History and Culture by Bicycle: territory

Showing posts with label territory. Show all posts

Sunday, December 2, 2018

Dakota Territory: Site of First Norwegian Lutheran Church

Timeline:

1863 - The origins of the congregation of St. Paul Lutheran Church, located northwest of Elk Point, SD, began.

1867-1868 - The first Norwegian Lutheran church in the Dakota Territory is built. It was a log building.

1922 - The current church building is constructed.

1938 - The cemetery association put up a monument to the first building. It is a simple marble plaque on a boulder along the cemetery path.

Today - The cemetery remains but several of the headstones have been replaced with newer markers.

Information source: History in South Dakota

Monday, July 6, 2015

Freedom and Civil Rights in Iowa: Two Controversial Decisions, Other Progressive Decisions made in the State of Iowa

These are other progressive decisions made in the state of Iowa since the 1838 In the Matter of Ralph decision. Some were made by the Iowa Supreme Court, some by the state legislature, some during a constitutional convention, some were made by educational institutions such as colleges and universities, and some were made by the president or U.S. military.

This timeline which shows the progressive 177 year history of Iowa proves the 2009 decision was not the first time a controversial decision had been made and that such decisions were not just made by the Iowa Supreme Court.

1838: While still a territory Iowa allowed unmarried women to own property. At that time, women did not have rights and in most of the U.S. they were considered property themselves.

1846: In the same year Iowa became a state it became the second state in the nation to allow married women to own property that did not originally come from her husband.

Iowa demonstrated its acceptance of religious minorities by allowing safe passage of the Mormons through western Iowa who were fleeing religious persecution in Illinois.

1851: A century before the rest of the United States and 12 years before the Emancipation Proclamation Iowa became the second state to legalize interracial marriage.

Iowa legislated that the property of married women did not vest in her husband, nor did the husband control his wife’s property.

1857: The University of Iowa became the first state university in the nation to open its degree programs to women.

1860: The Iowa Supreme Court ruled that a married woman may acquire real and personal property and hold it in her own right.

1867: African American men were granted the right to vote. 3 years ahead of the rest of the United States.

1868: The Iowa Supreme Court ruled that women could have custody rights.

Iowa became the second state in the country to outlaw segregated schools. It took another ninety years before the rest of the United States did this. The Iowa Supreme Court ruled, in the case brought before it by Alexander Clark of Muscatine, that all children in Iowa must attend the same schools.

1869: Julia C. Addington became the first woman in the United States to be elected to a public office. She was elected to be Mitchell County Superintendent in northeast Iowa. At the time women were not allowed to vote in Iowa. Julia then got nervous about her election and asked the Iowa Attorney General to issue an opinion on the matter. He wrote that her election was legal under the constitution of Iowa. That was the first such ruling from any Attorney General in the country. Within a decade, 75% of the county superintendents in Iowa were women.

Iowa became the first state to allow women to join the bar, this made it possible for Iowa to have the first female attorney in the U.S.: Arabella Mansfield.

1871: Ada E. North became the first woman appointed as the Iowa State Librarian> She was the first woman in the United States to such a position.

1873: The Iowa Supreme Court ruled that African Americans are entitled to equal treatment in public accommodation.

1875: Emma Haddock of Iowa City became the first female in the United States to practice law before a federal court.

1880: The Iowa constitution was amended to allow African American men to serve in the Iowa General Assembly.

1884: The Iowa Civil Rights Act was passed. It prohibited discrimination in public accommodation. It was one of the first civil rights acts in the nation.

1885: Iowa once again demonstrated its acceptance of religious minorities as Iowa’s first Muslim immigrants settled in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

1890: Iowa native, Alexander Clark was appointed by President Harrison to be U.S. minister to Liberia. Mr. Clark became one of the first African American diplomats for the United States.

1894: Iowa became the third state in the nation to give women the right to vote.

1917: The US Army held its first officer candidate class for African American men at Ft. Des Moines.

July 2, 1919: Iowa became the 10th state to ratify the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which granted women the right to vote.

1934: The first mosque in the United States is built in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. It is now known as the Mother Mosque of America. Cedar Rapids is also the home of the only exclusively Muslim cemetery in the United States, the Muslim National Cemetery.

1949: The Iowa State Supreme Court ruled that Katz Drug Store in Des Moines discriminated against Edna Griffin. It was the first successful enforcement of the Iowa Civil Rights Act of 1884. The ruling was preceded by a boycott of Katz Drug Store in Des Moines by both white and black residents. This boycott occurred seven years before the bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama.

1953: Iowa was the only state to defeat a McCarthyistic legislative measure to impose a teacher’s loyalty oath.

Iowan Abdallah Ingram, a World War II veteran from Cedar Rapids, convinced President Eisenhower that Islam should be recognized by the U.S. military, along with Christianity and Judaism. Additionally, he successfully urged President Eisenhower to have the symbol “I” for “Islamic” stamped on the dog tags of American Muslim soldiers.

1962: Iowa becomes the fourth state in the nation to use a merit selection process for its judicial system. This system prevents politics from influencing judges.

1970: Iowa became the second state to adopt no-fault divorce.

The University of Iowa became one of the first universities in the U.S. to allow a student GLBT group. It was also one of the first universities in the U.S. to add sexual orientation to its non-discrimination policy.

1984: Republican Rich Eychaner became the first openly gay man in the U.S. to run for a voting seat in Congress, running for Iowa’s 4th congressional district.

November 14, 2003: Iowa State District Court Judge Jeff Neary in Sioux City granted a divorce to a lesbian couple who had a civil union in Vermont. The case was appealed by conservatives to the Iowa Supreme Court.

June 17, 2005: Iowa Supreme Court, in Alons v Iowa District Court, ruled that a same-sex couple who had been legally joined in another state could be divorced under Iowa law.

2007: Iowa became the second state to allow full marriage equality for gays and lesbians. One gay couple was married before the judge put a stay on his ruling in Varnum v Brien until the Iowa State Supreme Court could rule on the case.

Iowa became the fifth state to protect children from bullying due to sexual orientation AND gender identity.

Iowa became the seventh state to ban discrimination due to sexual orientation AND gender identity.

January 18, 2008: The Iowa Supreme Court ruled that second parent adoptions by same-sex couples are legal.

April 3, 2008: Iowa became the 8th state to allow Election Day Registration or same day voter registration.

2008: The Council Bluffs City Council banned discrimination in Council Bluffs due to sexual orientation AND gender identity.

April 3, 2009: The Iowa Supreme Court handed down a unanimous decision in Varnum v Brien in favor of full marriage equality for gays and lesbians. Due to the stay on the 2007 district court ruling, this made Iowa officially the third state to allow marriage equality. And it was the first state not on one of the coasts to allow marriage equality and the first state to gain marriage equality with a unanimous decision.

February 17, 2010: The Iowa Board of Pharmacy became the first state pharmacy board in the nation to recommend the legalization of medical marijuana and to change the classification of marijuana to a schedule II drug before either legislators or voters took steps to legalize it. It was a unanimous vote of the Iowa Board of Pharmacy.

February 18, 2010: Grinnell College announced that it has selected Dr. Raynard Kington as its next president. Dr. Kington is the first openly gay, African American college president in the nation. Dr. Kington has a husband and two sons. Grinnell College was founded in 1846 by strict abolitionists and has always been committed to social justice issues.

References:

Sunday, July 5, 2015

Freedom and Civil Rights in Iowa: Two Controversial Decisions, The Story of David Rorer

The Story of David Rorer

David Rorer was Ralph Montgomery's attorney who successfully argued the very first Iowa Territorial Supreme Court case in 1839.

David's life as a pioneer, lawyer, and a former slave owner conflicted with his conscience ahead of the Civil War. He received legal training in Virginia and later practiced in Arkansas before he moved to Iowa.

His daughter Delia wrote: "Still under 30 years of age, he was rapidly making a name for himself in the South, but he found himself entirely out of sympathy with the people over the slavery issue."

He credited a conversation with a member of Congress for his decision to leave. David made a prediction 20 years before the Civil War that the South would leave the Union. According to Delia "He went home and talked the matter over with his wife. He would throw in with the free North and the Union." He called his servants together, told them they are free and invited them to come with his family to the north where they would be free.

Delia wrote: "But one volunteered to go. She was the children's nurse, 'Nin,' and she came with the Rorer family to Burlington."

Iowa was still a decade away from statehood and Burlington not yet a town when Rorer and his family arrived in the territory in 1836. In 1837 Burlington became the capitol of the Territory of Wisconsin and in 1838 the capitol of the Iowa Territory. David constructed the first brick building in Iowa, helped craft Burlington's city government, draft the town ordinances, and helped lay out the city streets.

Rorer's legal career ended almost before it began. He ran, unsuccessfully, for the U. S. Congress in 1838. His opponent, Peter Engle, was elected over him. One of Engle's backers, Cyrus Jacobs, took offense at Rorer's comments about Engle. He met Rorer on the street after the election, produced a pistol and hit Rorer in the head with a cane. According to the Biographical Dictionary of Iowa: "Rorer reeled and fired his own pistol, with fatal results." The shooting was ruled self defense.

With the success of the 1839 Iowa Territorial Supreme Court decision behind him Rorer represented another client in 1850 on the opposite of the slavery issue. Ruel Daggs was a Missouri slave owner who, with the help of David Rorer sued members of the Quaker community of Salem, Iowa in federal court of harboring nine of Daggs' slaves, including a pregnant woman. According to court documents Daggs offered a reward for the capture and return of his property. Slave catchers Samuel Slaughter, James McClure, Henry Brown and Thomas Cook went after and found the runaways hiding in the bushes near Salem, Iowa.

The people of Salem discovered what was happening and a crowd of 100 people gathered to protect the slaves before the men could capture them. A local, Moses Baldwin threatened: "he would wade up to his knees in Missouri blood before surrendering the men, women and children." David Rorer later argued: "It was a riotous assemblage. It was a conspiracy to injure the plaintiff, and all who were present were guilty."

Local magistrate Nelson Gibbs ruled he had no jurisdiction and refused to hold any of the slaves. According to the later law suit four of the nine slaves were returned to Daggs, but how is not explained. Daggs, not satisfied with this, sued 19 of the Quakers for $10,000, claiming the financial damage for the loss of the loss of the other five slaves.

Though Rorer was a former slave owner and Ralph Montgomery's champion he represented Daggs with zeal and passion. In his closing argument he did express concern for people in bondage: "I do not complain of it -- I, too, have feelings of sympathy -- nor do I complain of the offices of humanity which such feelings may have dictated, but our sympathy should manumit our own, and not other people's slaves." He called on jurors to recognize the U.S. Constitution, which Iowa agreed to follow by becoming a state, and did not at that time prohibit slavery. He stated: "Shall we now repudiate the contract we have made? Shall we be the first to violate it ... when we have ourselves sanctioned the institution of slavery, by entering, with full knowledge, into a contract of which it forms part?"

Daggs was awarded a hefty sum of $2,900 against five of the defendants. But according to the Iowa Law Review, he never collected. The law review also noted: "After five years of litigation, Daggs remained uncompensated for the loss of his slaves. In a final blow, the judge ordered Daggs to pay $33.56 in court costs."

In June 1855, Rorer defended a person detained and presumed by a man hunter to be a fugitive slave out of Missouri. The townspeople of Burlington demanded the slave catcher prove "Dick" was the fugitive they sought. The issue went before Judge George Frazee but ended quickly when the slave owner's son could not identify "Dick."

David Rorer left a historic mark on the state of Iowa. He appeared 163 times before the Iowa Territorial and State Supreme Court, he wrote several legal reference books and is credited with branding Iowans as Hawkeyes, a nickname he favored. According to the Biographical Dictionary of Iowa: "the attorney wrote several letters to Iowa newspapers. He signed each, "A Wolverine among the Hawkeyes." Rorer also complimented Iowans as "hospitable Hawkeyes" and praised "the enterprise and industry of the Hawkeye farmer."

Six years later Abraham Lincoln was president and the north and south were beginning their bitter struggle. During the Civil War Rorer's true views on slavery came to light when he switched from Democrat to Republican and advocated for emancipation.

David Rorer died in 1884 at the age of 78.

In 1910 an edition of the Morning Sun News stated: "As these letters contained many criticisms of prominent men, including public officers of the territory, they created much interest and the name 'Hawkeye' was ever after adopted to designate the people of Iowa."

Despite the fact David Rorer was a slave owner himself and represented slave owners during his career as an attorney were it not for his defense of Ralph Montgomery and others, and were it not for Rorer advocating for emancipation the freedom and civil rights in the then Iowa territory and now state of Iowa would not have progressed as they have.

References:

THE BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF IOWA, University of Iowa Press Digital Editions, Rorer, David, (May 12, 1806–July 7, 1884)

University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Sequoyah Research Center, David Rorer

AfriGeneas Slave Research Forum Archive, David Rorer

To Go Free A Treasury of Iowa's Legal Heritage, Richard Lord Acton, Patricia Nassif Acton, Iowa State University Press/Ames, 1995: