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>> Hello and welcome again to Back Page. I'm Jody Seay, and today we're visiting with Greg
Nokes, and Greg has a way of swinging for the bleachers and managing to make it most
of the time. So welcome back, we had you on before.
>> Thank you, Jody, it's a pleasure to be here again.
>> And I'll explain what I mean by that; Because there's a quality to the subjects that you
write about where you force us to look at the shadow side. Which is good. Your other
book that we talked about was, 'Massacred for Gold,' which is about a massacre of some
Chinese guys up in Hells Canyon that went kind of...
>> 34 Chinese gold miners in 1887.
>> Yeah, and there was nothing ever done about it, really, because the murderers were the
son of a wealthy rancher and his pals, as I recall. Is that right?
>> Yeah, a gang of horse thieves, and there was a trial, and everybody was found innocent.
>> Yeah.
>> But this last June we dedicated a memorial to the Chinese at Hells Canyon, so a lot has
been done that came out of that book.
>> Good. Well, and this book, Breaking Chains: Slavery on Trial in the Oregon Territory,
um, you don't really think about slavery and Oregon in the same sentence, or context, even;
but we did have it here.
>> We did. I never thought about it that way, right.
>> So there's always a genesis for a story. Tell me how this came about for you.
>> Well, I'd done the previous book, and felt very rewarded because of how well it was received
and I thought it was an important book on the Chinese and the Northwest, and so I was
looking for another book to write. I wanted to do another one. I had several subjects
in mind. So I had coffee one day with my brother Bill and decided to bounce off him my various
story ideas, and a I ran thought several of them he went, 'Uh huh...uh huh...uh huh...'
Then he said, 'Why don't you write about Reuben Shipley?' And I said, 'Well who is Reuben
Shipley?' And he said, 'Reuben Shipley was a slave, brought to Oregon by one of our early
ancestors.' I had no idea. I was stunned. Two things happened immediately. One, I had
never thought that there was a slaveholder in the background of my family, and two, I
had thought from day one slavery was prohibited in Oregon, and never heard that there was
a slave in Oregon. So I, this was a good subject to pursue, bot from a family standpoint and
from telling Oregon history. And so I got into it and discovered there were actually
quite a few slaves in Oregon.
>> Yeah. The reason being that when people came from Missouri and slave states, they
often brought slaves with them, because like this guy Nathaniel Ford for example, what
a creep.
>> What a creep. [laughs]
>> I mean, he had all these debts, you know, in Missouri where he was from, and so he-
and he had slaves, so as I understand it, he had Robin and Polly Holmes, and their children,
and he sold three of their children to try to pay off some of his debts, which wasn't
enough, and then he promised Robin that if he went with him to Oregon, that he and his
wife, Polly, could have their freedom. And he kept his word on that. However...
>> That's a basic outline of the story. Nathaniel Ford was quite an important figure in Missouri.
He'd been a county sheriff in Howard County for four terms, member of the Missouri legislature,
large landholder and he had up to 13 slaves, counting the Holmes family, but he fell into
economic hard times, lost some of his slaves, and sold, including three of the Holmes children,
either sold or seized by his creditors; lost much of his property and decided to come to
Oregon and brought six slaves with him, three adults and three of the Holmes children. And
that was in 1844. He led his own wagon train out here and settled in Polk County.
>> So, the difficult part was...I mean he figured out that to make it as a 'gentleman
farmer,' which he wanted to do in Oregon, 'cause he would get the land basically for
free, if he got here.
>> Exactly.
>> But, he was gonna have to have unpaid help, which would be the slaves. So he freed Robin
and Polly, but wanted to keep their children.
>> He freed them after six years, I mean they... Oregon did have a law against slavery, enacted
by the provisional government, early provisional government in 1843, but it, as a matter of
practice it was never enforced, and it was virtually unenforceable. So the law, without
any teeth at all. And not a whole lot of settlers brought slaves. I'd guess there was probably
fifty all together in Oregon in this period, and that rather pales beside the number in
Missouri I think was 117,000 in 1860 and four million nationally.
>> Whoa...
>> So there weren't many slaves in Oregon, but a slave is a slave.
>> Yeah.
>> And the arrangement that many of the settlers made with their slaves was, well, if you come
to Oregon and you help me establish my farm -- and you're right, the land was free, and
then they had the free labor -- then I will free you. And some of them did, including
my ancestor, Robert Shipley, the white Shipley; he did free the slave, Reuben Shipley after
a couple of years. But Nathaniel Ford reneged on his promise, and he kept the Holmes family
as slaves; the parents for six years, finally freeing them in 1850, and the children he
wanted to keep even longer than that. And finally, in 1852, Robin Holmes, the father
of the family, sued him in court in Polk County, and ended up prevailing in a 15-month trial.
Which was quite remarkable Jody if I can continue. Slaves in those days, all of them that came
to Oregon as far as I know were illiterate, slaves weren't allowed to be educated in slave
states, and so Robin Holmes and Reuben Shipley were both illiterate, but he managed to prevail
in this suit, getting help from people.
>> Well the other part about all of that is that in the slave states in the south it was,
if they found out a slave was able to read and write, it was punishable by death. And
if you helped a slave learn how to read and write, you'd go to prison. So, there's a wonderful
book by Lois Leveen, called 'The Secrets of Mary Bowser,' I don' tknow if you've read
that or not...
>> I've not read that one...
>> It's a good one, you know, and Mary Bowser was freed by her owner in Virginia, went to
Pennsylvania and became educated and then, but she had a photographic memory. So they
got her back into Virginia and she set herself up as a household worker in Jefferson Davis'
mansion. So she'd be dusting with a feather duster and looking on his desk and remembering
what... that's how they, one of the ways they lost, the south lost, yeah.
>> Intersting.
>> Anyway, so what was the name of the judge, George Williams?
>> George Williams. He was appointed by President Franklin Pierce to be the Chief Justice of
the Territorial Supreme Court. That was in 1853, and within weeks of coming to Oregon,
he'd never been in Oregon before, he decided the Holmes vs. Ford case, which is the title
of the case, and three judges previously had been hearing this case but nobody wanted to
rule on it until George Will- Judge Williams came out. And there was a reason: Nathaniel
Ford, who had been prominent in Missouri, quickly became prominent in Oregon. He was
a five-term member of the Territorial Legislature, he was actually nominated by the Provisional
Government to be the first judge of Oregon, although he turned it down. But you can tell
from this that when Robin Holmes sued him, he was up against a man with a great deal
of influence. But Judge Williams, who came from New York originally, abolitionist influences
and background came out and quickly decided the case and this was the only slavery case
ever adjudicated in Oregon courts. I did not know there was ever a slavery case adjudicated
in Oregon courts. Very little coverage at the time, because there were very few newspapers
in Oregon in the period, and I think one of the Sa- what was The Oregon Statesman, then
became the Salem Statesman, I think they gave it three paragraphs, was all, so it was all
virtually unknown in history. I mean, academics and historians know about it, but the general
public really hasn't known about this.
>> So how old were their children when they got their children back from Nathaniel Ford?
>> Let's see, Mary Jane homes was, was twelve, and she's the one we know most about. Then
the others were...little bit older than that. One was younger -- one had died; actually
Ford kept four children, and one, Harriet, passed away and this seemed to have energized
Robin Holmes into bringing suit, fearing that all of the children would eventually perish
under Nathaniel Ford, and this was one of his claims in his suit. Actually, it's quite
a remarkable case, and the whole case is on file in Polk County, and so I was able to
find it there; and he alleged that is the children stayed with Ford, he feared for their
health and feared for their well-being. With reason, obviously.
>> Well, one of the things that seemed like he was planning to do was send them all back
to Missouri and claim that they were runaway slaves. There was a letter that he'd written
to a friend...
>> Right. I have that letter in the book. This became a central element in the trial,
because Robin Holmes said that, apparently he went to confront Ford, saying I want my
children back. And Ford evidently told him that if you continue to press this issue,
I'm gonna seize you all under the Fugitive Slave Act and send you all back to Missouri
to be slaves. And he had actually made such a proposal; he had written and attorney friend
in Missouri, suggesting they work out a strategy to do this, however it never happened. And
Ford never admitted that he actually had a real plan to do this, but a letter did surface,
showing that he had a very specific plan to do this.
>> Yeah. Well, did that letter surface before the judge ruled on the case?
>> No, the judge simply ruled, as far as I know there was allegations, Holmes had alleged
that Ford wanted to do this and Ford said, well, I did have a plan, but I thought about
it, people encouraged me to do it but I never did. But, no, the letter had not surfaced.
>> Yeah...
>> The Williams ruling basically was that slavery was illegal in Oregon. That if there
is no law...he kind of did the reverse, rather than looking at a law that existed, he said
if there's no law approving slavery in Oregon, then slavery can't exist. And this was a definitive
ruling that helped to put Oregon on the track to becoming a non-slave state. But there were
many, many people in Oregon at that time, especially among the leaders, who were pro-slavery,
in fact along, there was a very strident lobby favoring slavery.
>> Well, you know, even in the development of our country, you know, as I understand
it, when they were writing the Constitution they modeled it originally after the Iroquois
nation constitution, until they realized that Iroquois nation did not allow for slavery.
So they quickly changed it, because so many o them were slaveholders, to model it after
the Greek, which did allow for slavery. You know, so, we're never quite as pure as we
want to think.
>> No, and in this case it was, in fact, consider the...consider Joe Lane, who was the first
territorial governor of Oregon, the first U.S. Senator, one of the two first, two U.S.
Senators from Oregon, very active pro-slavery. He ran for Vice President on the same ticket
with John Breckinridge of South Carolina on a secessionist ticket in 1860 against Abraham
Lincoln. In fact, the former president, or the future president Andrew Johnson said on
the floor of the Senate once that Joseph Lane is more Southern than the South itself...[jody
chuckles]
>> And he was...
>> ...and he never gave up his support for slavery. And it's interesting to me that liberal
Lane County is named after Joe Lane who was a very ardent pro-slavery activist.
>> But then you have Joe Lane Middle School in Douglas County, so...
>> Oh, there's lots of...Lane, his name is in a lot of places.
>> Yeah. So, how long did it take you to compile all of this information, because this is a
tremendous amount of research that had to happen to put this all together, I think.
>> I took, it took about two years and not as long as you might imagine, because I had
enormous help from the Benton County Historical Society, the Polk County Historical Society,
the Oregon Historical Society, all of these records are there, it's just a matter of somebody
going to find them, and the people are very helpful. You know what you're looking at,
looking for, I mean, people will help you to find them. I just found it extraordinary
that older newspapers, cemetery records...you know, there's a cemetery in Benton County,
over near Rickreal, called Mt. Union Cemetery, and this cemetery actually was helped, was
established by the slave that my ancestor brought out, Reuben Shipley; he became a fairly
successful farmer after he got his freedom and coincidentally married Mary Jane Holmes...
>> Oh...yeah.
>> ...one of the Holmes daughters who was central in the slavery case. And he later
donated three acres of his land for this cemetery, and he had the understanding that...he insisted
that whites, blacks be buried, could be buried in this cemetery along with whites, and this
was a period when minorities often weren't allowed to be buried in Caucasian cemeteries
and so the cemetery was created with that understanding, and, today, Reuben Shipley
is buried there, Mary Jane Holmes is buried there, and many of my ancestors are buried
there, so very successful in what he wanted to achieve.
>> Can you see the reason for the slavery? I mean, first it's appalling, like, we had
slaves? Oh, geez...you know? But you can understand it on some level when they're trying to start
a whole new life here, that they needed help and didn't have any money to pay for that.
>> Well, I'm not sure that I do understand that fully, Jody, because most of the settlers
came out without slaves, and through their own hard labor they tilled their land and
they became farmers. And many of the settlers who fled Missouri in particular were actually
fleeing slavery. Because it was they were mostly small farmers who didn't have slaves,
and they found it very difficult to compete against landholders who did have slaves because
of the difference in the costs of labor. So most of them came out, by far the vast majority
were not slaveholders, and many of them were actually fleeing slavery; and then you had
this handful, like Nathaniel Ford, Robert Shipley, and maybe another hundred who did
bring out slaves. Some freed them right away, and others, like Nathaniel Ford, tried to
keep them.
>> Yeah. So what was the Free Land Act, how did that work?
>> Well, it was called the Donation Land Act, but originally, in 1843, 1844, the Provisional
Government allowed people to stake claims for up to a square mile of land, and they
just did it, and no- It was empty land...well, I shouldn't say empty there were Native Americans
on the land in the Willamette Valley, the Calapooia Indians, for example, they were
just pushed aside, and the land was taken. And then in 1850, the U.S. Congress enacted
the Donation Land Act, and this basically confirmed the claims that the early settlers
had up to a square mile land for the very early settlers, and so they got their land
for free. They had to live on it and they had to farm it, but it was only for whites.
It explicitly excluded blacks, the Native Americans and Hawaiians, as a matter of fact.
>> Hawaiians also?
>> Hawi- oh, yeah there were quite a, quite a Hawaiian population that day, those days,
who were brought over as laborers and worked on the ships. I mean I say quite a...you know,
maybe a hundred, but they were specifically excluded from landholding.
>> Hey, if you're just tuning in, I've visiting with Greg Nokes about his latest book, 'Breaking
Chains: Slavery on Trial in the Oregon Territory,' and this is published by Oregon State University
Press, right?
>> Yes it is.
>> OSU Press, they always do such good work, you know?
>> They do great work. they published my first book and they published this one and I appreciate
it.
>> Well they just do a good- I mean, it feels good in your hand, and the cover's always
good, it just feels good, feels like some care went into it, you know?
>> Great cover.
>> So I've always like that about them, and we've had a number of OSU Press authors on
the show, over the years. So, in your experience with doing all this research, who was the
most interesting character, to you?
>> Well, I think it was, oh, that's a good question. I think it was Robin Holmes, without
question. Because he was illiterate, up against a very powerful slaveholder, managed to get
attorneys to help him in his case, in a region that was actually more or less pro-slavery,
at least among the leadership; and he prevailed. In looking through the court records of this
case, it was all handwritten, like I said the records are in the Polk County courthouse
in Dallas, and you find all these cross-outs and changes and editing, and so you just knew
an attorney, an attorney who was transcribing his statement and remarks, then would be reading
it back to Holmes who would then suggest changes that would be made, so I'm assuming, I think
correctly, that that's where all these little changes in the text... But he was, persisted
through that trial, and succeeded is very remarkable. It's heroic.
>> Yeah.
>>And he and his wife went on, Polly Holmes was his wife, and in 1863, they integrated
a white church, helped integrate a white church in Salem, the Congregational church. It was
one of the first times that blacks were allowed in white churches in Oregon. So I think he's
the most remarkable figure. Sadly, there's no photograph that exists of him...
>> Oh, that's too bad.
>> ...yeah, there's no picture. There's one photograph of his daughter, Mary Jane Holmes,
shortly before her death, you know, I have that in the book, but...
>> So who, what was the name of the attorney who helped them?
>> Reuben Boise, and he was a prosecuting attorney; he'd been appointed by the Territorial
Government as a prosecuting attorney for Oregon.
>> Pretty young, though, he looked...
>>Very young...and he was from Massachusetts, an abolitionist, and so obviously because
of his background and sympathies he took Robin Holmes in hand, and took his case.
>> Wow.
>> And it's quite a remarkable story.
>> Now, he's not related to Boise, Idaho, is he?
>> I wouldn't be surprised if there was a relationship of some sort, but I don't know
what that might be.
>> So, in your family history, was this on your mother's side of the family, I guess?
>> On my mother's side of the family, most of my early ancestors came out in separate
wagon trains in 1853, and most came out from Iowa, and originally West Virginia through
Iowa, and they were non-slaveholders, but there was this one family, Reuben, the Robert
Shipley family in Miller County, Missouri, who did bring out one slave. And I might mention
a few things about Reuben Shipley... The understanding with him, as with others, was if you come
to Oregon, and you help me establish my farm, then I will free you, and this apparently
was the case with Reuben Shipley; however, there was a, he had to make a difficult choice,
because he had to leave behind his wife and two children who were owned by other slave
owners, so he could not bring them out so he had to leave them behind. Never saw them
again. So, think of that.
>> Yeah.
>> You know, coming all this way, all those two thousand miles, not knowing if you'd ever
see your family again, and indeed you didn't. Robert Shipley, the white Shipley, also had
two female slaves, and they had the same choice, and their choice was to stay with their families
and they didn't come out. But Reuben Shipley, as I said, became, after he was freed, he
worked hard, saved money, became a successful farmer. Raised a family in Benton County.
>> What kind of crops did he raise?
>> See, had a hundred and, get my acreage right here, I think 108 acres, all together,
on what is now known as Neabeack Hill, which is right next to the town of Philomath, and
the cemetery is right at the top, top of that hill now called Mt. Union cemetery, and he
had corn, he raised, he had his own, had his own cattle, and was a small farmer, I'm sure,
but successful.
>> Wow. Good for him.
>> Yeah; good for him.
>> No, I mean really, good for him. So if you're just tuning in I'm Jody Seay and this
program is Back Page and we're visiting with Greg Nokes about his latest work, 'Breaking
Chains, Slavery on Trial in the Oregon Territory.' Where can people get this book?
>> They can get it almost anywhere. It's selling very well in bookstores, Powell's, obviously,
for one in Portland; Broadway Books, Annie Blooms, Barnes & Noble, Amazon of course,
and all the Seattle stores are carrying it, and I imagine independents everywhere around
Oregon are carrying it.
>> Have you ever been to Wallace Books over in Sellwood?
>> You mentioned that before. I've not, I've talked with them on the phone, I've not actually
been there. I imagine you can get it there, too.
>> You should go...it's a great little bookstore
>> It's selling vey well because it's had excellent reviews so far.
>> Well, so you've been promoting everywhere, where have you been? And you got, you were
written up in the Oregonian, and you were on OPB the other day.
>> Think Out Loud.
>> Yeah.
>> You can go on the book website, breakingchainsbook dot com to find out the whole list of appearances.
I'll be in Seattle area in September, up there, so quite a few appointments scheduled... Before
we leave, I'd like to make a point about the book...
>> Yeah.
>> I think this is an extremely important book in Oregon, and I'm delighted that Oregon
State Press, an academic institution has published it, because it's important history. We need
to know these stories, this story in particular, so we'll know where we were, how far we've
come, and how far we still have to go in giving justice to people who need justice, and the
people who may have been trampled upon as we achieved what we did achieve in this state.
>> Yeah, well, you know it was a jolt, it was a jolt to realize that we actually had
slavery in this state. I mean, I was just like, 'What? That can't be...'
>> And that's the case with most people. I mean there academics- Darrrell Millner at
Portland State University, professor of Black Studies helped me a lot on this book, and
he was aware of a lot of that history. Or Quintard Taylor, professor of Black Studies
at the University of Washington, the same with him, but it was mostly known in academic
circles; it really hasn't been in Oregon history books, you know, where it belongs. For example,
we haven't talked about the exclusion laws. Oregon had three exclusion laws over its history
that banned blacks [Greg clears his throat] excuse me, banned free blacks from living
in the state. The first was enacted in 1844 and repealed in 1845; the second was enacted
in 1849 and repealed in 1854; and the third one, incredibly, was written into the Oregon
Constitution, and this prohibited free blacks from living in Oregon. It wasn't removed from
the Constitution until 1926. And it was never really enforced, but think about it: The fact
that this was in the Constitution, was known, was certainly a message to blacks around the
country that you aren't particularly welcome in Oregon, and I think this is one of the
explanations why Oregon is such a white state; there aren't that many blacks living here.
>> Well [Greg coughs] So what's the reception, have you given the presentation on this in
the black community?
>> Very much; very strong. Like I said, Darrell Millner has been very supportive of this.
I got a call from Quintard Taylor yesterday just complimenting me on the book, and these
are both black folks, and quite a few...yes, I've had excellent reception, but keep in
mind it's just been out a few, couple of weeks so not all the reception is in, but the Seattle
times review was written by a black columnist up there, and he praised the book, so I think
it's been pretty well accepted in the black community - which is important to me, just
like 'Massacred For Gold' was well accepted in the Chinese community in the Northwest,
and that's rewarding to me.
>> So what other secrets do we have that you're gonna air?
>> Well, I don't...we'll see what happens... [Jody laughs] Maybe I'll sit down with my
brother again, have a cup of coffee and see what he knows.
>> Right, right. So, and now you were a newspaper reporter...
>> I was, for about 40 years, yes.
>> Okay, for the Oregonian.
>> I was with the Associated Press on the East coast, and I was a foreign correspondent,
Latin America, covered the State Department for the AP, and...But I was a native Oregonian,
as obvious...and so I came back in eighteen- 1986 and joined the Oregonian, was there for
the final fifteen years of my career, and came across the Chinese book as a reporter,
and then when I retired I wrote that, and then I came across this one, thanks to my
brother... I dedicated the book to my late grandparents, Minnie and Will Junkin, and
there's a reason for that: Because they had written in a family genealogy about the slave,
Reuben Shipley, and I had never read the genealogy but my brother had, and that's why he pointed
out to, that particular item, and so I thought how wonderful that they had kept alive this
story.
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>> Yeah. Yeah. Well, listen we're gonna have to head on outta here, so thank you so much.
We've been visiting with Greg Nokes about his new book, 'Breaking Chains: Slavery on
Trial in the Oregon Territory.' So pick it up wherever your favorite independent bookstore
is. I'm Jody Seay; this program is Back Page. Be sure to join us again as we take another
peek at the back page and remember: We're all in this together, more the same than different.
Do your best.
>> Thank you, Jody.
>> Thanks, Greg.
>> Pleasure being here again.
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