Peter Hardeman Burnett
Peter Hardeman Burnett | |
---|---|
Stephen J. Field | |
Personal details | |
Born | Nashville, Tennessee, U.S. | November 15, 1807
Died | May 17, 1895 San Francisco, California, U.S. | (aged 87)
Resting place | Santa Clara Mission Cemetery[1] |
Political party | Democratic |
Spouse | |
Children | 6 |
Relatives | Caius T. Ryland (son-in-law)[2][3] |
Signature | |
Peter Hardeman Burnett (November 15, 1807 – May 17, 1895) was an American politician who served as the first elected
Raised in a
In 1848, Burnett moved to California during the height of the
As Governor, Burnett signed into law the so-called
Early life and career
Burnett was born in
Besides elementary school, Burnett never received a formal education but educated himself in law and government. After owning a general store, he turned to his law career. Defending a group of Mormons—including Joseph Smith—who were accused of treason, arson, and robbery, Burnett requested a change of venue for the court proceedings. During transportation to the next venue, the defendants escaped.
Political career in Oregon
In 1843, having failed as a merchant and heavily in debt,
While in the Legislature, and later as Provisional Supreme Judge, Burnett signed Oregon's first exclusion laws. Under an 1844 law passed by the provisional government—just after the same government abolished slavery—enslavers could continue to enslave people for up to three years, after which all black people, free or enslaved, had to leave Oregon Country or face flogging.
Move to California
Upon news of the
In 1848, Burnett was among those who founded the city of Oregon City in Butte County, California.[16]
Governorship of California
In 1849, Burnett announced his intentions to return to politics. 1849 saw the first
The Burnett Administration
In the first days of the Burnett Administration, the governor and the California Legislature set out to create the organs of a state government, creating state
During those advancements into statehood, Burnett's popularity among the legislature, the press, and the public plummeted. Relations between the Legislature and Burnett began to immediately sour in early 1850, when bills pressing for the incorporation of Sacramento and Los Angeles as city municipalities, with Los Angeles being a special incorporation due to its earlier pueblo status during the previous Spanish and Mexican rule, passed the State Assembly and Senate. Burnett vetoed both bills, citing special incorporation bills as unconstitutional and that reviews for municipal incorporation were best left to county courts. The legislature failed to override Burnett's veto of the Los Angeles bill but succeeded in overriding the Sacramento bill, making it California's first incorporated city.[18]
For California's legal system, Burnett recommended to the first session of the state legislature that California should implement a hybrid legal system mixing significant elements of both civil law and common law. He advocated for enacting California versions of the Louisiana Civil Code and the Louisiana Code of Practice (Louisiana's name for what Americans would call a code of civil procedure) and adopting American common law for crimes, evidence, and commercial law. This touched off an uproar among the American lawyers who had flocked to California, with the majority pushing for common law and a minority (led by John W. Dwinelle) advocating the adoption of civil law. The Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Elisha Oscar Crosby, published a report in February 1850 recommending the adoption of the common law through the enactment of a reception statute; Burnett signed the resulting bill into law on April 13, 1850.[19]
Characterized as an aloof politician with little support from the Legislature by the San Francisco, Sacramento, and Los Angeles press, Burnett grew frustrated as his agenda ground to a halt, and his governance style was increasingly criticized. He became a regular fixture of ridicule in the state's newspapers and on the floor of the Legislature. With little over a year in office, Burnett, the state's first governor, became the first to resign, announcing his resignation in January 1851. Burnett cited personal matters for his departure.[citation needed] Lieutenant Governor John McDougal replaced Burnett as the Governor of California on January 9.[20]
His policies
As in Oregon, Burnett pushed for the exclusion of blacks from California, raising the ire of pro-slavery supporters who wanted to import the Southern slave system to the West Coast, but his proposals were defeated in the legislature. From Burnett's First Annual Message to the Legislature, December 21, 1849:[8]
For some years past I have given this subject [African-American settlement in California] my most serious and candid attention; and I most cheerfully lay before you the result of my own reflections. There is, in my opinion, but one of two consistent courses to take in reference to this class of population; either to admit them to the full and free enjoyment of all the privileges guaranteed by the Constitution to others, or exclude them from the State. If we permit them to settle in our State, under existing circumstances, we consign them, by our own institutions, and the usages of our own society, to a subordinate and degraded position, which is in itself but a species of slavery. They would be placed in a situation where they would have no efficient motives for moral or intellectual improvement, but must remain in our midst, sensible of their degradation, unhappy themselves, enemies to the institutions and the society whose usages have placed them there, and for ever fit teachers in all the schools of ignorance, vice, and idleness. We have certainly the right to prevent any class of population from settling in our State, that we may deem injurious to our own society. Had they been born here, and had acquired rights in consequence, I should not recommend any measures to expel. They are not now here, except a few in comparison with the numbers that would be here; and the object is to keep them out.
Similarly, Burnett also pushed for heavy taxation on foreign immigrants. An 1850 Foreign Miners Tax Act, signed into law by Burnett, required every miner of non-American origin to pay US$20 (~$569.00 in 2023). Burnett also argued heavily for increased taxation and the expansion of capital punishment to include larceny.[12] Burnett also attempted to remove Native Americans as well as foreign miners. In 1851, federal commissioners negotiated treaties with Native tribes in California, which the governor then blocked for being too generous in reserving land for the tribes. Instead, the greed for gold wealth led to a second option, with Burnett declaring[9] "t]hat a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the races until the Indian race becomes extinct must be expected. While we cannot anticipate the result with but painful regret, the inevitable destiny of the race is beyond the power and wisdom of man to avert."[10][11]
Post-governorship
One year after leaving the governorship, Burnett could finally repay the heavy debts he had incurred in Missouri nearly two decades before. He entered several careers, serving briefly as a justice in the
Legacy
Burnett's legacy is racist and exclusionary. While regarded as one of the fathers of modern California in the state's early days, his racist attitudes towards black, Chinese, and Native American people have tarnished his name today. Burnett's period in the Oregon Provisional Legislature helped facilitate the exclusion of black people from the state until 1926. In 1844, one of his Oregon proposals was to force free black people to leave the state and to institute floggings of any who continued to remain.[5] Referred to as "Burnett's lash law", it was deemed "unduly harsh", and it was never enforced, with voters rescinding it in 1845.[6][4] Also, his open hostility to foreign laborers influenced some federal and state California legislators to push future xenophobic legislation, such as the Chinese Exclusion Act, 30 years after he departed from the governorship. Burnett was also an open advocate of exterminating local California Indian tribes. This policy continued with successive state governmental administrations for several decades, which offered US$10 to US$25 for evidence of dead Natives.[23] From Burnett's Second Annual Message to the Legislature, January 7, 1851:[24]
That a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the two races until the Indian race becomes extinct, must be expected.
San Francisco's Burnett Avenue near the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood is named after him.
The Burnett Child Development Center, a predominantly black San Francisco neighborhood preschool, had been named for Burnett. However, when Burnett's racist positions were rediscovered, the school was renamed in 2011 to the Leola M. Havard Early Education School, in honor of San Francisco's first African-American principal.[5]
Similarly, the Peter H. Burnett Elementary School in Long Beach has been recently renamed due to Burnett's views. It is now named after Bobbi Smith, the first African-American member of the Long Beach Unified School District's board.[25]
In 2019, Peter Burnett Middle School in San Jose was renamed Muwekma Ohlone Middle School in honor of the original inhabitants of that area.[26]
In July 2020, Peter Burnett Elementary School in Hawthorne was renamed to 138th Street Elementary School.[27]
In June 2023, Peter Burnett Elementary School in Sacramento was renamed Suy:u Elementary School.[28]
Notes
- ^ California was never a U.S. Territory; it was occupied territory under military authority. A new representative government began when California ratified its Constitution in 1849, and Gov. Burnett took office following the election in November as the 33rd governor in the continuous sequence since Portolá.
References
- ^ "Index to Politicians: Burnett". The Political Graveyard. Retrieved 2022-10-21.
- ^ Bancroft 1890, p. 334
- ^ "The Letitia Building" (PDF). Goldman School of Public Policy. 2014-06-28. Retrieved 2024-02-23.
- ^ a b c d e Nokes, Greg. "Peter Burnett (1807-1895)". The Oregon Encyclopedia.
- ^ a b c Hindery, Robin (May 20, 2011). "San Francisco school swaps out name of racist California governor". San Jose Mercury News. Associated Press. Retrieved May 20, 2011.
- ^ a b Nokes, Greg (July 6, 2020). "Black Exclusion Laws in Oregon".
- ^ "Archy Lee - Gold Chains: The Hidden History of Slavery in California". ACLU of Northern CA. 2018-06-28. Retrieved 2021-06-24.
- ^ a b "First Annual Message of the Governor of the State of California" (San Francisco), Daily Alta California, 26 December 1849, 1 (this address should not be confused with Burnett's Inaugural Address, which can also be found in this issue).
- ^ a b Blakemore, Erin. "California's Little-Known Genocide". HISTORY. Retrieved 2019-10-03.
- ^ a b Hine, Robert V. and Mack Faragher, John, The American West: A New Interpretative History, (Yale University Press: 2000), pp. 249
- ^ ISBN 1-58703-163-9.. Accessed July 26, 2020.
- ^ a b c "Gold Rush Profile: Peter Burnett". The Sacramento Bee. Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2007-05-09.
- ^ Nokes, R. Gregory (2018-04-19). "The Golden State's Unpopular Pro-Slavery Governor". Zócalo Public Square. Retrieved 2021-06-26.
- ^ Baron, Connie and Michelle Trappen. Paths linking past and present. The Oregonian, March 6, 2008.
- ^ Edward P. Spillane (1908). "Peter Hardeman Burnett". The Catholic Encyclopaedia, vol. III. Retrieved 2007-05-09.
- ^ "Butte".[full citation needed][dead link]
- ^ LearnCalifornia.org. "California Becomes A State". State of California. Archived from the original on 2007-09-27. Retrieved 2007-05-09.
- ^ Peter M. Detwiler (1996). "Creatures of State...Children of Trade: The Legal Origins of California Cities" (.HTML). Final Report and Recommendations to the Governor and the Legislature. California Constitution Revision Commission. Retrieved 2007-05-09.[permanent dead link]
- JSTOR 3474579. Retrieved 9 September 2020.
- ISBN 978-1-4219-2750-3.
- JSTOR 43059669.
Finally, January 6, 1857, Heydenfeldt resigned his office (his term on the Supreme Court bench would have expired on January 1, 1858)....P.H. Burnett was appointed to fill the vacancy: in the fall of 1857, Stephen J. Field was elected his successor.
- ^ Bancroft 1890, p. 220
- ^ Anthony R. Pico. "History of Sovereignty in U.S." Viejas Band of Kumeyaay Indians. Archived from the original on 2007-09-30. Retrieved 2007-05-09.
- ^ "The Governor's Message (Transmitted January 7, 1851)", Sacramento Transcript, 10 January 1851, 2.
- ^ "L.B. school dropping racist governor's name". 3 September 2014. Retrieved 2015-08-03.
- ^ "Burnett Middle School to be renamed Ohlone Middle School". 13 June 2019. Retrieved 2021-11-06.
- ^ Sheridan, Jake (22 July 2020). "Citing racist past, Hawthorne elementary school drops Peter Burnett name". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 19 October 2022.
- ^ "Sac City Unified Board of Education Votes to Rename Three Schools". Sacramento City Unified School District. 2016-10-04. Retrieved 2024-01-17.
Bibliography
External links
- Peter Hardeman Burnett at the Roman Catholic Encyclopedia
- Peter Burnett biography at the California State Library
- Guide to the Peter H. Burnett Papers at The Bancroft Library
- He wrote this book in 1860 and can be read for free at Google Books The path which led a Protestant lawyer to the Catholic Church
- Peter H. Burnett. California Supreme Court Historical Society. Retrieved July 18, 2017.
- Past & Present Justices. California State Courts. Retrieved July 19, 2017.
- Recollections and opinions of an old pioneer (1880), by Peter Hardeman Burnett. Digitized at Library of Congress. Retrieved April 13, 2019.