About Peter Burnett: The Leader Who Could Not Lead
Peter Burnett had the most impressive resume of any early leader
in the American West. He was a defense attorney for Mormon leader Joseph Smith
in Missouri, the first captain of the 1843 wagon train from Missouri to Oregon,
Oregon’s first supreme judge, and was a member of Oregon’s first elected
legislature. He then blazed the first wagon road from Oregon to California in
1848 and played a lead role in developing the city of Sacramento. In 1849,
Burnett was overwhelmingly elected the first governor of California, and later
served on the California Supreme Court.
Yet he’s been virtually forgotten in both states. His downfall was
his racism, underscored by his advocacy of exclusion laws against blacks with
the goal of establishing the West as an all-white enclave. He seemed to have no
other agenda, even as California’s governor. Those who once supported him were
embarrassed by him and quickly turned away. He resigned after less than two
years. This presentation explores this complicated man, handed extraordinary
authority in both Oregon and California, yet proved unable to exercise it, so
much so he became an embarrassment in both states.
About the Speaker:
R. Gregory Nokes
has traveled the world as a reporter and editor. He is author of three
non-fiction Western histories. His latest book is The Troubled Life of Peter
Burnett: Oregon Pioneer and First Governor of California, published this
year by Oregon State University Press. His earlier books are Massacred for
Gold: The Chinese in Hells Canyon in 2009, and Breaking Chains: Slavery
on Trial in the Oregon Territory in 2013, both also published by OSU Press.
Greg’s
second book, Breaking Chains, tells the little-known history of slavery
in early Oregon, focusing on an 1852 slavery case, Holmes vs. Ford, the
only slavery case adjudicated in Oregon courts. Nokes’ book was a finalist for
the 2014 Oregon Book Award for non-fiction. Prominent Northwest author Jane
Kirkpatrick has said, “This is how history should be written.’’
His
2009 book, Massacred for Gold, tells the story of the long-forgotten
1887 massacre of nearly three-dozen Chinese gold miners in Hells Canyon on the
Oregon-Idaho border. The book inspired the Oregon Public Broadcasting program,
“Massacre at Hells Canyon,” which aired on OPB-TV in January. Nokes and
others installed a memorial to the fallen miners at the massacre site.
Greg
spent more than forty years in journalism, during which he traveled to more
than fifty countries. As a reporter in Washington, D.C. for The Associated
Press, he covered the State Department and traveled with several presidents
and secretaries of state on foreign trips. Greg started his career as a
reporter for the Medford Mail Tribune, and finished at The Oregonian,
where he was both an editor and reporter. He retired from journalism in 2003 to
embark on a second career as an author and lecturer on Northwest history.
A
native of Oregon, Nokes did his undergraduate work at Willamette University. He
attended Harvard University as a Nieman Fellow in 1971-72. Nokes and his wife,
Candise, live in West Linn, Oregon.
