They’re still panning for gold in Grimes Creek. It’s been that way since 1862, when pioneer George Grimes found gold there and then was almost immediately killed. Shoshone Indians were blamed, but with that kind of money on the line who can really be sure? Before long, the Boise valley will filling up with white folks eager to stake a claim, and they didn’t want harassment from the Shoshones.
The killing of Grimes and other Indian depredations led to the organization of a volunteer company of the Placerville miners in March 1863, whose captain was Jefferson Standifer, a man prominent among adventurers for his energy and daring. They pursued the Indians to Salmon Falls, where they had fortifications, killing fifteen and wounding as many more. Returning from this expedition about the last of the month, Standifer raised another company of 200, which made a reconnaissance over the mountains to the Payette, and across the Snake River, up the Malheur, where they came upon Indians, whose depredations were the most serious obstacle to the prosperity of the Boise basin. Fortifications had been erected by them on an elevated position, which was also defended by rifle-pits. Laying siege to the place, the company spent a day in trying to get near enough to make their rifles effective, but without success until the second day, when by artifice the Indians were induced to surrender, and were thereupon nearly all killed in revenge for their murdered comrades by the ruthless white man.
To punish the hostile Indians in Idaho, Fort Boise was established July 1, 1863, by P. Lugenbeel, with two companies of Washington infantry in the regular service. It was situated on the Boise River about forty miles above the old fort of the Hudson’s Bay Company, near the site of the modern Boise City.
Prior to Mr. Lugenbeel setting out with his band of genocidal white men, President Abraham Lincoln was compelled on March 4 to recognize Idaho as a U.S. territory. It had to wait until 1890 to be a full-blown state, and much longer than that to experience any kind of effective oversight from the federal government.
It’s notable that Fort Boise was established on the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg. Would you have rather have been fighting for Gen. Robert E. Lee or panning for gold in the Rocky Mountains? For the first Idahoans, being outside the reach of the draft boards was part of the point.
The dynamics of the Civil War triggered territorial changes. Anti-war Democrats and draft dodgers, many from Southern and border states, poured into the eastern part of the territory in 1862, lured by gold and silver strikes. The balance of power between the pro-Union Republicans of “Clam country” and the influx of Democrats threatened to shift the territory’s regional power to one potentially sympathetic to the Confederacy.
Later on, it was more important to be outside the reach of the Environmental Protection Agency, if possible. There weren’t people who were likely to listen if you told them to drive 55.
There is something admirable about the pioneering spirit, but it’s always been accompanied by lawlessness, violence and greed. Their kind of freedom has often been a fig leaf for brutality and exploitation. That’s the seed for the modern Idaho where their politicians compete with each other to be the most awful human beings in the country.
On Tuesday, Idaho Gov. Brad Little joined nine other Republican governors in Texas to discuss the Biden administration’s handling of immigration at the southern border. While he was away, Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin was temporarily in change, and she went a little crazy.
First, she wrote a letter to Major General Michael J. Garshak, seeking information on how to activate the Idaho National Guard and send it to the border in Texas and Arizona. Then she issued an executive order “to prevent employers from requiring their employees be vaccinated against Covid-19.”
General Garshak immediately responded by telling her, “I am unaware of any request for Idaho National Guard assistance under the Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC) from Texas or Arizona. As you are aware, the Idaho National Guard is not a law enforcement agency.”
Gov. Little issued a statement declaring, “I am in Texas performing my duties as the duly elected Governor of Idaho, and I have not authorized the Lt. Governor to act on my behalf. I will be rescinding and reversing any actions taken by the Lt. Governor when I return.”
This is a natural development–a toxic mixing of white supremacy and anti-Washington paranoia and resentment, all wrapped up in a elite dripping with greed and exploitation.
Janice McGeachin may be insane, but she’s probably got the politics right. I won’t be surprised at all if she’s the next governor in Boise.
Also, South Dakota should be abolished.
She may be the next governor of Idaho, unless moderate Republicans team with Democrats to prevent it. Boise is growing and the influx is making it more diverse and moderate. If McGeachin wins, the people will pay the price. Perhaps they’ll learn from it.
I feel a degree of schadenfreude watching the Republican party reap these divisions. But I fear for the nation as I watch the crazies gain ascendency in county after county and in some states too. We can laugh at the Republican party in places like California but not in Arizona or Virginia and certainly not Arkansas or Mississippi.
The historical part of that isn’t much different than the rest of the western U.S. Anyone in Oregon or Nevada or California in 1862 was similarly avoiding the war. And California’s 19th century elites were second to none for greed, exploitation, and white supremacy. The difference is that Idaho because of its remoteness remained nearly all white. Then the remote all-white regions started attracting racist white nationalists from the rest of America, continually adding more crazy to the crazy.
one of the out-of-state immigrants who might be part of the problem is a high school classmate of mine who moved to Coeur d’Alene some years ago. we talk at every reunion but she gives off a weird vibe and is NOT one of the people I discuss politics with.
What is it that unites us?