Posts Tagged ‘race’

Thursday, January 10, 2013

The Emancipation Anniversary: A Local Grassroots Victory

What follows is a guest essay by Peter Slocum, a volunteer and board member with the North Country Underground Railroad Historical Association, based in Ausable Chasm.

Almost lost in the recent “Fiscal Cliff” spectacle was the anniversary marking one of the major positive milestones of our history — President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.

On January 1, 1863, some 3 million people held as slaves in the Confederate states were declared to be “forever free.” Of course, it wasn’t that simple. Most of those 3 million people were still subjugated until the Union Army swept away the final Confederate opposition more than two years later. And slavery was not abolished in the entire United States until after the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution passed in 1865.
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Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Remembering Murdered Game Warden William Jackson

The LaGoy brothers were rough. A neighbor near Severence, on the road between Schroon Lake Village and Paradox, once wrote a letter to a local newspaper asking for a telling retraction. “I was not lost,” D.S. Knox wrote. “My wife was much excited by the delay of about an hour of time over due, thinking as I have an organic heart trouble, caused to give her alarm, and not ever thinking of any of the LeGoy family causing any harm as neither of us believe that any of the LeGoy family ever would cause any personal harm without a provocation.” It was rather important to Knox to make it clear to the world, that even if his wife had been talking out of school, neither of them harbored an ill will toward the LaGoys.

There was probably good reason to write that letter. Three LaGoy brothers were then being held at the Elizabethtown Jail on suspicion of the axe murder of game warden William H. Jackson.

According to testimony at their trial, at about 9 pm on Friday, September 17, 1897 the LaGoy brothers were headed out of Schroon Lake Village when Special Game Protector Jackson learned of their whereabouts. William Jenks rode with Jackson and over took them on the road to serve an arrest warrant on the elder brother Frank, then 32 and wanted for hunting deer with dogs (although the deer season was expanded in 1897, hounding and jack-lighting were outlawed). Frank LaJoy resisted arrest and attacked game constable Jackson with an axe. Jackson managed to fire one shot at his assailant, but LaGoy buried the axe in his chest. Jenks was no where to be found. He later said his horse was spooked and he had waited for Jackson some distance away and when he didn’t return, went into the village for help.

A posse was organized and set out to find Jackson, a large athletic man who had struggled toward the village alone until he collapsed, dead from several axe wounds.

The youngest LaGoy brother Will, 18, was captured the next evening and confessed that his brother Frank had killed the game warden, carefully washed the axe and went home to change his blood-soaked clothes. Two days later the posse caught him there and brought him back to the Ondawa Hotel where a large crowd had gathered. Sheriff John W. Nye ordered his men to shoot any man who approached the prisoner and after a considerable row, Frank LaGoy was quickly transferred to the Essex County Jail. The other brother, George, was capture Monday morning. All three were charged with murder.

In early December, Frank LaGoy and his cellmate Harry Harris dug their way out of their cell and, as the editor of the Essex County Republican put it, “vamoosed, sloped, cleared out, cut and run, departed without cause or permission from their boarding house.”

Posses were organized throughout the county with orders to take Frank LaGoy dead or alive. Trains were searched, and patrols sent in every direction. The next night LaGoy was recaptured near Schroon Lake. Harris was arrested a few days later after have joined, and then deserted, the 65th N.Y. Cavalry. He made a second escape in 1900.

During the trial Frank LaGoy claimed self-defense and argued that he had been threatened and once beaten-up by constable Jackson, but to no avail. He was convicted of 2nd Degree Murder and sentenced to no less than 20 years in Dannemora. His brothers were found not guilty.

In 1918, under the headline “Schroon Lake Murderer Paroled” the Adirondack Record reported that the State Board of Parole had released Frank LaGoy.

Just three years later Frank LaGoy, now 64 and living in Igerna near Chestertown, was arrested again for threatening a neighbor with a gun over a timber dispute. Taken to the Warren County jail, he joined his brother George, being held on a related assault.

It’s a strange an terrible twist of fate that game warden William Jackson is all but forgotten, while his killer Frank LaGoy, was remembered in song into the late 1960s:

“Come all you boys and citizens, come listen to my song,
’tis the story of Frank LaGoy, it won’t delay you long.

He broke the jail and left no bail, and through the village ran,
he bid goodbye to Sherrif Nye, ‘now catch me if you can.’”

Relatively little is known about William H. Jackson. According to census records, he was born in about 1874 and raised in Mineville. His father William was a black man born in Virginia in 1842 who worked as a miner. His mother Eliza Jane, was white, and Canadian which suggests its possible the elder William Jackson was born into slavery and escaped to Canada.


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Thursday, December 8, 2011

Adirondack Philosophy: What’s in a Blog?

Three times last week someone approached me in a crowd and asked, “Are you the Adirondack Philosopher?” Since I wasn’t wearing my customary toga, my chariot was parked some distance away and I wasn’t strolling through the square asking leading questions, I was at once pleased and caught off guard.

It is a testament to the popularity of the Adirondack Almanack that this happens as often as it does, and in the most unlikely places. Last week it happened while I was inside a medium security prison, it happened again at a planning meeting several towns away and again at a party where the conversation tended more towards ice climbing than Kant’s moral imperative.

Most have been complimentary; happy to have a woman thoughtfully engaging complicated issues, happy to hear these same complicated issues approached in an alternative way and happy that this alternative style is kept challenging for the reader. I am deeply gratified by this response and yet, it makes me intensely aware of how many people this blog (if not my posts) reaches.

With this on my mind I was talking with colleagues earlier this week who had been part of the conversation that gave rise to my last post. A few expressed frustration that I hadn’t gone into specifics in my Almanack post. There was frustration that I hadn’t related the parts of our conversation that had brought up the most tension among us and that were at the heart of our heated discussion. I explained that since the conversation had to do with complex subjects including race, “nature,” science and identity it seemed prudent in a blog to take up only the parts of our discussion that had to do more broadly with “diversity” and “institutions” rather than to try to write a post containing language that had the potential to take on a life of its own in hyperspace.

But, I was told, that’s what a blogger does! She takes a position and sends it out for readers to hash out in the comments and may the quickest wit and the most acerbic typist have the last word. OK, maybe that’s my interpretation of what a blog “discussion” often devolves into. But I have another related concern; that even the most thoughtfully written 600-word position is open to interpretation, corruption and has the potential to reflect less than favorably on its author. In contrast, an in-person conversation, seminar discussion, a manuscript or a journal article allows us to follow the whole arc of an idea, to clarify and respond to opposing or unanticipated responses to what has been put forth.

I put this belief and my own courage to the test a few years ago when I began to outline what would become my dissertation research. I had come across what I thought was an interesting subject that had to do with altruism and communities. I settled into the idea that this would be the subject that I would devote much of my creative and intellectual energy to. Until one day I realized I was spectacularly bored and I started to notice a glazed over look that came over everyone I spoke with. I decided straight away to change my topic and I shared it with a friend here in the Adirondacks. She was skeptical; she thought my initial idea was better because it didn’t actually say anything that would upset people.

Whereas this new topic was going to take up the reality of our racially segregated Park, a reality that I would argue is due in part to the conservationists’ reliance on a singular 19th century ideal of wilderness. What’s more, I would also interrogate the racist and classist assumptions that are written into a regional fear of what would happen to the Adirondacks if we de-centered the story of Emerson, Marshall, Muir and the rest. My friend was right that this would come across a lot like that conversation I had with my colleagues, whose details I was too cautious to relate in a blog. So, call it professional self-preservation or maybe I just don’t have the metal for blogging. But I have embraced this potentially divisive subject and in plain language too, so it might begin a real conversation about race in the region. For more, you’ll have to wait for the book or give a holler and I’ll hop in my chariot and we can stroll the square together and argue about ideas.

Marianne Patinelli-Dubay is a philosopher living, teaching and writing in the Adirondacks

Image from The School of Athens by Raphael, 1509.


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Thursday, November 17, 2011

Philosophy: Considering Diversity and Equality

A while back I asked why it matters whether women are represented in science? I was interested to know if we care about whether a variety of communities show up in fields, professions and pastimes, why do we care? Is it simply a matter of increasing the number of loyalists to our mission, or does it come from an openness to change the very system that stands resolute like Uncle Sam declaring “I want you!”

Yesterday during a research discussion at the Adirondack Interpretive Center in Newcomb, a lively conversation followed one colleague’s expressed desire to encourage “underrepresented” communities to participate in informal science education in the Adirondacks. The topic drew towards “diversity initiatives” and we went round and round on this subject until the room began to spin. The hour was fruitful for many reasons, not least because it helped me to clarify my own thinking (score for the discursive power of the philosophical method).

It also brought to mind that these types of discussions have come up lately with surprising frequency. I would love to think that this indicates something of our cultural zeitgeist,but it’s more likely that I am responsible for taking conversations in these directions. It is in fact, more likely that my participation (to be fair, my initiation of) interdisciplinary conversations about research and education at an institution devoted to science, actually changes the discourse.

What does it mean to change the discourse, and is that shift evidence of diversity at work? I think so, if we agree on the difference between “equality” and “diversity.” Oftentimes institutions are invested in counting heads as a way of establishing whether or not they can claim to be diverse and thus, proudly garner the gold star of liberalism. In that striving, the different concepts of “equality” and “diversity” merge, and we overlook the subtle and essential difference between the two. Namely that “equality” means that we all have a fair shot at getting where we want to go. “Diversity” means that once we get where we wanted to go (thanks to equal rights) then we have an opportunity, and I would argue an obligation, to change the culture by our contribution. That’s what I mean by changing the discourse and not simply joining a culture and taking on its character wholesale.

An old civil rights question lies at the heart of this difficult negotiation of insider advocacy. It asks whether it’s more effective to influence an institution or a system from the outside by deconstructing it brick by brick, or whether it’s better to gain admission and change the culture from within. The obvious drawback to the outsider model is the likelihood that the system in question can easily ignore fringe elements pushing against power. The danger of the insider method is the potential that once we gain access to the system that we were intent to change; we become slowly seduced by belonging and getting in step with the less fractious work of going-along.

This particular reading of diversity versus equality is problematic. According to this interpretation, “diversity” assumes that the culture will encourage alternative voices to re-shape it and indeed potentially change the nature of the system. Is that really what we want when we create “diversity” initiatives? Are the existing systems open and ready for that kind of reimagining? What are the risks if we endeavor to diversify something like informal science education or formal academic programs in environmental science that contribute to Park policy and planning?

I think it is risky to welcome this style of diversity, considering the potential that it has to unsettle the ground. I think it’s radical to invite communities with an entirely different way of entering the world and its situations to co-create a field or a discipline. I think it invites strenuous critique from our peers when there’s any whiff of breaking from tradition and traditional ways of pursuing science and education. I think we invite untold consequences when an established apparatus of power and knowledge comes to be renegotiated or reconceived altogether. I think it’s what the philosopher Bertrand Russell meant when he said “Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought is great and swift and free.” I think we should do it.

Photo courtesy Greenopia

Marianne is a philosopher living, writing and teaching in the Adirondacks.


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Monday, August 15, 2011

Scaroon Manor and Accessible State Lands

During the opening ceremony of the new Scaroon Manor Campground and Day Use Area on Schroon Lake, State Assemblywoman Teresa Sayward told a short story. Standing at a podium under a newly built pavilion on the sweeping grounds of the former resort turned DEC Campground, Sayward told a small crowd that when she was young, she “couldn’t afford to come here.” Once, she said, on a school field trip she had come to the Scaroon Manor resort by bus for the day and was amazed by what she saw.

Sayward’s story gets to the heart of the issue of accessibility in the Adirondacks. Standing on the grounds of what was once the most extravagant resort on Schroon Lake, with its beach, small boat basin, and greek style outdoor theater, Sayward seemed to realize for a moment the importance of state land.



The Assemblywoman, a vocal opponent of state land purchases, wasn’t the only one who could not previously enjoy the grounds at Scaroon Manor. Although it was once called Spirit Point after the Native American community who assembled there, for more than 200 years they were essentially barred from the property. When Taylor’s on Schroon was established in 1865, the resort, among the largest and most well-appointed on Schroon Lake, barred Jews. Although the Taylors advertised the warning “Gentile trade solicited,” there was no need to remind visitors that African-Americans were also excluded. In an ironic twist Taylor’s was sold in the early 1920s to Joseph Frieber and became the Jewish summer center of the Adirondacks – Scaroon Manor. The status of African-Americans remained essentially unchanged, as did that of gay and lesbian people, and those with disabilities.

All that changed in 1967 when the state acquired the property. Although it took too long (for a variety of personal, political, and economic reasons) a new campground, the first new state campground in 30 years, is now open to all.* Most notably, the campground is universally accessible to those with disabilities.

Carole Fraser, DEC’s Statewide Universal Access Program Coordinator, told me that while the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires that 25% of new facilities be accessible to those with disabilities, the new Scaroon Manor Campground is 100% accessible. “The designer really went crazy,” she told me “this is one of the most accessible campground in the country, maybe the world.”

Despite the drum-beat of opposition to state land on the grounds that it somehow closes off access, the Adirondacks are now more open and accessible than ever before. The state’s facilities are open to everyone, regardless of race, class, or gender and more than 65 DEC facilities now feature access for people with disabilities.

Not only have state land purchases opened the Adirondacks to all, the more recent transition to universal access facilities is spawning a new adaptive recreation industry. Adirondack Adaptive Adventures offers guide services to those with disabilities and the number of adaptive sporting events and camps is growing. Plans are already in the works for a free “introduction to camping weekend” next year at Scaroon Manor for the National Wildlife Federation’s Great American Backyard Campout.

DEC recently updated its Adirondack map to include universally accessible facilities [pdf], and maintains a online list of facilities. The state also allows the use of cars, trucks and all-terrain vehicles by permit on routes already designated for ADA access, and issues permits on a case-by-case basis on routes that are not currently open.

Questions about access for people with disabilities should be directed to Larry Nashett (DEC Region 5 in Ray Brook) and Blanche Town (DEC Region 6 in Potsdam).

* It should be noted that the grounds have been open since 1967, though facilities were limited.

Photos: Above, (l-r) State Senator Betty Little, Schroon Lake Supervisor Cathy Moses, DEC Commissioner Joe Martens, Chester Supervisor and Local Government Review Board Executive director Fred Monroe, Assemblywoman Teresa Sayward, DEC Region 5 Regional Director Betsy Lowe; Middle, one of a half dozen historic interpretive panels (none mention the segregated history of the site).




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Tuesday, July 5, 2011

‘Dreaming of Timbuctoo’ Showing in Essex County

The “Dreaming of Timbuctoo” Exhibition will be on view at the Whallonsburg Grange Hall in the Champlain Valley from July 3-9. The Grange is located on Route 22, five miles south of the village of Essex, NY.

When it premiered at the Adirondack Museum in Blue Mountain Lake in 2001, “Dreaming of Timbuctoo” revealed the little-known antebellum history involving black homesteaders granted land in the Adirondacks in the mid-1840s—a step toward winning the vote for free black New Yorkers. Through this abolitionist “scheme of justice and benevolence”, 3,000 African American men from nearly every county in the state each received 40 acres of land. John and Mary Brown moved to the Adirondacks in 1848 to be a friend and neighbor to those who settled their land. One of the loosely knit communities came to be called “Timbuctoo”.

Through letters, documents, archival photographs, and curator Amy Godine’s illuminating text, the exhibition explores the backdrop and motivations of some of the country’s most illustrious anti-slavery leaders involved, including philanthropist Gerrit Smith, the Rev. Henry Highland Garnet of Troy, Frederick Douglass, Syracuse’s Rev. Jermaine Loguen, and Dr. James McCune Smith of New York City.

As the nation marks the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, the Whallonsburg Grange Hall and John Brown Lives! host the exhibition and several educational and cultural events that examine the political war on slavery, discuss its place in North Country history, and its relationship to civil rights issues.

The exhibition opened on Sunday. Regular hours from Monday-Saturday, July 4-9, are from 12 noon to 6:00 p.m. and admission is free.

Other upcoming programs at the Grange include:

Wednesday, July 7 at 7:00 p.m.: The Struggle for the Right to Vote, Past and Present, with historians and civil rights activists Dr. Laura Free, criminologist Alice Green, and Paul Murray, Mississippi volunteer in the 1960s. Excerpts from the new film marking the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Riders will be shown. Admission $5; students free.

Thursday, July 7 at 7:00 p.m. Transgressing the Blue Line: Toward an Inclusive Adirondack Narrative with environmental philosopher Marianne Patinelli-Dubay. Admission $5; students free.

Saturday, July 9 at 8:00 p.m. Magpie in Concert, featuring the gorgeous harmonies, brilliant musicianship, and inspiring songs of the folk duo, Greg Artzner and Terry Leonino. Admission $7; children under 12 admitted for $3.

Related programs at Heaven Hill Farm will involved a trek into the archaeological dig underway at one of the “Timbuctoo” homesteads under the direction of Dr. Hadley Kruczek-Aaron, SUNY-Potsdam Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Timbuctoo Archaeology Project. The dig is near the John Brown Farm State Historic Site in North Elba. Reservations for both Heaven Hill events are necessary and can be made at mswan@capital.net or 518-962-4758.

Thursday, July 7, from 8:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m., educators, artists, parents and community members engage in a roundtable conversation to shape a Timbuctoo Adirondacks-Timbuktu Sahara friendship connection. A representative from a Tuoareg community school on outskirts of the Malian city of Tiimbuktu will be present.

Sunday, July 10, from 3:00-6:00 p.m., a visit to the dig site of the Timbuctoo Archaeology Project and reception afterward. $20 per person would be appreciated.

“Dreaming of Timbuctoo” is a joint project of John Brown Lives! and the Essex County Historical Society. Funding from the New York Council for the Humanities and the New York Council on the Arts were principal funders of the exhibition. The Arts Council of the Northern Adirondacks is providing support for the concert with Magpie.

For more information, go to www.thegrangehall.org or contact Martha Swan, Director of John Brown Lives! at mswan@capital.net or 518-962-4758, or Mary-Nell Bockman at Whallonsburg Grange Hall, Marynell@mac.com or 518-570-2382.

Photo: Black Farmers in North Elba (Courtesy Adirondack Museum).


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Thursday, May 5, 2011

Climate Justice The Focus of John Brown Day

Climate Justice will be the focus of this year’s annual John Brown Day on Saturday, May 7, 2011. A tradition dating back to the 1930s, John Brown Day is held each year at the John Brown Farm State Historic Site in Lake Placid, to honor one of the nation’s most influential abolitionists on the anniversary of his birth in 1800.

Dedicating his life to eradicating slavery, Brown eventually risked all attacking the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, in 1859. Captured by troops led by Robert E. Lee and J.E.B. Stuart, Brown’s trial and execution are considered by many historians as a spark that help ignite the Civil War 150 years ago.

Climate Justice is a growing global movement that recognizes that poor and disenfranchised peoples around the world bear the least responsibility for climate change but face a disproportionate burden from its attendant effects, such as compromised health, economic hardship from rising energy costs, and displacement, destruction of property, and death due to extreme natural disasters. Here in the United States, the global campaign for Climate Justice is deeply linked to the Environmental Justice Movement, which is entering its third decade of militant opposition to environmental racism.

John Brown Day keynote speaker and Environmental Justice leader Cecil Corbin-Mark will describe the evolution of the Climate Justice Movement and give voice to the rights and concerns of the people who are usually the first and often the hardest hit by the impacts of global warming.

Corbin-Mark is Deputy Director of the Harlem-based organization, WE-ACT for Environmental Justice. In addition to his work in New York, Corbin-Mark has been active in United Nations and alternative global climate conversations from Copenhagen to Cochabamba to Cancun.
“Like slavery in antebellum America, climate change is one of the most important moral issues of our time,” said Martha Swan, director of the freedom education project John Brown Lives! which organizes the yearly event.

“Brown surely would have recognized that it is the world’s poor who disproportionately bear the brunt of climate change, so it is fitting that Climate Justice will be the focus of John Brown Day 2011. In this Sesquicentennial Year marking the start of the Civil War, we are honored that Cecil will be with us at this critical time.”

Other speakers at the annual event include David Goodman, brother of civil rights activist Andrew Goodman, murdered by the Ku Klux Klan during Mississippi Freedom Summer in
1964, Alice Kesey Mecoy, great-great-great granddaughter of John and Mary Brown, and Brother Yusef Burges. A trustee of the Children & Nature Network and an outdoor educator, Burgess will speak about the power of nature to transform youth. A frequent paddler on Adirondack waterways and former outreach and diversity coordinator for the state Department of Environmental Conservation, Burgess works to connect Albany-area youth with the natural beauty and environmental issues of the Adirondacks.

John Brown Day 2011 is possible with the cooperation of the John Brown Farm State Historic Site. The event is free and open to the public, and will be held outdoors under a tent.
For more information, contact Martha Swan, Director of John Brown Lives!, at 518-962-4758 or johnbrownlives@westelcom.com.


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Monday, April 25, 2011

Liberia Pioneer: Champlain’s Jehudi Ashmun

In 1822, three months after Champlain, New York native Jehudi Ashmun’s colony of freed slaves landed on Africa’s west coast, and two months after losing his wife, the group faced impending hostilities from surrounding tribes. The attack finally came on November 11th. Ashmun, a man of religious faith but deeply depressed at his wife’s death, was suddenly thrust into the position of impromptu military leader.

Approximately ten kings of local tribes sent 800 men to destroy the new settlement, which held only 35 residents, six of whom were younger than 16 years old. Many among them were very ill, leaving only about 20 fit enough to help defend the colony. By any measure, it was a slam dunk.

The results are now legendary: against incredible odds, the settlers routed their attackers. It was a great victory, but the fight wasn’t over. Immediately, and for days after, Ashmun worked to improve their defenses, fearing another attack. A confidant informed him his suspicions were warranted, and on November 30th, via a foreign ship, Ashmun sent a desperate message to the American Colonization Society, sponsors of the new settlement.

“All the tribes around us are combined in a war against us. Their principal object is plunder. We are surrounded by only a slight barricade and can only raise a force of thirty men. … We endeavor to make God our trust. I have no idea but to wait for His deliverance—or to lay out our bones on Cape Montserado.”

The second assault, which came on December 2nd, was made by an even larger force estimated at more than 1,000 warriors. Furious attacks were mounted, including at least four in one location, but all were repulsed. Within 90 minutes, and at great loss to the enemy, the settlement stood intact. Ashmun and his band of colonists had once again achieved the impossible.

It was truly the stuff of legend, marking the beginning of an incredible journey. Jehudi became the settlement’s de facto leader. As per the Society’s instructions, he assisted the new colony in establishing a constitution and code of laws based on those of the United States. Having negotiated deals with several kings before they had decided to turn against him, Jehudi now dealt with the task of mending fences and forging a peace agreement with his enemies.

During the next several years, he successfully navigated through myriad problems, daunting hardships, and frequent illness, leading the colony to success. A working economy was established and new territory was acquired, making for a promising future.

In a treaty signed with five kings, he once traded “500 bars of tobacco, three barrels of rum, five casks of powder, five umbrellas, ten iron posts, ten pairs of shoes,” and other items in exchange for land and certain rights. (See the illustration. At the bottom of the treaty are the kings’ names with their marks (X), and Jehudi’s signature near the bottom right.)

Ashmun was present for the birth and initial growth of the settlement, guiding the way to legitimacy. But in 1828, another serious illness struck, and on July 18th, the great dismay, sadness, and appreciation of the entire colony was expressed when he returned to America for treatment.

Writing to his parents in Champlain, he expressed the hope and desire to return to the village in the coming months. But it wasn’t to be. On August 25th, at the young age of only 34, Jehudi Ashmun died in New Haven, Connecticut, where he was buried.

The colony he established had become known as Liberia (“Land of the Free”), and its capital, originally Christopolis, had been renamed Monrovia after President James Monroe. Within a decade of the colony’s birth, those first few dozen settlers had grown to nearly 1,500 citizens; a daily newspaper had been established; a self-governing system of laws was in place; and the economy was supported by trade with other countries, just as Ashmun had envisioned.

In 1847, the Liberian colonists declared their land an independent republic, receiving official recognition from nearly all the world’s countries, with one notable exception—the United States. American recognition was withheld for a familiar reason—southern states refused to accept a black ambassador in Washington.

The US finally came through with recognition of Liberia in 1862, when the southern voices in Congress were silenced by their secession from the Union.

A century after Ashmun’s tiny group of colonists repelled those two initial attacks, Liberia was about the size of Kentucky and had a population of more than two million, which exceeded that of thirty US states. Oddly enough, as noted in 1919 by the National Geographic Society: “Of these two million or more inhabitants, only about 50,000 [12,000 of whom were of American origin] may be considered civilized and take part in government.”

It’s rather ironic that a colony of former slaves, established to encourage freedom and provide a voice in their own governance, would one day restrict the freedom and rights of 97 percent of its own population, placing them at the whim of the other 3 percent. Sound familiar?

Further irony is found in Liberia’s constitution, which contains a clause carried forward for generations. It still exists today in Chapter IV, Article 27, Section b): “In order to preserve, foster, and maintain the positive Liberian culture, values, and character, only persons who are Negroes or of Negro descent shall qualify by birth or by naturalization to be citizens of Liberia.”

And so it is that in Liberia, directly translated as “the Land of the Free,” non-blacks are denied citizenship. Perhaps they became more like America than Jehudi Ashmun intended.

Still, there’s no denying the fact that in light of its most humble of beginnings, and the changes we’ve seen to the globe even in the past 50 years, it’s amazing that Liberia still survives nearly two centuries after Ashmun first landed on Africa’s shores.

He was smart, tough, and wise, but another side of Ashmun that stayed with him throughout life is revealed through his own writings. Consider this self-assessment from 1819: “I am now 25 years of age; almost three years from college; have no profession … I am involved in debt, possess neither books nor money, and have a delicate and beloved wife to provide for.

“I am wearied with the same daily round of dull employment … of studying in circumstances forbidding the exercise of half the strength of my mental powers; of sleeping immoderately because I have nothing to do or to enjoy sufficiently interesting to keep me awake. … The future is a dreary expanse of storms and clouds, pervaded by a few faint gleams of hope.

“I am broken with disappointments; have been robbed by the perfidy and ignorance of supposed friends and the malevolence of enemies. … The frown of Heaven is upon me. My hopes for eternity are clouded.”

If at times you feel a hopelessness like that once expressed by Jehudi Ashmun, remember what he accomplished in the next few years of his life. Not bad for a North Country boy—or any boy, for that matter.

Photo Top: Location of Liberia on Africa’s west coast.

Photo Bottom: Treaty signed by Ashmun and several African tribal kings.

Lawrence Gooley has authored nine books and many articles on the North Country’s past. He and his partner, Jill McKee, founded Bloated Toe Enterprises in 2004. He took over in 2010 and began expanding the company’s publishing services. For information on book publishing, visit Bloated Toe Publishing.


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Monday, April 18, 2011

Local History: Liberian Pioneer Jehudi Ashmun

Thursday, April 21, marks the birthday of one of the most famous men you never heard of, and surely the least known of all North Country figures who once graced the world stage. It is also appropriate to recall his story at this time for two other reasons. It has ties to slavery and the Civil War during this, the year marking the 150th anniversary of America’s darkest period. And, in relation to current world news, it involves fighting for change in Africa.

If you’re well familiar with the work of Jehudi Ashmun, you’re in a very small minority. Even in his hometown, little has been done to mark his achievements other than a single roadside historical marker. And yet, if you look, you’ll find him in dozens of encyclopedias and reference books as an important part of African and Liberian history.

Jehudi Ashmun was born in Champlain, a small village in the northeastern corner of New York State, just a mile from the Canadian border. Early on, he proved capable of advanced learning, and after schooling in Champlain, he attended Middlebury College in Vermont at the age of 16, preparing for life as a Christian minister.

Ill health, a problem throughout his life, found Jehudi back home in Champlain during the War of 1812. On healthier days, despite his young age, he preached in the local church and organized a military company to protect the village from British attackers threatening from Canada.

After returning to schooling at Middlebury, he entered the University of Vermont. Graduating from UVM in August, 1816, Ashmun gave the salutatory address and presented “An English Oration upon the Philosophy of the Mind.”

Jehudi soon found employment as school principal and Professor of Classical Literature at the Maine Charity School, one of the first educational societies in the country. Guided by a strong Christian belief, he published extensively, including sermons, lectures, and essays.

Ashmun’s opinionated persona was not always well received, and six months after marrying Catherine Gray in October 1818, he resigned from the school and moved to Washington, D.C. There, he linked with the Episcopal Church for three years, studying religion, continuing to publish, and becoming alarmingly aware of the plight of slaves in nearby Virginia.

Christian doctrine deplored slavery, and the more Ashmun (a white northerner) learned, the more he felt compelled to act. He became an active participant in the American Colonization Society (ACS), a group that many supported with the best of intentions, but an organization that attracted a pro-slavery element as well.

To understand that dichotomy, it is necessary to at least somewhat grasp the situation in America around 1820. As a young nation proudly touting “all men are created equal,” the US was embarrassed by other countries pointing out in newspaper editorials the great hypocrisy of allowing slavery to exist for any reason within America’s borders.

By 1808, the importation of slaves had been strictly forbidden by federal law, but some southern states claimed the feds had overstepped their bounds. Still, a very powerful anti-slavery movement existed in America. The problem was—what constituted a solution?

Groups like the American Colonization Society faced an unusual number of arguments for and against their efforts. Many leaders, both black and white, believed all citizens should remain in the US and battle for full equal rights for all. Others, including many black leaders, felt that blacks would never be treated justly or be free of discrimination in America, and thus favored the establishment of a colony where they could flourish.

Some said that promoting colonization was simply a cover for the goal of ridding America of blacks. Others saw great promise in black colonists succeeding, and helping to spread the Christian faith across Africa. Many slave owners supported the society because they feared that many free blacks would urge those in slavery to rise together in rebellion. By sending them to colonies, the owners were removing rabble-rousers from their midst.

At the time, the idea of going to Africa did seem sensible to some blacks since that was their place of origin. However, by that time, many had been in America long enough to have children born here and had established roots. A great number preferred to stay in the US and face the devil they knew, rather than the uncertainties of life (the devil they didn’t know) in Africa.

At various times, plans were made for colonies in Canada, Mexico, Africa, the Caribbean, and in several Central American countries. Finally, a real effort to settle on Africa’s west coast was tried, but failed. Another similar attempt was made within two years.

The second opportunity arose when the Georgia state legislature authorized its governor to sell about 40 slaves who had been brought to the state illegally. Money from the sale was destined for state coffers, but by law, before selling the slaves, the state had to allow others the chance to purchase their freedom or assume the expense of taking them to a colony.

In stepped the ACS, and it was 18 of those slaves who formed the bulk of the colonization effort in Africa. The leader of the expedition was Jehudi Ashmun, who avoided many debts by leaving the country, but whose devotion to the cause was beyond reproach. He also saw the opportunity to establish trade and perhaps find a way to pay his own financial commitments.

Throughout his life, Ashmun had been a deep thinker and an activist, but was frequently beset with periods of strong self-doubt. With that in mind, it’s hard to imagine his thoughts when, arriving on Africa’s west coast on August 9, 1822, he found wretched living conditions and violent conflicts involving several regional tribes.

Adjacent to the British colony of Sierra Leone, he gained permission to land and establish a community. He managed interactions and informal agreements with several local tribes, but it soon became clear that they intended to set upon Ashmun’s group and destroy them.

Jehudi’s settlers were suffering badly from illness, and were certainly in no condition to defend themselves. Their position on the peninsula of Cape Montserado provided at least some natural protection, but their illness was disabling, and the meager rations they shared were barely enough to sustain life. The future looked bleak for this fledgling enterprise.

Ashmun himself seemed near death at times, but feared more for his wife, who was dreadfully ill. She finally succumbed on September 15, barely a month after their arrival from America. Jehudi was devastated. There was great doubt that he could survive and carry on the mission.

Next week, Part 2: A battle for the ages, and then some.

Photo Top: Jehudi Ashmun, native of Champlain, New York.

Photo Bottom: Ashmun’s Liberian settlement at Cape Montserado.

Lawrence Gooley has authored nine books and many articles on the North Country’s past. He and his partner, Jill McKee, founded Bloated Toe Enterprises in 2004. He took over in 2010 and began expanding the company’s publishing services. For information on book publishing, visit Bloated Toe Publishing.


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Saturday, July 17, 2010

Adirondack Vigilantism Lecture in Wilmington

The Wilmington Historical Society will be hosting a program with historian and author Amy Godine entitled “Have You Seen That Vigilante Man?” to be held on Friday, July 30th at 7 pm at the Wilmington Community Center on Springfield Road in Wilmington.

Night riders, white cappers and vigilante strikes; the darker side of American mob justice was not confined to the Deep South or the Far West. Adirondack history is ablaze with flashes of “frontier justice,” from farmers giving chase to horse thieves to “townie” raids on striking immigrant miners to the anti-Catholic rallies of the KKK. Amy Godine’s anecdotal history of Adirondack vigilantism plumbs a regional legacy with deep, enduring roots, and considers what about the North Country made it fertile and forgiving ground for outlaw activity.

Readers of Adirondack Life magazine are acquainted with Amy Godine’s work on social and ethnic history in the Adirondack region. Whether delving into the stories of Spanish road workers, Polish miners, black homesteaders, Jewish peddlers or Chinese immigrants, Godine celebrates the “under-stories” of so-called “non-elites,” groups whose contributions to Adirondack history are conventionally ignored. Exhibitions she has curated on vanished Adirondack ethnic enclaves have appeared at the Chapman Historical Museum, the Saratoga History Museum, the Adirondack Museum and the New York State Museum. The recently published 3rd edition of The Adirondack Reader, the anthology Rooted in Rock, and The Adirondack Book, feature her essays; with Elizabeth Folwell, she co-authored Adirondack Odysseys. A former Yaddo, MacDowell, and Hackman Research Fellow, she is also an inaugural Fellow of the New York Academy of History.

The “Have You Seen That Vigilante Man?” program on July 30th is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served. For further information, contact Karen Peters at (518) 524-1023 or Merri Peck at (518) 946- 7627.

Photo: Members of Ku Klux Klan march in Washington DC in 1925.


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