Black Voice News

Gavin Newsom Calls Out California’s Racist First Governor. Who was Peter Hardeman Burnett?

BLACK VOICE NEWS — In his apology for California’s genocidal treatment of Native Americans, Gov. Gavin Newsom focused attention on the state’s nearly forgotten first elected governor, Peter Hardeman Burnett, and his declaration in 1851 that Indians would be exterminated.

Published

5 years ago

August 3, 2019

Chris Allen

By Gregory Nokes

In his apology for California’s genocidal treatment of Native Americans, Gov. Gavin Newsom focused attention on the state’s nearly forgotten first elected governor, Peter Hardeman Burnett, and his declaration in 1851 that Indians would be exterminated.

As Gov. Newsom reported, Burnett infamously predicted to the 1851 Legislature: “That a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the races until the Indian race becomes extinct must be expected …”

As a writer of West Coast history, I became fascinated by Burnett and his little-known role in briefly allowing slavery while in Oregon and promoting exclusion laws against blacks in both Oregon and California.

I learned that throughout his political career, Burnett clung to a bizarre and deadly fantasy that the American West would be populated almost exclusively by whites. In Burnett’s vision, there would be no blacks, no Chinese and no Native Americans.

Burnett’s attitudes toward race no doubt were shaped in part by his family background. He was born in Nashville, Tenn., in 1807 and married into a slave-owning family. He owned two slaves in Missouri, and may have brought one of them to Oregon in 1843.

While a merchant in Tennessee, Burnett was responsible for the fatal shooting of a black slave who allegedly broke into his store.

In the one negative encounter with Native Americans mentioned in his autobiography, “Reminiscences of an Old Pioneer,” he blamed Indians for setting a fire that destroyed his father’s farm wagon in Missouri.

In 1843, Burnett was one of the organizers and the first captain of the wagon train that brought nearly a thousand settlers from Missouri to Oregon in what became known as ‘”The Great Migration.”

He soon entered politics in Oregon, serving on the first elected legislature. Under his leadership, the Oregon Legislature enacted a law that excluded African-Americans. That law said African-Americans who refused to leave would face a severe lashing. Cooler heads soon overturned the Oregon law. A self-taught lawyer, he also served as the first supreme court judge of the provisional government of Oregon.

In November 1848, Burnett joined the gold rush to California, but soon tired of mining, and befriended and worked with John Sutter Jr. to help establish the city of Sacramento, making a great deal of money.

Within just 12 months, on Nov. 13, 1849, he was elected governor over four other candidates.

He evidently was instantly likable and persuasive, and wrote extensively for California newspapers, promoting civilian government for California. It didn’t hurt his political appeal he was also blessed with good looks. In his official portrait in the California State Capitol, he bears a resemblance to the late actor Paul Newman.

As governor, Burnett tried but failed to impose an Oregon-style law that would have excluded African-Americans.

He also sought to exclude Chinese immigrants because he believed they were better businessmen and workers than whites, and would dominate the economy, and later supported the federal 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, which all but shut down Chinese immigration.

But it was California’s native tribes who suffered the most from Burnett’s attitudes and policies.

In calling for the establishment of week a “Truth and Healing Council’’ to investigate past abuses of

California’s tribes, Newsom cited Burnett’s extermination prediction.

The genocide against California Indians neither started nor ended with Burnett. But some of the worst massacres of the native population occurred while he was in office. And he signed the deviously named 1850 “Act for the Government and Protection of Indians”

That became a convenient cover for seizing Indian lands, disrupting families and forcing many into involuntary servitude.

Article 2 of that law said: “Persons and proprietors of land on which Indians are residing, shall permit such Indians peaceably to reside on such lands.”

In other words, former Indian lands were legally controlled by whites.

Article 3 set out circumstances under which a Caucasian could take custody of a native child—until age 18 for males, and 15 for females.

As settlers and miners poured into California, moving onto traditional tribal lands, Indians not surprisingly responded by attacking them. Whites retaliated, frequently much more savagely.

Burnett twice ordered the state militia to respond to attacks, once at a ferry crossing near the confluence of the Gila and Colorado rivers in April 1850, and again near Ringgold in El Dorado County in October 1850. He urged communities to use poorly trained local militias to respond to attacks, with predictably bloody results and little if any accountability.

The worst of the conflicts during Burnett’s time in office was the so-called Bloody Island Massacre in May of 1850 in which about 75 U.S soldiers staged a retaliatory strike on several hundred probably innocent members of the Pomo tribe at Clear Lake in Lake County.

Estimates of the number of Pomo dead—men, women and children—ranged from 60 to several hundred. The massacre was described in the following account in the Daily Alta California of May 28, 1850:

“The troops arrived in the vicinity of the lake, and came unexpectedly upon a body of Indians numbering between two and three hundred. They immediately surrounded them and as the Indians raised a shout of defiance and attempted escape, poured in a destructive fire indiscriminately upon men, women and children.

“‘They fell,’ says our informant, ‘as grass before the sweep of the scythe.’ Little or no resistance was encountered, and the work of butchery was of short duration. The shrieks of the slaughtered victims died away . . . and stretched lifeless upon the sod of their native valley were the bleeding bodies of these Indians—or sex, nor age was spared; it was the order of extermination fearfully obeyed.”

Burnett’s official correspondence mentions some conflicts, but the Bloody Island Massacre is not among them, although he must have known about it.

Burnett’s term in office lasted just 13 months. He resigned on Jan. 9, 1851 after being ridiculed for such unacceptable proposals as demanding an exclusion law against blacks and promoting capital punishment for robbery and second-degree larceny.

He was widely deemed by California’s press as ineffective. But his time in public life was not over. In 1857, Gov. J. Neely Johnson appointed Burnett to fill an unexpired term on the California Supreme Court, and he was elected again the following year, his transgressions as governor evidently forgotten.

In 1858, while serving on the California Supreme Court, he was once again ridiculed for ordering a former slave named Archy Lee to be returned to his former Mississippi owner even though Lee had been living in California, a free state. His ruling was blocked by another court.

Burnett’s racism, along with several tone-deaf blunders, explains why he was, until recently, largely forgotten by history. He was an embarrassment. Many of the few schools that took his name as the first governor have changed their names as his policies have become known; among them is the former Burnett Academy in San Jose, the city where Burnett and his family settled.

He died in relative obscurity in 1897. Now, in 2019, Burnett is becoming known again, though surely not for reasons he would welcome.

R. Gregory Nokes is the author of “The Troubled Life of Peter Burnett: Oregon Pioneer and First Governor of California,” published by Oregon State University Press, gregnokes.com. He wrote this commentary for CALmatters.

CALmatters seeks out experts to address the pressing needs faced by California, in op-eds of 700 words or fewer. We will be sending commentaries regularly. They are available for use for free. Please send us an email if you use any of the pieces, so we can better track what you find useful. Senior editor Dan Morain is responsible for editing the pieces, and can be reached at 916.201.6281, dmorain@calmatters.org.

This article originally appeared in Black Voice News.

Chris Allen

Posts by Chris Allen

Up Next

Clippers Owner Celebrates Future While Forum Owner Cries “Foul!”

Don't Miss

COMMENTARY: Forty Years of Lies Stigmatizing “Teenage Pregnancy” Are Enough

Chris Allen

Click to comment

African American News & Issues

Geoffrey’s Inner Circle Not included in Funding Support

We will ultimately be successful in our efforts to reach the goal of our fundraising campaign but will also ensure that the native Oakland community of African Americans will receive equal assistance and opportunity in this city.

Published

4 years ago

June 4, 2021

Christy Price

Athenian Nile Club founded in 1915 often presented their wealthy members in entertainment in Black face

Publisher’s note by Paul Cobb: Several years ago when writer MarvinX Jackmon and I asked Mayor Libby Schaaf and Councilmember Lynette Gibson McElhaney to name the downtown business district in honor of the historic Black achievements, Black Newspaper, Black Businesses, Art Galleries, Black Museum, Government Buildings, Arts and Entertainment venues, I asked the Mayor to make sure that Geoffrey’s Inner Circle would receive the same financial support and grants that the Fox Theatre and the Oakland Auditorium were receiving. I reminded her how I as the former director of OCCUR, had led a group of historical preservationists to save the Fox from a demolition wrecking ball, she said she liked the Malonga Arts Complex instead. We at the Oakland Post support Geoffrey’s Go Fund Me appeal https://gofund.me/b2541419 with a $1,000.00 donation and my wife Gay Plair Cobb and I urge others to join us either in-kind or with at least the donation of a “Tubman” ($20.00 bill). Geoffrey’s ironically was the original home of Oakland’s white power structure. (We have published a photo below of how those White wealthy leaders often met and entertained themselves by adorning themselves in Black Face at the former Athenian Nile Club ( now Geoffrey’s). And now that the same establishment is represented by the face of a Black man, his establishment is being whitewashed with neglect.

The Post has asked Mr. Pete to give his own opinion below.

Paul Mooney appeared at Geoffrey’s Inner Circle some 30 or more times over the years. His platform and message were always used to shed a light on the grave racial disparity and economic injustice that has, whether acknowledged or not, plagued this country since its inception. This racially aggressive ideology has also had its tangles in our dear city of Oakland. A disparity study illustrated by Dr. Eleanor Ramsey highlighted the glaring absence of African Americans in the city’s landscape of budgeted allotments for professional services, labor construction and city development.

Former entertainer Paul Mooney often performed at Geoffrey’s urging America to face-up to White racism

While I applaud Yoshi’s Oakland for reaching their goal in their most recent Go Fund Me efforts, it should be noted that Yoshi’s also received $5 million dollars in assistance from both the City and Port of Oakland to open a jazz entertainment venue at Jack London Square. Geoffrey’s Inner Circle, a live entertainment venue that began at Jack London Square, has been operating for 30 years. This offer was not extended to expand GIC or renovate, nor was it offered to any other Black Owned Business in the entertainment genre in Oakland.

The Fox Oakland was $50 million dollars over budget for its renovation project and most recently left the City of Oakland with a $78 million cost overrun.

When an African American Development Firm entered a bid on the Oakland Auditorium/ Kaiser Center, the city gave a white developer the contract and $12 million dollars in naming rights. This deal in its origin should not have had any monetary exchange whatsoever, naming rights included. The aforementioned developer has additionally secured a 99-year lease that will cost him a hefty $1 dollar. He will also receive tax credits to the tune of a $20-$40-million-dollars in subsidies. Go fund me has a different ring to it if you are non-black and vending with the City of Oakland it seems.

Thank you in advance for your support!

Geoffrey Pete
GoFundMe

Christy Price

Posts by Christy Price

Bay Area

Holy Names University Celebrates New Teachers Completing Credentials

“I know very deeply what it means to be a teacher at any time but especially this past year. We wanted to do something special, and maybe this is starting a trend, to acknowledge all of our credential program completers.”

Published

4 years ago

June 3, 2021

Christy Price

Holy Names University Website

Holy Names University’s School of Education held a Zoom celebration at the end of the school year on May 28 to recognize eight new teachers who completed their teaching credentials, successfully finishing their rigorous training in the midst of an extremely challenging pandemic year.

The credential completers were honored by Dr. Kimberly Mayfield, dean of the School of Education, who emphasized the humanistic and nurturing approach to teaching that is the hallmark of Holy Names.

Reflecting on the principles that motivate the HNU staff, she said, “We train our candidates to be effective no matter what the setting is. Although this (year’s conditions) were unique, our candidates were expertly prepared for it.”

Mayfield explained that education and Oakland schools are a profound part of who she is. She is herself a former Oakland teacher; her mother was an Oakland teacher for many years; and her husband is currently an Oakland teacher.

“My hope and my charge for our candidates is not only to deliver the kind of education you’ve been trained to do but to really be sure that your classrooms are safe places for all students at your school,” Mayfield continued.

“When there are students who seem to be outliers and maybe don’t fit the picture of the school at large, that student fits the picture of success for you as a HNU graduate. Your classrooms become the safe places for all students, not just the students that are in your class or on your (rolls). That is the ethic of care that we’ve imparted.

“We are coming together in love and we want to recognize the good work that our HNU candidates have done.

She said that the Holy Names teachers are exceptional people. “When we do recruitment events, we always say we aren’t just training teachers to be teachers, we’re training teachers to be effective with our own children. When we look at who we want in the program, we are looking for candidates through those eyes. It’s a higher standard. Our relationship with you is forever.”

The eight Holy Names credential completers are:

Todd Brewer, who is completing a special education credential. He teaches 8^th grade at Impact Academy;
Todd Brewer
Mason Brown, who is completing his single subject in science. He teaches physics for 10^th, 11^th and 12^th graders at East Bay Innovation Academy;
Mason Brown
Angela Calderon, who is completing her special education credential. She has been teaching special education at Richmond High School;
Angela Calderon
Jaron Epstein, who is completing a special education credential. He has been teaching 6^th-8^th grade in a special day class at West Oakland Middle School;
Jaron Epstein
Alexander Niuatoa, who is earning a single subject physical education credential. He teaches 7^th and 8^th graders at Winton Middle School and 10^th grade at Hayward High School.
Alexander Niuatoa
Erica Nurse, who is receiving her multiple subjects credential. She has been teaching second grade at Tolenas Elementary School in Fairfield and gives private music instruction in Vallejo.
Erica Nurse
Shazmine Randle, who is earning a special education credential. She teaches 6^th through 8^th graders at Creekside Middle School.
Shazmine Randle
Mariya Snazina is earning a world languages credential. She teaches French at Castro Valley High School.
Mariya Snazina

Each of the credential completers who attended the celebration will receive a $200 gift card, courtesy of a donation by the Teel Family Foundation, to help them buy supplies for their classrooms for the new school year.

Mayfield ended the ceremony by remembering the legacy of “really great educators who have gone before you: Dr. Fred Ellis, Margie Mayfield and Sylvester Hodges.”

“I want you to know that their energy is with you and supporting you as you go out and do really great work,” she said.

Christy Price

Posts by Christy Price

Black Voice News

BOE Member Malia Cohen Raises Red Flag on Bank-Breaking Prop 19 Tax Costs

“The challenge is that it was voted upon and the election has been certified. So, it’s the law,” Cohen said during a virtual media news briefing with reporters from across the state on January 29 organized by California Black Media.

Published

4 years ago

February 3, 2021

Kiki

Malia M. Cohen, the only African American member of the California Board of Equalization (BOE), has some critical concerns about the cost homeowners will have to bear because of Proposition 19, a constitutional amendment that took effect on Dec. 16, 2020.

Cohen, who represents 10 million Californians in 23 counties on the board, is concerned with how Prop. 19 will affect Black and other minority homeowners across California. The BOE is the commission responsible for implementing the law.

In her commentary, Cohen discussed the ways the law will impact all property owners.

“It not only affects our respective Black communities,” she told the reporters. “It affects all homeowners and property owners in the state of California. When people wake up there is going to be a massive coalition (to fight it) — possibly an uprising. People need to know what the real deal is.”

Cohen said she is planning other events similar to the news briefing she had with CBM. There, residents of California will begin to hear about “the first steps” they can take to become educated about how Prop.19 will hit their bottom lines. This is something she feels was not adequately explained to voters when the referendum was placed on the ballot last November.

On Nov. 3, 2020, California voters approved Prop. 19, the “Home Protection for Seniors, Severely Disabled, Families, and Victims of Wildfire or Natural Disasters Act.”

Although Prop. 19 was enacted in December, Cohen warns that a critical part of the legislation will take effect on February 16. Until that date, the state currently allows tax breaks for parent-child transfers. When parents give or sell real property to their children (or perhaps, grandchildren), that heir continues to pay property taxes at the same rate assessed on the home value as the parent.

After February 16, Prop. 19 will eradicate the parent-child exclusion. Then, parents would still be able to transfer their house to a child, and the child may keep the parent’s assessed value. But the Prop. 19 law has added one critical condition: the child must move into the residence and make the property his or her own primary residence. If not, the property will be reassessed at what the current tax cost is for the home at that time.

Cohen discussed the immediate property tax implications and how it might impede property owners’ intentions to create generational wealth by transferring their personal residence and other property they own to their children as part of their estate planning.

BOE Tax Counsel Richard Moon also participated in the briefing.

“What is required is that a child moving into the home must file a homeowner exemption and that needs to be done within a year of the transfer date,” Moon said. “The child has one year to move into the family home and maintain that family home in order to keep the exclusion. But if they move out after three years, the property would be assessed at that point.”

Rates of Black homeownership in California and across the country are still far below that of Whites and other minorities. Critics of the law say the fact that Prop. 19 could set up even more barriers to African Americans owning homes – and straddle struggling families with additional financial burdens – is problematic. About 2.2 million Black people reside in California, around 5.5% of the state’s population. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the rate of white American homeownership is over 73%, while that of African Americans stands at 41%, Black Enterprise magazine reported in 2019.

According to data compiled by Lending Tree, the country’s leading online home loan marketplace, Los Angeles is one of the cities with the highest percentage of Black homeowners. Utah’s Salt Lake City, Texas’ San Antonio, Oregon’s Portland, and Northern California’s San Jose are also included on that list.

African Americans primarily generate wealth through homeownership and home inheritances, according to data included in the Urban Institute’s “2019 Black Homeownership Gap: Research Trends and Why Growing Gap Matters” report.

“Homeownership is currently the largest single source of wealth-building” among the Black population, the study stated. Between 2005 and 2008, over 240,000 African Americans lost their homes to foreclosure according to the Center for Responsible Lending.

“The financial crisis triggered a massive destruction of wealth for African Americans,” Alanna McCargo, co-director of the Urban Institute’s Housing Finance Policy Center told the Washington Post in 2019. “Wealth is inextricably linked to housing, and that wealth gap is evident in figures for Black-owned property in this country.”

The law, as it is written, would exclude from the term “purchase” and the phrase “change in ownership” for purposes of determining the “full cash value” of property in the purchase or transfer of a family home or family farm, for example.

Hardy Brown, Publisher Emeritus of the Black Voice News in Riverside says some of the spirit of Prop. 19 may have been positive. The state intended to provide financial cover for the mostly white Californians living in fire- and flood-prone parts of the state in the event disaster happens. But what it ends up doing, he argues, is decimate the wealth of Blacks and other minorities.

“It doesn’t help,” said Brown. “It might make a quick buck for campaign contributors or help the state to be a good neighbor to some people, but severely harms others in the process. What it really ends up doing is putting another law on the necks of Black people in the state of California. It will choke the breath right out of us.”

Under its constitutional mandate, the BOE oversees the assessment practices of the state’s 58 county assessors, who are charged with establishing values for approximately 13.6 million properties each year.

“We are not talking about $25 million palaces in Malibu. We are talking about humble homes. Middle-class homes,” Cohen said. “I live in the Bay View community (of San Francisco). We’re talking about Baldwin Hills of Los Angeles or Encanto in San Diego and other communities throughout California. Homes that were purchased for $100,000 decades ago that now have a market value of over $1 million. These homes were paid for through hard work and could be potentially lost.”