Dear Jean P.S., Part Three of ten, Karen
Chadwick’s Tribute to:
David Dale, A Life by David J. McLaren, Stenlake Publisher,
Ayrshire, Scotland, 2015, a truly beautiful new book rich with photos, docs,
maps, all supporting Dr. McLaren’s extensive research on David Dale, 1739-1806.
Dale was one of the first “Captains of Industry” at the dawn of the Industrial
Revolution with his new cotton yarn mill in New Lanark, Scotland beginning in
1786. I found this book fascinating for a few reasons, here’s one.
In 1799, Dale’s oldest
daughter, Anne Caroline, married Robert Owen. RO married into a pot of money.
In 1825, RO purchased a town from a departing Lutheran cult in the new state of
Indiana and renamed it New Harmony. RO took his passion for social engineering,
six of his well-educated adult children, were joined by other dreamers, and
attempted to create an intellectual communal experiment that failed two years
later. RO could talk the talk; he couldn’t walk the walk. In spite of this
expensive failure, RO became world famous for his radical ideas of how to shape
good humans. To this day, there is a “Robert Owen Society” in Japan, for
instance.
Flash forward to 1995 and my
new job in New Harmony as private secretary to Jane Blaffer Owen, JBO. She
married Kenneth Dale Owen, KDO, in 1941. I worked for her when she was in her 80s. She
brought great wealth to the marriage as her Blaffer/Texas roots were in Humble
Oil and Texaco Oil, which morphed to Exxon. KDO was a descendant of David Dale
and Robert Owen, through Richard Dale Owen. Elsewhere on this blog is their
genealogy record. Wealth from the Dale/Owen legacy had evaporated by KDO’s
time. Young Jane Blaffer appreciated that this suitor was not from the lazy
wealthy class she grew up with and she was impressed that he had worked his way
through college. That credential and his notable name sealed the deal.
This wing of the Owen family
continued with the tradition of honoring David Dale. Kenneth and Jane gave the
Dale name as middle name to two of their daughters. The Blaffer wealth saved an
interesting portion of American history as Jane Blaffer Owen poured herself
into the restoration and renovation of New Harmony for over 70 years. I helped.
All page references from David
Dale, A Life. Buy it! It’s valuable.
* * * * * * *
David Dale of New Lanark by David J. McLaren, Caring Books,
Glasgow, 1999, my copy autographed!
* * * * * * *
David
Dale of New Lanark by
David J. McLaren, Milngavie: Heatherbank Press, 1983. This research regarding
Dale, New Lanark Mills and child labor is the basis for a letter to my young
nephews on this blog and also an appendix of my manuscript, The Other Woman, Private Secretary to a
Daughter of Exxon Oil. I seek an agent/publisher for this work.
* * * * * *
Gratitude to Dr. David J. McLaren and Dougie MacLean, Dunkeld
Records, Perthshire
* *
* * *
*
Dear
Jean P.S. Part Three of 10, January 1,
2020
Back
to the 1820s.
As
the Scots and other Europeans were rushing to this beautiful piece of real
estate, Native Americans were being poisoned, tricked, given alcohol to create
drunks who wouldn’t fight, and most harsh, their children taken from them and
forced to attend “resident school” to force them to act like whites while
crushing any tribal custom beliefs.
Most likely, vague family lore
regarding a Cherokee in the mix was my great grandmother. Was she part of this
crime? The one photo of her, early 20th century, with my grandfather
as a child, with several other small children, that I saw for 5 minutes once,
showed that her hand, draped around my grandfather, was a very dark skin hand,
much darker than her face. Her face, her hair, her clothing looked typical
rural American. But that hand, sweet clue. Hope she adjusted to the hateful
family she joined. Her child, my grandfather was Robert E. Lee ______. My
father was Robert E. Lee _______ Jr. Kentucky. The Wah. Don’t ask.
Unfortunately,
this crime still rolls on with a new name “Indian adoption” and children are
removed now, 2019, from First Nations families for a variety of thin reasons.
Child living with grandmother, no running water in the residence? Out. Child
taken that day by state social worker, never to see Native family ever
again. The grandmother has managed her whole life with hauling water, yet the
white social worker has no training to grasp this at all. The recent case that
the Supreme Court considered, “Baby Veronica,” 2013, was a bit out of the
ordinary “Indian adoptions,” yet the backstory gives the harsh and current
truth: https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/295210-adoptive-couple-v-baby-girl.
Most revealing, Europeans tried to make
American Indians be slaves but that quickly proved to be a waste of time, they
were not compliant with the rule of the whip. First Nations people in that
situation literally shut down and died or disappeared in the middle of the
night before they could be killed by the slave master.
Perhaps
you’ve heard of the Scotland mess referred to as The Clearances? Google it, it
was ugly for a very long time. That mess, perpetrated on Scots by Scots, was
about the land. Scots who lived in the north
were known as Highlanders — still are! — and were part of various tribal groups
who had survived in very difficult circumstances in a place that has a very
short summer, harsh land for food production, yet the Highlanders were and are
tough, hardy, strong people. Highlanders did not have deeds to land, yet a few
very wealthy and powerful Scots there did have “legal” ownership of the land
and over time made all effort to clear their property of tribal ones. For over
hundreds of years, in a thousand ways, they were pushed off ancient land,
migrating out of desperation. They often came to either the West Indies or
North American colonies or, after 1783, to the new USA for land. One of my Dear
Jean letters, #3, 1792, chats up an ill-fated ship, The Fortune, launched from
the Highlands headed for North Carolina in 1791. It set off in a serious storm,
floundered for two weeks just off shore, and limped into the River Clyde with
many dead, many starving. David Dale made the survivors an offer. Read the Dear
Jean letters.
An
aside here, a photo used on the cover of McLaren’s 2015 book, David Dale, A
Life, shows the ruins of the Spinningdale Mill, a textile mill that Dale
and others built and attempted to operate in the far north of the Highlands to
encourage the Highlanders to stay, work, all that. It was quickly a failure for
several reasons and Dale lost big money on the project. A factor in the failure
was that Highlanders weren’t willing to become factory workers, not only were
they extremely independent folks, they primarily lived their lives in the great
outdoors, not stuck inside 72 hours a week. I wonder why it was chosen as the cover photo.
Wish I could have been a fly on the wall when that was being discussed.
Curious.
Nevertheless,
many Scots did land in North America. I wonder if they considered what was
happening to the indigenous folks in North America as very much like what had
happened to the tribal Highlanders? Hmm. Right up there with what’s happening
to the Palestinians right now, they failed long ago to do the legal paperwork
for their homeland, made assumptions to their land rights, and oh oh — Israel
did the paperwork, and is taking ancient lands from the Arabs, doing genocide
in slow mo. The tragedy of this struggle was fueled by early lies, like this
one, “Israel, a land without people for a people without a land.” Poison the
Palestinian town well, that’ll encourage them to leave. Another chapter in the
“LAND” playbook, eh?
One
First Nations tribe did play the game. A distinctive tribe in Ecuador, the
Quichua, learned of the concept, went and recorded their many thousands of
acres with new Spain government, got proper deeds, and to this day are happy
tribal landowners still speaking their own language, living as they wish.
Another tribe who survived the mess is the Menomonee tribe of Wisconsin. Look
at a map of that state, see the large area with almost no roads and LOTS of
trees? Yep, Menomonee, they have over 200,000 acres to call their own. Whew.
Let’s
return to 1820s USA and look at various dynamics like travel, land, birds,
buffalo, religion, money, and society.
Travel
Dig deep into your imagination, wipe away all
modern travel options, and picture this truth of the time: how to travel. Throw
comfort away. Oh, yes, there are options, which pain this time? Time, oh, like
going one hundred miles in only four days? The weather must have been good.
In
the early 1800s, you either rode a horse you owned or one you rented, or paid
to ride in an uncomfortable small space with strangers and constant jostling
with harsh dirt road conditions aka commercial horse drawn carriage, or paid
money to go by riverboat, or walked. Many women were accomplished horse riders,
side saddle, that was a common skill. Taverns and roadhouses would most usually
have horses for rent, and the rider would continue their journey with rented
horse, to next tavern overnight, rent the next horse, and so on. Taverns and
roadhouses commonly provided overnight accommodations, and were often known to
be nasty, dirty, and uncomfortable from many traveler’s accounts. Keep this in
mind: after dark, the byways belonged to the bad guys. Yet the people I
introduce here were all were big on travel. FYI, on horseback, depending on
horse’s health, how rider is setting pace (walk, canter, trot, gallop/run),
weather and land conditions, 15-25 miles a day was reasonable by horse. A
person walking, maybe 10-15 miles, depending on above factors and include what
you have to carry, what might be on your feet or not, children, strength,
health, and motivation. Ever walk very far in foot gear that doesn’t fit your
foot? Ouch with every step. Socks? Are you rich?
The Land
Now
dig deep into your dream state, and conjure North America natural history
before pale face arrived. Here’s a glimpse.
The
trees. North America was tree rich; forests went on for thousands of miles, it
must have been beautiful. The abundant natural resources meant profit waiting
for industrious whites who could endure the often harsh and primitive
conditions once any remaining “savages” were expelled. Keep in mind the worst
thing an indigenous person ever put in the water was a canoe. Who’s the real
savage?
The birds.
Scientists
estimate that there were 3 – 5 billion - yes Billion - passenger pigeons living
in eastern, central, and northern North America at the time of Christopher
Columbus landing, 1492. These birds were 1/3 larger than the mourning dove. The
birds and the land needed each other, they had coexisted for millennia. When
vast pigeon colonies started their nesting work, they used a lot of real estate
that stretched for hundreds of miles, one, in 1871, was 850 sq. miles. They
would settle in for the few weeks of nest building, egg laying, and two parents
tending one chick once a year. Before chicks could take flight, often First
Nations hunters removed some chicks just before they could fly as food source.
Indigenous hunters did not kill adult pigeons, they only took fat chicks and
pigeon population remained balanced and healthy despite this human intrusion.
And yes, as First Nations folks were forced to grapple with cash culture, some
did start harvesting the birds for money, desperate people do desperate things.
Passenger
pigeons only existed on the North American continent, nowhere else. Scientists
now surmise that there were two or three primary flocks, each containing many
millions of birds. They had a simple solution of how to find a meal for
millions, go where the food is! They did not migrate for seasonal conditions as
other birds do, they only moved around as their favorite nuts would be
available. Once it was recorded that one of the huge flocks appeared in Canada
in January. One of their food sources was acorns, and that bird would swallow
the whole nut, their craw could hold 8-10 acorns — about ½ cup — at a time.
Their system could break down the very hard nutshell, and finally the meat of
the nut would pass to the bird’s stomach.
Early
Europeans to North America were shocked at how pigeons would be so destructive
to a forest area where they roosted for the night, and worse, what would result
to a forest after the birds had nested for several weeks to make more pigeons.
True, those forests would look like a tornado had hit, as many hundreds of
birds roosting could topple a tree. However, this had been happening for many
centuries, the forest looked fine a year later, and you bet the trees loved the
bonus of rich nutrients from bird waste. The First Nations folks understood the
balance, the Europeans did not.
When
white hunters realized such abundant food was either roosting or nesting in the
area, they killed as many birds as they could. This became a quick and easy way
to make money, sell pigeon meat, aka “squab.” Henry David Thoreau has several
accounts in his diary of neighbors setting up captive pigeons on poles to
attract other pigeons to kill for food and commercial product. Considering
Thoreau’s accounts, very likely the pigeons his neighbors were harvesting were
not part of a large flock. By the 1850s there had been so much human disruption
of ancient flock life, many birds were separated from primary group and left to
struggle as individuals or very small groups. It became sport to shoot a gun
into the massive flock flying overhead, just for fun. Scientists grieve that so
little data was gathered regarding these birds, even John J. Audubon got it
wrong, the birds were so ubiquitous they were considered a common nuisance. By
1870s, the last vast flocks were observed. By 1914, the last Passenger Pigeon
died in captivity in the Cincinnati Zoo. I refer you to the excellent book, A
Feathered River Across the Sky, The Passenger Pigeon’s Flight to Extinction
by Joel Greenberg. Warning — get ready for stupidity to meet greed.
The
buffalo. Speaking of white man’s love of shooting, how about those buffalo?
Again, First Nations folks were grateful for such an animal, did what they
could to keep flocks coming to the vast open prairies of what became Illinois
and several states westward. Indigenous Americans were known to set grassland
fires to get new grass growth and thus buffalo appearing for fresh grass. They
used every part of buffalo for food, health, housing, art, regalia, and more.
Whites made killing buffalo a casual sport and as soon as trains started moving
through buffalo turf, shooting from a moving train into flocks of buffalo
became a manly activity. Really. We almost killed the last buffalo, but wise
folks stepped in, and now small buffalo populations live on protected lands,
something went right for a change.
Here’s
one sad fact: when guns were invented, the only way to make a gun was one at a
time, all guns were complete artisan craft and quite expensive. Until the very
guy who invented the cotton gin, American Eli Whitney, who failed to make
profit from that invention due to poor legal understanding of how to manage
sales and rights. In 1797, he finally found fortune by inventing the way to
make lots of guns in an assembly line concept. Now more folks could afford such
a toy. Bang bang.
To be continued
Citations
and Bibliography
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Margaret. Robert Owen of New Lanark.
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Dickens,
Charles. A Tale of Two Cities. 1859.
Print.
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Elisabeth Reuther. Putting the World
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Ava. Director, When They See Us. Netflix. 2019. Film.
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Antonia. Mary Queen of Scots. Dell Publishing Co., Inc. 1969.
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Marsha V., Sears, John F. Karl
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Grann,
David, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and Birth of the FBI.
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Joel.
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David J. David Dale, A Life. Stenlake Publishing Ltd. 2015.
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David J. David Dale of New Lanark, A Bright Luminary to Scotland. Caring
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David J. David Dale of New Lanark. Milngavie: Heatherbank Press. 1983.
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MacLean,
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John.
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of Weid-Neuwied, Prince. Travels
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Celia. Fanny Wright, Rebel in
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Mira. Director. Queen of Katwe. Disney/ESPN. 2016. Film.
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Robert. A New View of Society. 1813. Print.
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David. “The Trigger.” Smithsonian. October 2019. Print.
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Janet R. and Burkhardt, Richard W. Eliza
Julia Flower, Letters of an English Gentlewoman: Life on the Illinois-Indiana
Frontier 1817-1861. Ball State University. 1991. Print.
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Janet R. Wonder Workers on the
Wabash. Historic New Harmony.
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Other web sources include:
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