Polygamists in Early Humboldt

 

Mad River Joe and his two wives

Just this weekend I had reason to look at 1900 Indian Census and noticed that one of the questions included in the bottom section, “Special Inquiries relating to Indians” was “Conjugal Relations; Is this Indian, if married, living in polygamy?”

 Which indicates that the government, at least, believed multiple wives to be common among the local natives.   Early census records and stories (about Jack Mann, for instance, and Sherwood ) give evidence that more than a few white settlers took up this practice when they arrived on the isolated north coast. 

I thought this to be a bad thing from the women’s perspective , but Ol Man River’s comments about the Heacock situation show (if the account is accurate) that at least some of the women (or girls, let’s face it, they were young), preferred not to be alone with these strange, white men.

Per the account that ‘River discovered, when Heacock took a “wife”, she ran away and refused to return until Heacock arranged to have her sister move in with them.  Later, the two girls insisted he take in a third.   All three then acted as “wives” and bore Heacock’s children.

Which may have been okay had Humboldt stayed isolated forever.  It didn’t.  And the influx of settlers (and modern “society”)  brought disastrous consequences for many of these native “wives” and their “half-breed” children.

To be continued…

Without censoring

I’ve been fortunate enough to be busy lately with client projects, but today I have a little time (and energy), and find myself turning once more to our local history.

Too many times I hear stories, or find information about what happened here during the settlement period and I don’t  know what to do with what I’ve found—if I have a right to share or if it should be shared at all.  It feels akin to spreading gossip and that’s wrong. Right?

I was talking to a new friend about this dilemma recently and my kind and patient listener responded with this,

“But if you don’t tell the stories, well, that’s a form of genocide, too, isn’t it?”

And it is.  There were things that happened here that were outside the normal realm of “acceptable” social behavior.  Actions and decisions and ways of living … I can play judge, but I can’t know what was right or wrong.  And since I can’t know, I won’t censor what I find.

So I guess my job will be to tell the stories, as I hear them, read them, find them.  And leave the judgment out of it.

Not even ready for California

Ready to go to California?

 The caption at the top says :  “I am sorry I didn’t follow the advice of Grammy to go ’round the Horn.” 

  

I just finished reading George R. Stewart’s The California Trail, which covers the various routes early emigrants took to reach California and details the various challenges they met along the way.  

The most striking thing about these early adventurers, as the illustration indicates, is that they really weren’t prepared for the journey.  Many didn’t even know how to get to California.   There were no maps, no established roads or even proven trails, and yet 

“…so many of all kinds and classes of People should sell out comfortable homes in Missouri and Elsewhere pack up and start across such an emmence Barren waste to settle in some new place of which they have at most so uncertain information…”

Pretty much just crossing their fingers and heading west.

Very crazy, or very cool, depending on your perspective.