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Oregon Was a White Supremacist Paradise · Ridiculous History

0:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, welcome to the show, ladies and gentlemen. I'm ben No. Wow,
0:27
Speaker 1: this is like a very standard intro we're trying today. Yeah,
0:29
Speaker 1: we're going We're going straight for it. But we were
0:32
Speaker 1: only able to make this show, of course, with the
0:34
Speaker 1: assistance of our esteemed third member friends and neighbors, super
0:38
Speaker 1: producer Casey Pegrham. Sort of a vanilla opening, would you
0:44
Speaker 1: white bread a little homogeneous? Yes? Yes, uh, today we are. Well,
0:51
Speaker 1: let's let's start in the modern dayn For a long time,
0:54
Speaker 1: neither of us had ever been to Portland's until pretty recently.
0:57
Speaker 1: It's true, I only spent a little bit of time there.
1:00
Speaker 1: I think you had a little bit more of a
1:01
Speaker 1: fully fleshed out Portland experience. But will you tell me then,
1:05
Speaker 1: is the dream of the nineties in fact still alive
1:07
Speaker 1: in Portland? Yes? Uh, I I thoroughly enjoyed the town.
1:14
Speaker 1: I thought it was surprising. I was diplomatic enough not
1:18
Speaker 1: to directly mentioned the comedy show Portlandia to anybody that
1:21
Speaker 1: gets really old. I am sure it does. It's like
1:24
Speaker 1: when people visit our city and call it Hotlanta. Yeah, well,
1:28
Speaker 1: I would say this is even more egregious. Probably people
1:31
Speaker 1: running around, so they put a bird on it. Yes,
1:35
Speaker 1: and Portland has this national reputation at least for being
1:40
Speaker 1: a very progressive city. Right, face tattoos are cool. Uh,
1:45
Speaker 1: marijuana is decriminalized, the streets are paved in marijuana. In fact,
1:51
Speaker 1: it does have a particular smell, and in general people
1:56
Speaker 1: would see it as sort of a bastion of left
1:59
Speaker 1: leaning culture. Yeah, super chill. You know you can you
2:03
Speaker 1: can buy a sandwich for a song in Portland. Literally,
2:09
Speaker 1: it doesn't have to be a good song. It's just
2:11
Speaker 1: a song. A song um or you know, a little
2:14
Speaker 1: soft shoe or maybe you've got a one man band
2:17
Speaker 1: kind of Dick van Dyke situation going on that I
2:19
Speaker 1: did see one man band when I was there. Did
2:21
Speaker 1: you see that guy? No, I just pulled that out
2:23
Speaker 1: of my of my ear. Well, you are correct, and
2:25
Speaker 1: there there are one man band's in Portland. There are
2:29
Speaker 1: also numerous amazing things, amazing bits of history. One of
2:35
Speaker 1: our coworkers, a guy named Nathan, is actually from Oregon,
2:39
Speaker 1: and he assured us that Portland is more of a
2:42
Speaker 1: cultural exception to the rule nowadays. Yeah, I can see that.
2:45
Speaker 1: I'm actually wearing my timberline lodge hat right now. But
2:48
Speaker 1: I bought at the Portland Airport, and as you might imagine,
2:52
Speaker 1: at the Portland Airport, not a chain restaurant in site,
2:55
Speaker 1: my friend, all of the shops sell handmade artisanal goods.
3:00
Speaker 1: I bought some really cute little pieces of pottery there
3:03
Speaker 1: for me Mom. That's sweet of you, man, and that's
3:06
Speaker 1: really dope hat. It is a great hat. So it's
3:08
Speaker 1: safe to say that you and I are are fans
3:11
Speaker 1: of Portland's and would travel there again in the future,
3:15
Speaker 1: at least modern Portland's, right right. I don't think I
3:19
Speaker 1: would want to travel there in a time machine to past. Yes. Yes,
3:23
Speaker 1: today's episode is about the origins of Oregon Portland in particular,
3:29
Speaker 1: Wow One Take, or as it's called here. I'm in
3:32
Speaker 1: some of these articles that we're looking at the Oregon country. Yeah,
3:37
Speaker 1: Oregon country. That might sound weird to some people. What
3:40
Speaker 1: is Oregon Country? I kept seeing it and it was
3:42
Speaker 1: a little weird sounding. It was confusive, but I figured
3:44
Speaker 1: it out with my internet sleuth skills. Um, what would
3:48
Speaker 1: now be modern day Oregon, Washington State, and Idaho was
3:52
Speaker 1: all kind of clustered together in this one big old
3:55
Speaker 1: chunk of land. Collectively referred to as the Oregon Country. Yeah,
4:00
Speaker 1: and this was, Um, let's see, way back in eighteen eighteen, right,
4:04
Speaker 1: the US and Britain agreed to jointly occupy this. Yeah.
4:08
Speaker 1: That seems like a like an odd couple in a situation. Um.
4:12
Speaker 1: And then I think the US started getting a little
4:15
Speaker 1: greedy and being like, you know what, we kind of
4:17
Speaker 1: want this for our for our own, we turn this
4:19
Speaker 1: into some states. Yeah, because the British wanted to be
4:25
Speaker 1: in the area in Oregon Country, mainly to engage in
4:30
Speaker 1: the fur trade. That's right. And James K. Polk U,
4:34
Speaker 1: who was an expansionist president, right, Um, really wanted to
4:39
Speaker 1: make this our own. And and you know, not not share,
4:44
Speaker 1: not go has these with the Brits anymore. So that
4:47
Speaker 1: ultimately happened. They negotiated. Uh, they decided it wasn't worth
4:50
Speaker 1: going to war over the Brits in anyway. And Um,
4:54
Speaker 1: there was some back and forth. And there's a really
4:57
Speaker 1: great slogan that the Northerners used. Um. It was fifty
5:02
Speaker 1: four forty or fight um. And fifty four forty was
5:07
Speaker 1: talking about the coordinates the latitude that marked the northernmost
5:12
Speaker 1: part of this territory and During these negotiations, the us
5:16
Speaker 1: is first proposal was that the territory be cut in half,
5:21
Speaker 1: right with that, with that border at the forty ninth parallel,
5:25
Speaker 1: and the British rejected it. And so the expansionists, many
5:28
Speaker 1: of whom were anti slavery Northerners, which is super important
5:31
Speaker 1: for this part of the story. Uh, they are the
5:34
Speaker 1: ones who called for more American aggression. Get out there
5:37
Speaker 1: be a big dog. Fifty four forty or fight. It's
5:41
Speaker 1: hard to say you did really well with that bad
5:43
Speaker 1: fifty forty or fight. It's tough. It's fun when you
5:47
Speaker 1: really get it right though. It gives you a sense
5:48
Speaker 1: of accomplishment, as I'm sure they felt when they finally
5:51
Speaker 1: arrived at a pretty decent deal with the Brits where
5:54
Speaker 1: they divided the territory along the forty nine parallel. That's
6:00
Speaker 1: that's pretty close to fifty four. I guess what's the
6:03
Speaker 1: forty thought forty like minutes? Uh, divisions of degrees. It's
6:08
Speaker 1: like a decimal kind of yeah, kind of interesting. Interesting.
6:12
Speaker 1: So this is where we end up with oregon Um needing,
6:16
Speaker 1: you know, to become a state. And when you become
6:19
Speaker 1: a state, what do you do? You have to have
6:20
Speaker 1: a state constitution. And as we know, constitutions are not
6:25
Speaker 1: generally made overnight. They often reflect common practices, goals, or
6:31
Speaker 1: even existing laws that are a community has practiced or
6:36
Speaker 1: written down beforehand. And Oregon had its own pre existing laws.
6:41
Speaker 1: In eighteen forty four, they passed something called the Exclusion
6:48
Speaker 1: Law and this was this was enacted by the provisional
6:51
Speaker 1: government of the region at the time. What what did
6:55
Speaker 1: the Exclusion Law do? Yeah, it was this guy named
6:58
Speaker 1: Peter Burnett who was like kind of an Oregon Trail
7:02
Speaker 1: kind of blazer. I guess Peter Hardeman Burnett. And actually,
7:06
Speaker 1: spoiler alert, we're gonna dig into him in a little
7:08
Speaker 1: more detail later in the show for big time foreshadowing.
7:13
Speaker 1: But here's what this dude did, just just to give
7:15
Speaker 1: you a taste of what his medicine was like. He
7:18
Speaker 1: was a former slave owner UM and has has a
7:21
Speaker 1: really crazy resume, did all kinds of interesting things in
7:25
Speaker 1: his life. But by all accounts, uh a a alarming,
7:30
Speaker 1: dastardly racist, virulate racist big time. So this Exclusion law
7:35
Speaker 1: UM that was enacted sort of pre proper government and
7:39
Speaker 1: constitution UM basically allowed slaveholders to hold on for dear
7:46
Speaker 1: life to those slaves for a maximum of up to
7:49
Speaker 1: three years. And at first I was like, wait, is
7:52
Speaker 1: this is this because of emancipation? But then no, no,
7:56
Speaker 1: that that was decades later. This is eighteen forty four.
7:58
Speaker 1: That wasn't until like the eighteen six and I realized, oh, no,
8:02
Speaker 1: Oregon outlawed slavery in the territory. Right, But here's the key, UK,
8:07
Speaker 1: And if your thing is gonna be like, Oh, that's
8:09
Speaker 1: that's nice, what a great bunch of people. Yeah, okay,
8:11
Speaker 1: but but there's more. Um So, yeah, this grace period
8:14
Speaker 1: of three years, but then all of those freed black
8:18
Speaker 1: people work required to leave. Yeah, that's the thing. The
8:22
Speaker 1: government of Oregon past this exclusion Law of eighteen forty four,
8:28
Speaker 1: and in it they did place a ban on slavery
8:32
Speaker 1: with a requirement that slave owners eventually free their slaves.
8:35
Speaker 1: But they did this with the understanding that any African
8:39
Speaker 1: American who remained in Oregon after they were freed would
8:43
Speaker 1: be flogged, whiplash and forcibly expelled from the country. If
8:48
Speaker 1: they were caught in the Oregon country again within six months,
8:53
Speaker 1: then the punishment would be repeated. And then eventually the
8:58
Speaker 1: law was amended in another version to substitute forced labor,
9:03
Speaker 1: so essentially slavery instead of flogging, and then it was
9:07
Speaker 1: repealed in eighteen So this community was so racist that
9:16
Speaker 1: the they didn't even condone slavery. They were so such
9:22
Speaker 1: white supremacists they just didn't want them around like at all.
9:26
Speaker 1: And there's there's some language we'll get into and in
9:28
Speaker 1: a second, but I do just want to point this out.
9:29
Speaker 1: The that law you mentioned about about flogging or that
9:33
Speaker 1: the penalty was called the Burnett lash Law because our
9:36
Speaker 1: buddy Burnett was so into this that he he wanted
9:39
Speaker 1: to brand it with his own his name. I was
9:42
Speaker 1: like his signature thing. And it required that um or
9:46
Speaker 1: declared rather that offenders who refused to leave would be
9:51
Speaker 1: punished with quote not less than twenty or more than
9:54
Speaker 1: thirty nine stripes, and that would that would be a
9:58
Speaker 1: cycle that would recur every six months until they left. Unfortunately,
10:03
Speaker 1: this lash law did get amended and repealed, so as
10:07
Speaker 1: far as we know today, uh no people were ever
10:11
Speaker 1: lashed as a result of that law. But this was
10:14
Speaker 1: just the first of three different laws like this that
10:19
Speaker 1: all were meant to ban people of color from Oregon Country,
10:24
Speaker 1: which again at that point is like Washington, Oregon and
10:27
Speaker 1: part of Idaho. It's a huge swath of lands, that's right, um,
10:31
Speaker 1: And we're getting some of this information from a fe
10:33
Speaker 1: different places. One of my favorites was a Washington Post
10:36
Speaker 1: article by Danne L. Brown called when Portland band Black's
10:40
Speaker 1: Oregon's shameful history as an all white state, whereas I've
10:44
Speaker 1: seen it referred to as an all white utopia. Kind
10:48
Speaker 1: of right, they were after at least there's this weird
10:51
Speaker 1: history of intentional communities and utopian thinking in Oregon. So
10:56
Speaker 1: it's not not all examples of racist but this definitely
11:00
Speaker 1: was the idea for the people who were supporting this
11:02
Speaker 1: concept was that somehow society would be better if they
11:08
Speaker 1: all felt like if they all somehow identified with the
11:11
Speaker 1: same ethnicity. Now, did they have the same sort of
11:16
Speaker 1: racism that would be common in the Northeast at the time,
11:20
Speaker 1: wherein for instance, Italian or Irish immigrants or children of
11:24
Speaker 1: those immigrants are still considered not wide enough. I don't know,
11:29
Speaker 1: but what was on the books was a specifically targeting
11:33
Speaker 1: people of color. In eighteen, this provisional or territorial government
11:40
Speaker 1: passed the law making it illegal for any quote negro
11:44
Speaker 1: or mulatto to live in Oregon Country. But they did
11:50
Speaker 1: have a provision for people who had Native American blood,
11:54
Speaker 1: which they weirdly referred to as half breeds. Um, because
11:58
Speaker 1: they're despicable people. They are to big old people. But
12:00
Speaker 1: it's interesting that only all it takes is just just
12:02
Speaker 1: get a little white in you. They really didn't like
12:04
Speaker 1: black people. Yeah, that's what it boils down to. All
12:07
Speaker 1: right then, Yeah, so it's state time, baby, here we go.
12:11
Speaker 1: What do you need to make a state? As we
12:13
Speaker 1: established earlier, Yeah, you need um, you gotta have some dirt. Um,
12:18
Speaker 1: you gotta have a delineation between your dirt and the
12:20
Speaker 1: other people's dirt. You have to have some people in
12:23
Speaker 1: both sides so that you can differentiate a constitution. There
12:26
Speaker 1: we go. Yes, in eighteen fifty seven, the government of
12:29
Speaker 1: what would become Oregon was working on its constitution. They
12:33
Speaker 1: did a couple of things. Uh, they grossly plagiarized constitutions
12:38
Speaker 1: from other states at the time. That's you know, you're
12:41
Speaker 1: just gonna be some of that, right. Constitution is not
12:44
Speaker 1: exactly a great work of poetry that you you know,
12:47
Speaker 1: pilfering from is is look down upon it. So that's
12:49
Speaker 1: almost sort of like stealing a boilerplate release form or
12:54
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, I think that's a very good point,
13:02
Speaker 1: being that Oregon was going to be a state in
13:05
Speaker 1: the US and have voters and such. They asked about
13:11
Speaker 1: ten thousand residents to vote on the new state constitution,
13:16
Speaker 1: and they had three questions, burning questions, turning questions. One,
13:21
Speaker 1: do you vote for the constitution? Overwhelmingly voters supported it.
13:26
Speaker 1: Two do you vote for slavery in Oregon? And the
13:30
Speaker 1: voters of Oregon rejected the institution of slavery by a
13:33
Speaker 1: pretty wide margin, also pretty overwhelmingly. Uh. And then three,
13:38
Speaker 1: and this is a quote again, this is problematic language.
13:41
Speaker 1: They say, do you vote for free negroes in Oregon?
13:46
Speaker 1: And the answer was, oh, yeah, it was. It was
13:49
Speaker 1: a now. Yeah, it was a big now. And they
13:51
Speaker 1: explicitly baked in this racist language into their constitution. In fact,
13:58
Speaker 1: we have a quote from the state constitution. Yes, it
14:01
Speaker 1: goes as such, again quoting some offensive language here. Quote,
14:06
Speaker 1: no free negro or mulatto not residing in this state
14:10
Speaker 1: at the time of the adoption of this constitution shall
14:13
Speaker 1: ever come reside or be within this state or hold
14:19
Speaker 1: any real estate, or make any contract, or maintain any
14:23
Speaker 1: suit therein, and the Legislative Assembly shall provide by penal
14:27
Speaker 1: laws for the removal by public officers of all such
14:30
Speaker 1: free negroes and mulatto's, and for their effectual exclusion from
14:35
Speaker 1: the state, and for the punishment of persons who shall
14:38
Speaker 1: bring them into the state or employ or harbor them.
14:42
Speaker 1: They're in right, that is bonkers. It is categorical as well,
14:47
Speaker 1: So pay attention for to that very last lying where
14:51
Speaker 1: it says that anyone who helps a person of color
14:55
Speaker 1: is also guilty in the eyes of Oregon law. And
14:59
Speaker 1: that's that's a terrifying thing. But it passed. People were supportive.
15:04
Speaker 1: Oregon became a state in eighteen fifty nine, and it
15:07
Speaker 1: was the only state in history, only state, only state
15:11
Speaker 1: in history so far that entered as a whites only state,
15:15
Speaker 1: so anti slavery, but only because they were such white supremacists.
15:20
Speaker 1: And that's mind boggling. People in Portland are so nice. Yeah,
15:25
Speaker 1: it really does blow my mind, and it makes me
15:26
Speaker 1: wonder like why, like Mississippi didn't try to do anything
15:29
Speaker 1: like this, Probably because they were just too many black
15:32
Speaker 1: people already living there. It was just it would have
15:33
Speaker 1: been like a massive round up kind of like deportation
15:40
Speaker 1: kind of situation, and they were economically dependent that controlling
15:43
Speaker 1: powers of the state were economically dependent on this, because
15:46
Speaker 1: it feels like Oregon was probably pretty largely white already,
15:51
Speaker 1: and then the slaves that were there were kind of
15:53
Speaker 1: like imported kind of for that purpose. And then then
15:57
Speaker 1: they free them and they give them the boot, and
16:00
Speaker 1: and this largely worked. There were a couple of examples though,
16:05
Speaker 1: of folks trying to get around it, not very many, though,
16:08
Speaker 1: and one in particular of somebody being kicked out pretty hanously.
16:14
Speaker 1: Yeah Vanderpool, right, that's right. Yeah, in eighteen fifty one,
16:19
Speaker 1: before the Constitution was written and before Oregon became a
16:23
Speaker 1: US state, but after these exclusion laws were in full swing,
16:28
Speaker 1: the owner of a saloon, restaurant and boarding home, a
16:30
Speaker 1: fellow named Jacob Vanderpool, was forcibly expelled from the territory,
16:36
Speaker 1: not because he did anything wrong, just because he was
16:39
Speaker 1: not white. Yeah. That's pretty oh boy, Okay, he was
16:44
Speaker 1: literally according to Salem Public Library records, it was literally
16:49
Speaker 1: quote reported for the crime of being black in Oregon,
16:53
Speaker 1: and Judge Thomas Nelson gave him thirty days to leave
16:55
Speaker 1: the territory. Yeah, I'm sorry, I keep pausing because this
16:59
Speaker 1: is just like hurting my my brain, UM and my heart.
17:02
Speaker 1: In an article from How Stuff Works, we spoke to
17:05
Speaker 1: Walita in Marisha, who is a professor in Black Studies
17:09
Speaker 1: at Portland State University UM, and she actually travels around
17:13
Speaker 1: Oregon kind of working on nurturing some positive connections with
17:19
Speaker 1: the African American community and in Oregon, because it's still
17:22
Speaker 1: spoiler alert to this day, pretty largely white. But here's
17:26
Speaker 1: how she sums up the whole thing. Quote, Oregon was
17:29
Speaker 1: birthed at this intersection of being anti slavery and anti black.
17:33
Speaker 1: But in no way was Oregon anti slavery because they
17:35
Speaker 1: believed in racial justice. They were anti slavery because they
17:38
Speaker 1: considered this to be white man's land, and they came
17:40
Speaker 1: to build a racist white utopia. Their goal was to
17:44
Speaker 1: keep out or push out all people of color. Right,
17:49
Speaker 1: and you will see multiple academics who explain that Portland's
17:55
Speaker 1: reputation as a progressive city is, in their opinion, largely
18:00
Speaker 1: a myth. Winston Grady Willis, who's director of Portland State
18:03
Speaker 1: University's School of Gender, Race, and Nations points out that
18:09
Speaker 1: as of July, the city had six hundred and twelve thousand,
18:14
Speaker 1: two hundred and six people, seventy seven point six percent white,
18:17
Speaker 1: five eight percent black, and Grady Willis went on further
18:21
Speaker 1: to call it a key site for clan activity. We
18:25
Speaker 1: know the clan was very active there in the early
18:27
Speaker 1: nineteen hundreds as well. Yeah, I mean apparently members of
18:29
Speaker 1: the clan were actually cops. Yeah, they were deputized. Yeah,
18:34
Speaker 1: like like like as though they were sort of a
18:36
Speaker 1: para military organization, given the same powers as like law enforcement. Right.
18:44
Speaker 1: So not not a pretty scene, but there is good
18:49
Speaker 1: news here. This is a story of oppression, but it
18:52
Speaker 1: is also a story of inspiration and righteous struggle for
18:58
Speaker 1: justice and equality. There there was this great documentary called
19:03
Speaker 1: Local Color, which traces the history of racism in Oregon
19:08
Speaker 1: and the actions of people who are working for civil
19:11
Speaker 1: rights in the area. And of course this you know,
19:14
Speaker 1: this center is often on Portland itself, as it is
19:17
Speaker 1: the capital city of the state UM And to be honest, folks,
19:22
Speaker 1: there are some pretty disturbing stories in that documentary, but
19:26
Speaker 1: if you would like to learn more, we highly recommend
19:30
Speaker 1: you check it out. It is available for free online,
19:33
Speaker 1: So thanks again public television. And so the Fourteenth Amendment happened, um,
19:39
Speaker 1: and surprise, surprise, Oregon was one of I think only
19:44
Speaker 1: six states in the Union that voted against it. And
19:46
Speaker 1: I had forgotten what the fourteenth Amendment is, but it
19:49
Speaker 1: is really hella important is what it says, All persons
19:55
Speaker 1: born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to
19:57
Speaker 1: the jurisdiction thereof our citizen ends of the United States,
20:01
Speaker 1: and of the state wherein they reside. Um, no State
20:04
Speaker 1: shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the
20:07
Speaker 1: privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States. Nor
20:10
Speaker 1: shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or
20:13
Speaker 1: property without due process of law, nor denied to any
20:15
Speaker 1: person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of law. So
20:19
Speaker 1: this completely neutered these exclusion rules, right, So this was
20:25
Speaker 1: passed by Congress in eighteen sixty six, and the explicit
20:29
Speaker 1: intention there is to safeguard the rights of recently manumitted
20:34
Speaker 1: or freed people in the South, where a lot of
20:37
Speaker 1: the white population is working hard to still subjugate them
20:42
Speaker 1: still somehow practice chattel slavery enforced labor. So Oregon actually
20:49
Speaker 1: because it was a divisive issue. Oregon ratified the fourteenth
20:54
Speaker 1: Amendment by a very narrow margin in eighteen sixty six,
20:58
Speaker 1: with two legislators prote testing that the amendment would quote change,
21:03
Speaker 1: if not entirely destroy, the Republican form of government under
21:07
Speaker 1: which we live and crush American liberty. They also around
21:11
Speaker 1: the same time past law of banning misagenation or interracial marriages. Surelely, Ben,
21:17
Speaker 1: there's some sort of fun food fact we can pull
21:19
Speaker 1: out now to lighten the mood a little bit. Wait,
21:22
Speaker 1: where do we go from here? Well, we have We've
21:26
Speaker 1: got one more thing I have to had. There's a
21:27
Speaker 1: great paper by Cheryl A. Brooks called Race Politics and Denial.
21:32
Speaker 1: Why Oregon forgot to ratify the fourteenth Amendment Because you see,
21:37
Speaker 1: although they ratified it in eighteen sixty six, in eighteen
21:42
Speaker 1: sixty eight, the legislature rescinded that ratification, and they did
21:48
Speaker 1: so on a technicality, so they were still in an
21:53
Speaker 1: uncertain situation. In fact, these laws, or some version of
21:59
Speaker 1: these exclusions laws stayed on the books until what nineteen twenties, Yeah, exactly,
22:04
Speaker 1: I think it was like twenty four or something like that.
22:08
Speaker 1: It's insane but we do have luckily a happy ending
22:13
Speaker 1: progress grinds on. Yeah, except sorry, a guy named Walter Pierce,
22:17
Speaker 1: who was a clan member, was elected governor of Oregon.
22:21
Speaker 1: And there's this great quote in this article from the
22:25
Speaker 1: Washington Post as well that just kind of goes back
22:27
Speaker 1: into the history of this talking about how many of
22:30
Speaker 1: the Jim Crow laws um that you see in the
22:33
Speaker 1: South were kind of encouraged there and like legal Yeah,
22:39
Speaker 1: they still try to do de facto acts of oppression
22:44
Speaker 1: and segregation. And again, I can't recommend that documentary enough
22:48
Speaker 1: because it contains interview It's only about an hour long.
22:51
Speaker 1: You can find it through op b dot org. It
22:54
Speaker 1: contains interviews with people who survived these circumstances. I feel
23:01
Speaker 1: like we're almost wrapping up on this, but there are
23:04
Speaker 1: a couple more things that we need to mention. Yeah, well,
23:07
Speaker 1: just the fact that you know, it's come a long way, obviously,
23:11
Speaker 1: and Portland's still does have that reputation as being a
23:14
Speaker 1: pretty culturally interesting UM dream of the nineties kind of plays.
23:19
Speaker 1: But and even like in the eighties and nineties, especially
23:23
Speaker 1: in Portland, it was very dangerous to be UM a
23:29
Speaker 1: person of color. This Washington post article mentions the fact
23:32
Speaker 1: that it was just a hotbed of skinhead movement and
23:36
Speaker 1: white supremacy. And I'm not sure if you've seen the
23:39
Speaker 1: movie Green Room that would come. Patrick Stewart plays the
23:44
Speaker 1: head of this neo Nazi group that has like a
23:46
Speaker 1: punk rock house out in the woods, and it's pretty
23:50
Speaker 1: intense and awful and and really really cool, little slice
23:54
Speaker 1: of life kind of I don't know, it's a horror
23:56
Speaker 1: in that there's a lot of crazy stuff that happens,
23:58
Speaker 1: but it's really just more like a very contained, claustrophobic
24:02
Speaker 1: movie where it all kind of takes place in this
24:04
Speaker 1: one on space Phil Like it's a more almost more
24:06
Speaker 1: of a thriller. Yeah, yeah, it's it's so weird seeing
24:09
Speaker 1: Patrick Stewart play a psychotic neo not a very restrained,
24:13
Speaker 1: subtle performance from Patrick as well, I just call him Patrick,
24:18
Speaker 1: but uh yeah, but it's true. It's so Oregon in
24:22
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties and nineteen nineties became a destination for
24:26
Speaker 1: the largest skinhead movement in the country, according to several scholars,
24:31
Speaker 1: and you can see, unfortunately no shortage of stories of
24:35
Speaker 1: racially motivated hate crimes. Yeah, there was that guy recently
24:38
Speaker 1: who was arrested for I believe, stabbing some people to
24:41
Speaker 1: death on a light rail train. Um, when he, uh,
24:45
Speaker 1: some folks came to the aid of a African American
24:48
Speaker 1: woman and a Muslim woman who he was shouting racial
24:51
Speaker 1: epithets at and then he like stabbed several people. And
24:55
Speaker 1: this happened like last year. Um. And his name is
24:58
Speaker 1: Jeremy Joseph Christian and yeah, when he goes to this hearing, Um,
25:02
Speaker 1: he walks into the courtroom and immediately starts rambling and
25:04
Speaker 1: saying free speech or die Portland's you call it terrorism,
25:08
Speaker 1: I call it patriotism. Right, So the circumstances of this
25:12
Speaker 1: event where the following he was shouting religious slurs at
25:18
Speaker 1: several people, he fatally stabbed two people and wounded one other.
25:24
Speaker 1: This is indefensible. This is very much not what free speeches.
25:30
Speaker 1: It isn't strange how some of the most ardent supporters
25:33
Speaker 1: of so called free speech completely don't understand what it is. Yeah, no,
25:38
Speaker 1: it really is. And and admittedly this guy does seem
25:41
Speaker 1: like he's got some um mental illness going on. I'm
25:44
Speaker 1: sure that's just me speculating, but um, it's sad, sad case.
25:49
Speaker 1: And a sad example of how these kind of attitudes
25:52
Speaker 1: are around and possibly uh given a little more fuel
25:56
Speaker 1: on the fire considering some of the you know, nazi
26:00
Speaker 1: neo Nazi marches we're seeing in Charlottesville, and some of
26:03
Speaker 1: these attitudes that have may become a little more into
26:05
Speaker 1: the forefront of not acceptability, but at least just kind
26:09
Speaker 1: of are being a little more mainstream these days. So um,
26:12
Speaker 1: it's interesting to see where it came from in a
26:15
Speaker 1: place like the Pacific Northwest, which might surprise a lot
26:18
Speaker 1: of people. The long story short, too late. The exclusion
26:27
Speaker 1: clause that we examined today was ultimately removed from Oregon's
26:30
Speaker 1: constitution in nineteen seven. However, as we I think I
26:36
Speaker 1: pretty clearly established that did not remove the actual practices
26:41
Speaker 1: of racial segregation and discrimination. But there's one thing, one
26:47
Speaker 1: more thing I think we should add. Because we we've
26:50
Speaker 1: been talking about the states, right, we've been talking about
26:52
Speaker 1: the territory, we've been talking about the people, but we
26:55
Speaker 1: have yet to talk in detail about the I who
27:01
Speaker 1: was at the forefront of it all. We've yet to
27:04
Speaker 1: talk in detail about Peter Hardeman Burnett, who some would
27:10
Speaker 1: call a real bastard. Yeah, and he also managed to
27:14
Speaker 1: make it all the way down the Oregon Trail and
27:16
Speaker 1: not even get right or die of exposure. Yeah, he
27:21
Speaker 1: was just a dick. Well how about this, This is
27:23
Speaker 1: a surprise that we Nolan Casey I worked on for
27:27
Speaker 1: you all off air. What if we have a little
27:30
Speaker 1: extra credit? That's right, folks, extra credit the segment where
27:39
Speaker 1: and we um get you know, some human person that's
27:43
Speaker 1: tangentially familiar with the topic by varying degrees. My favorite
27:48
Speaker 1: of late has been the Colonel Gladwin Bowling. Oh boy, man,
27:52
Speaker 1: he really he really set the Internet on fire with
27:55
Speaker 1: that segment. I love Gladwin. I led him into the
27:59
Speaker 1: Facebook group votes. So I hope we're all still cool.
28:03
Speaker 1: Did you create a monster? I don't know. I don't know. Well,
28:06
Speaker 1: today we have another quite informed gentleman joining us, the
28:10
Speaker 1: host of the new house Stuff Work show Behind the Bastards,
28:14
Speaker 1: which does deep dives into horrible people throughout history, from
28:18
Speaker 1: Saddam Hussein's um hobby writing erotic fiction to Hitler's spanking fetish.
28:25
Speaker 1: I Believe Friends and Neighbors, ben If I May, Robert Evans,
28:30
Speaker 1: Hey'll Haw's it cracking, man, It's It's it's weird. It's
28:33
Speaker 1: just weird. There's been a lot of like silent headshaking
28:37
Speaker 1: on this episode, which doesn't really translate super well on
28:39
Speaker 1: the podcast, but yeah, who knew. Yeah, I mean we're
28:44
Speaker 1: talking about Oregon, which is if you like, yeah, if
28:47
Speaker 1: you go to like Portland or whatever it seems on
28:49
Speaker 1: the up and up. I've spent a lot of the
28:50
Speaker 1: last three years in like rural southern Oregon, and it's
28:54
Speaker 1: it's a pretty racist place. Like Josephine County where I was,
28:58
Speaker 1: is chock full in the Fazis. There are quite a
29:02
Speaker 1: lot of them out there, so it's it's it's a
29:04
Speaker 1: fascinating place even in the modern day. Oh yeah, yeah,
29:07
Speaker 1: tons of them. It's one of the most racist counties
29:10
Speaker 1: and one of the highest densities of hate groups anywhere
29:12
Speaker 1: in the United States. Chock full of Nazis. As it
29:14
Speaker 1: turns out, not a good coffee, no terrible coffee, and
29:19
Speaker 1: terrible craft beer that the Nazis make. Yeah. So when
29:23
Speaker 1: we when we originally talked off air, Robert, one of
29:27
Speaker 1: the things that we were very interested in, both as
29:31
Speaker 1: colleagues but also as fans of your show was seeing
29:35
Speaker 1: whether there was a specific person associated with the supremacist
29:43
Speaker 1: origins of Oregon, kind of setting the tone that we
29:46
Speaker 1: could we could learn a little bit more about with you.
29:50
Speaker 1: And you found the guy right, Oh my god, I
29:53
Speaker 1: sure did I think Peter Burnett? I think Peter was
29:55
Speaker 1: his first name. Uh yeah, just a tremendous piece of crap.
30:00
Speaker 1: Uh And maybe, like you know, there's a long list
30:03
Speaker 1: of of super racist politicians in American history, but he's
30:06
Speaker 1: in the running for most racist. Uh he's he's he's
30:10
Speaker 1: definitely like in that conversation for sure. Yeah, we set
30:13
Speaker 1: him up briefly as just having been the one that
30:16
Speaker 1: kind of came up with the idea of these exclusionary
30:19
Speaker 1: laws early on before Oregon became a state. And he
30:23
Speaker 1: loved this idea so much that he named it after himself,
30:25
Speaker 1: the Burnett Lash Law, which um permitted black people who
30:30
Speaker 1: refused to leave the state to be given lashes like
30:34
Speaker 1: every every six months, six months or something like that.
30:36
Speaker 1: And he loved it so much, thought was such a
30:38
Speaker 1: genius idea, the Burnett Lash Law. Yeah, he was so
30:41
Speaker 1: proud of his his whipping people rule that he stuck
30:44
Speaker 1: his name on it, which is a special kind of
30:46
Speaker 1: of terrible um, But he was actually like a violent
30:49
Speaker 1: jerk way before he went to Oregon. When he was
30:52
Speaker 1: still living in Clear Creek, Tennessee, he was a shop owner,
30:55
Speaker 1: like a general store owner. He suspected this enslaved black
30:59
Speaker 1: man was very now and then breaking into his store
31:01
Speaker 1: at night to drink from his whiskey barrel because they
31:03
Speaker 1: stored whiskey and barrels back then. It was a it
31:07
Speaker 1: was a different time. So he, rather than like taking
31:10
Speaker 1: any of the other actions you might take in this situation,
31:12
Speaker 1: he sets a trap using a rifle with like a
31:15
Speaker 1: string tied to the trigger, tied to the window shutter,
31:18
Speaker 1: so that when the guy crawled in in the middle
31:20
Speaker 1: of the night, this rifle shot him dead. And he
31:23
Speaker 1: wasn't charged with the crime because it was an enslaved man,
31:25
Speaker 1: and he said he was sorry. But that's like Peter
31:27
Speaker 1: Burnett before he gets into politics. They must have had
31:30
Speaker 1: like a stand your ground law back in those days too.
31:32
Speaker 1: I guess I just don't think they had laws, you know,
31:37
Speaker 1: you're talking about the eighteen twenties or whatever, like there
31:39
Speaker 1: was no rules. And that's such a cartoonish, uh sort
31:43
Speaker 1: of rupe goldberg S kind of contraps. Yeah, he probably
31:46
Speaker 1: got the kit from ACME. That's insane. Okay, go on
31:50
Speaker 1: give us some more. So one of his early jobs
31:53
Speaker 1: before he gets off to Oregon, I think, after he
31:55
Speaker 1: murders this guy with a Looney Tunes trap is he's
31:59
Speaker 1: a lawyer. And some of his probably the most prominent clients,
32:02
Speaker 1: were Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon religion, and all
32:05
Speaker 1: of Joseph Smith's you know, apostles or whatever, all of
32:07
Speaker 1: his friends because they were on trial for kind of
32:10
Speaker 1: sort of fomenting a frontier war that had had broken
32:13
Speaker 1: out in and around Mazra. And so he he is
32:16
Speaker 1: these guys lawyer, and his main achievement as a lawyer
32:19
Speaker 1: seems to be getting the venue changed that the court
32:22
Speaker 1: case was being held in. And this venue change allowed
32:25
Speaker 1: Joseph Smith and all of his guys to escape and
32:27
Speaker 1: run away. Uh and and yeah, so that that's his
32:31
Speaker 1: career as a lawyer before he gets on that first
32:34
Speaker 1: big wagon train to Oregon for the Great Migration and whatnot. Yeah,
32:38
Speaker 1: so y'all already covered. Yeah, he made the last law.
32:41
Speaker 1: He made the exclusion law, um, which he was he
32:44
Speaker 1: was an abolitionist. But he's like an interesting like we
32:47
Speaker 1: we think when we when you hear about abolitionists in
32:49
Speaker 1: the pre Civil War area, you usually think about just
32:53
Speaker 1: the few people who would have been like on the
32:55
Speaker 1: right side of history. But some of them were just
32:57
Speaker 1: abolitionists because they were that racist. They were so racist.
33:00
Speaker 1: And that was Peter Burnett. He was abolitionist that because
33:03
Speaker 1: he didn't like the idea of their being black people
33:07
Speaker 1: anywhere in his state. Uh. And he thought that slave
33:09
Speaker 1: labor was bad for white people. So he was like,
33:12
Speaker 1: he wound up the right conclusion, which is that slavery
33:15
Speaker 1: was a bad thing, but he wound up there through
33:17
Speaker 1: like the most racist chain of logic that he could
33:20
Speaker 1: have possibly gotten to, which is always interesting to me.
33:23
Speaker 1: That was a sentiment that was big time shared by
33:25
Speaker 1: the majority of people in Oregon because they did incorporate
33:28
Speaker 1: and become a state. Um, the majority of people voted
33:31
Speaker 1: against slavery, but also for ousting all the freed black people. Yeah.
33:36
Speaker 1: And I did find when I was doing my research
33:39
Speaker 1: that in eighteen forty at least Burnett had two of
33:42
Speaker 1: the slaves of his own. And this is back when
33:44
Speaker 1: he was living in Missouri, UM. And there's some evidence
33:47
Speaker 1: that when he immigrated to Oregon. He tried to bring
33:50
Speaker 1: one slave with him, a young girl who drowned in
33:53
Speaker 1: the Columbia River during the voyage. So not a lot
33:57
Speaker 1: of It's kind of an enticing piece of like what
33:59
Speaker 1: was went on there, but that that's all the infro
34:02
Speaker 1: I found so far on that, right, because she was
34:04
Speaker 1: projected to be somewhere between ten to twenty four or something. Yeah,
34:10
Speaker 1: it seems like it might be kind of a creepy
34:12
Speaker 1: Thomas Jefferson sort of situation there. Yeah, I suspected that
34:15
Speaker 1: as well. Yeah, So this guy we've talked about, like
34:18
Speaker 1: or y'all talked about what he did in Oregon. But
34:20
Speaker 1: after he got done in Oregon, this dude moved to
34:23
Speaker 1: California and he became in eighteen forty nine the first
34:28
Speaker 1: governor of California, of the state of California. So California's
34:32
Speaker 1: very first leader as a state in the Union was
34:35
Speaker 1: this guy, Peter Burnett, who get a lot of terrible things.
34:40
Speaker 1: Maybe my favorite thing he did that isn't terrible was
34:43
Speaker 1: in eighteen fifty he changed Thanksgiving that year from a
34:46
Speaker 1: Thursday to a Saturday, just because it was better for
34:49
Speaker 1: him personally. That year a different day. I mean, I can,
34:53
Speaker 1: I can get behind that. It's always weird to me,
34:55
Speaker 1: the thanksgivings on a Thursday. Yeah, that that's whimsical. And
35:00
Speaker 1: but he also tried to bring racial exclusion to California
35:03
Speaker 1: with the Chinese right well, first with black people. Uh,
35:06
Speaker 1: he first tried to in his first message to the
35:09
Speaker 1: California legislature. He called exclusion um like the first important,
35:14
Speaker 1: like an issue of the first importance, the most important
35:16
Speaker 1: thing that California could do um because he thought black
35:19
Speaker 1: people are going to take jobs from white people and
35:21
Speaker 1: that they would be unhappy in California and cause disruption
35:25
Speaker 1: because they would be second class citizens. Because he wasn't
35:27
Speaker 1: gonna let him be anything but second class citizens. So yeah,
35:31
Speaker 1: he tried to. There were like a thousand black people
35:33
Speaker 1: already in California, many of them free, and he tried
35:36
Speaker 1: to have them all kicked out um and to stop
35:39
Speaker 1: anymore from settling. And that was too racist for eighteen
35:43
Speaker 1: fifties California. So he lost on that, and he wound
35:46
Speaker 1: up actually like in eighteen fifty one, quitting being the
35:50
Speaker 1: governor over this. Because he tried a couple of times
35:53
Speaker 1: to get California to ban black people and they just
35:55
Speaker 1: wouldn't do it. And yeah, I mean there's some pretty
35:58
Speaker 1: pretty racist quotes from him I could read, but that's
36:01
Speaker 1: probably not necessary. Um, but it is fun to note
36:05
Speaker 1: that after he was no longer governor and after his
36:08
Speaker 1: political career was over. Um, as you know, the world
36:12
Speaker 1: continued to advance and modernize in his old age. Yeah,
36:15
Speaker 1: his crusade, as you mentioned, was trying to stop the
36:17
Speaker 1: Chinese from coming to California. So he was just just
36:21
Speaker 1: comprehensively racist across the board every chance he got, which
36:25
Speaker 1: is impressive in a terrible way. Yeah, at least you
36:29
Speaker 1: can say he was consistent. But honestly, good on you, California.
36:35
Speaker 1: For anyone listening who is in the state right now,
36:39
Speaker 1: I think that speaks very highly to the character of
36:41
Speaker 1: the state, even as far back as the eighteen fifties. Uh.
36:46
Speaker 1: He he also published an autobiography right at some point. Yeah,
36:50
Speaker 1: that that's where he started ranting about Chinese immigration. Yeah,
36:55
Speaker 1: but Robert surely he got some sort of amazing come uppense,
36:59
Speaker 1: right like burned death and a fire, you know, drowned
37:02
Speaker 1: under a suspicious circumstances. Give me something, A fight with
37:05
Speaker 1: a locomotive. No, I mean I think he died rich
37:08
Speaker 1: and old. He was in his eighties or something. Man,
37:11
Speaker 1: that's a bummer right now. It's just way that's what
37:12
Speaker 1: always happens with these bastards, right I mean, I bet
37:14
Speaker 1: you're seeing that a lot, except you did the Cosby episode.
37:17
Speaker 1: He kind of got has come up us. But even
37:19
Speaker 1: that's sort of like a pyric victory where it's like
37:21
Speaker 1: too little, too late for a guy that's been screwing
37:24
Speaker 1: people over for years, you know, unchecked. Yeah, every now
37:30
Speaker 1: and then you get a Mussolini or a Kaddafi where
37:33
Speaker 1: they get dragged down into the street and punished by
37:36
Speaker 1: the people that they spend decades screwing with. But that's
37:39
Speaker 1: almost that almost never happens. Usually they die rich in
37:42
Speaker 1: a villa somewhere. I'm really glad that you said this, Robert,
37:45
Speaker 1: because I was listening to the Gaddafi episode, which I
37:50
Speaker 1: thought was fantastic. Uh, And I'm still preparing myself to
37:54
Speaker 1: check out the Weinstein episode, which is a two parter. Correct. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
38:00
Speaker 1: that one's a big one. What we'd like to do
38:02
Speaker 1: is again, thank you for giving us more insight on
38:07
Speaker 1: the life of Peter Hardeman. Burnett screw that guy. Yeah,
38:11
Speaker 1: I know, right to them that. But we were wondering
38:16
Speaker 1: if you could tell our if you could tell our
38:18
Speaker 1: fellow listeners here a little bit more about behind the
38:21
Speaker 1: Bastards and what they can expect when they tune into
38:24
Speaker 1: your show. Well, I mean, our goal is to tell
38:26
Speaker 1: you everything you don't know about the very worst people
38:29
Speaker 1: in all of history. So you know, you've probably sat
38:32
Speaker 1: you know, stoned or whatever in your underpants and watched
38:35
Speaker 1: a lot of documentaries about Hitler on the History Channel
38:37
Speaker 1: over the years, but you probably don't know that he
38:40
Speaker 1: based a lot of his military strategies and his like
38:42
Speaker 1: attitudes on existence in life on a series of young
38:46
Speaker 1: adult novels that were basically like the German equivalent of
38:48
Speaker 1: Harry Potter back in the eighteen hundreds. Um, you know.
38:52
Speaker 1: And and for that matter, while we're on the Savage
38:54
Speaker 1: of Novelists, You've probably haven't read Saddam Hussein's romance novels,
38:58
Speaker 1: but I have. And that's one of the things we
38:59
Speaker 1: get into in this podcast. I referred to it as
39:02
Speaker 1: erotic fiction. Was that crows that a bridge too far? No, No,
39:06
Speaker 1: it is very erotic. In fact, there's a long passage
39:08
Speaker 1: where an elderly woman yells at children about how sexy
39:11
Speaker 1: mouths are. So that's it's fun. Yeah, aren't those novels
39:14
Speaker 1: in particular, Uh largely considered these meglomaniacal analogies about his
39:21
Speaker 1: relationship with the country. Yes, Um, and they're there. It's
39:26
Speaker 1: one of those weird things. There's a lot of cases,
39:28
Speaker 1: like with the Kims in North Korea, of art being
39:30
Speaker 1: credited to dictators who didn't actually make it. Um. Saddam
39:34
Speaker 1: definitely wrote these books, and we get into that to
39:36
Speaker 1: an extent, but they're like they're a mix of rants
39:40
Speaker 1: about modern politics and like utopian fiction. Um. And so
39:44
Speaker 1: it's like a mix of Saddam screaming at the people
39:47
Speaker 1: he hates and trying to set up the ideal government
39:50
Speaker 1: that he never quite got to make an Iraq. It's
39:52
Speaker 1: it's a really strange insight into what was going on
39:54
Speaker 1: in the man's head. That's fascinating. I wanna I want
39:57
Speaker 1: to tune in and no spoilers, but could you tell
40:00
Speaker 1: us a little bit about some episodes that are coming
40:02
Speaker 1: up soon? Yeah, today, right now, there is a new
40:07
Speaker 1: episode on Paul Manafort, part one of which just dropped
40:10
Speaker 1: in part two of which will be up Thursday. So
40:12
Speaker 1: that's that's a big one. I check that out. And um,
40:15
Speaker 1: we've we've been doing an ongoing series about King Leopold
40:18
Speaker 1: of Belgium and the Congo and we're recording an episode
40:21
Speaker 1: today about what happened after Leopold, who is one of
40:24
Speaker 1: the worst people in all the history and doesn't get
40:27
Speaker 1: you know, enough acknowledgment for just how terrible he was.
40:31
Speaker 1: And we're also recording an episode about the serial killer
40:34
Speaker 1: Albert Fish with his one of his descendants. UM, who
40:38
Speaker 1: is all comedian in l A today, So that's gonna
40:40
Speaker 1: be fun. Oh man, that's fascinating. Yeah, we've got a good,
40:44
Speaker 1: good slate. Well, we are going to wrap it up today.
40:48
Speaker 1: We want to thank you so much for coming on
40:50
Speaker 1: the show. Robert Evans Friends and Neighbors, the mastermind behind
40:54
Speaker 1: one of How Stuff Works newest podcasts, Behind the Bastards.
40:58
Speaker 1: If you like our show, you will of this one.
41:01
Speaker 1: In the meantime. You can find Noel Casey and I
41:05
Speaker 1: Robert as well on social media in right, it's everywhere
41:10
Speaker 1: all over the place with the Facebook and the Instagram. Uh,
41:12
Speaker 1: still working on the Pinterest page. We haven't fun, we
41:14
Speaker 1: haven't committed yet, but we'll we'll get their creative differences.
41:17
Speaker 1: That's true. And you can join our Facebook community at
41:19
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Historians, where there's all kinds of memory and fun
41:22
Speaker 1: chats going on all the time. Or if you don't
41:24
Speaker 1: want to do any of that, you write it's an
41:25
Speaker 1: email at ridiculous at how stuff works dot com and
41:27
Speaker 1: we'll see you soon.