'll play out the story of Carranza, a major figure in Mexican history, over the next few days. Suffice it to say, however, it's hard to feel sorry for him.  He was a haughty arrogant person who was responsible, if indirectly, for the demise of one of the most admirable figures of the Mexican Revolution, Emiliano Zapata, and now his story was playing out like that of those whom he'd replaced.

The pattern was also set by these events, although it had been by prior ones as well.  The Mexican Revolution was consuming itself.

Another place where a revolution was going on, Ireland, saw an attempt at reviving home rule as a solution when a bill to restore an Irish parliament was considered in London. That bill was defeated.

Ireland had its own parliament from 1297 until 1800, so in considering the bill, the British parliament was considering reviving an institution, on a wider grounds, that had ceased to exist 120 years prior with the Act of Union.

Irish history is really complicated, but the creation of the first Irish parliament really reflected the Anglo Norman ascendency in the country.  Ireland had no unity prior to the Norman invasion of the island and the Normans looked to the English crown for protection.  Over time the native Irish came to increasingly ignore the Anglo Normans and their parliament and as a result in 1494 the Irish parliament subordinated itself to the English one, effectively acknowledging English rule.  Following that, in 1541 English King Henry VIII, apparently not content with making a mess of things in England, declared a separate Irish Kingdom with himself at the head and began the long English attempt to dominate England and protestantise it.  That ultimately resulted in laws that banned Catholics, which the overwhelming majority of Irish were (and are), from occupying various professions, including that of parliamentarian, although the story is complicated as it did not occur all at once and things went back and forth over a long period of time in that context.

Oddly, Ireland was granted legislative independence in 1782, only to be joined to the British state in 1800 with the Act of Union. That eliminated the Irish parliament.  It didn't in any fashion end the complaints of the common Irish and even more of the more prominent Irish, who suffered under discriminatory legislation and second class citizen status.  Revolutionary movements sought to remove the English throughout the 19th Century and movements in Ireland and England were seriously considering "home rule" by the turn of that century.  That direction was firmly dominant just prior to World War One when the war put an end to the discussions, leaving Irish republicans ascendant.  Following the war the Anglo Irish War broke out and by this date in 1920 discussions on home rule were really too late.

In the US a drama was really playing out between Josephus Daniels and Admiral William Sims which dated back to Sims accusations that the US had not been prepared for the war.  While this controversy resulted in a lot of dramatic headlines at the time, Sims would emerge with an unscathed reputation and go on to a second tour as head of the Naval War College.

On this day the 1920s image of young women acquired a name.

Washington Post Photo, Miss Elizabeth Burrnett  wearing sash with a barrel labeled "Fill the Barrel" for Salvation Army fundraising campaign.  May 10, 1920.

Women's styles, and the presentation of young women in image, had been changing rapidly following World War One and probably at least partially due to it.  We've noted before that World War One saw a large percentage of women go to work to support the war and following the war there was a society wide restlessness that expressed itself in all things.  One thing that really was new was the concept of a young woman on her own.

It's really odd how this entire image has been morphed into "it was because of World War Two" when, at the same time, the events of the Roaring Twenties are really well known. We'll look at it elsewhere, but on this day the new on their own women acquired the nickname "flapper".

Oddly, flappers had probably been better presented already by the just released F. Scott Fitzgerald short story Bernice Bobs Her Hair.  But today the film The Flapper introduced the name.

The movie has a fairly typical melodramatic plot for the time involving a flirtatious 16 year old girl at a private school who passes herself off as being 20.  Probably not worth bothering with.