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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 2016
Crow: Name comes from old, deeply racist tradition
Continued from Page 1A
Others say it is not an urban
versus rural issue — it’s a simple
question of right versus wrong.
‘It’s embarrassing’
Columbia River Kayaking
owner Andrew Emlen is one of
many locals who told Jayapal
they support the change.
“We’ve taken to calling it
Jim Saules Point because we
think that change is gonna hap-
pen eventually,” Emlen said,
adding that he often takes out-
of-state visitors on tours around
Jim Crow Point.
“It’s embarrassing. I’ve taken
African-Americans out there.
I don’t want that to be part of
their impression of this place,”
Emlen said. “If that place is to
be named after Jim Saules, then
let’s use his real name.”
County
Commissioners
Blair Brady and Dan Cothren
have said they don’t think the
name is racist.
“I have an issue with it
because we have a lot of crows
here. You have a real abundance
of crows,” Cothren said.
“I guess that’s been bit of a
surprise to me too, to see how
much education we need to do,”
Jayapal said. “I guess that it’s
not clear to everybody, where
(Jim Crow) comes from, and
what that means.”
Jayapal thinks there is a lot
of local support for her proposal.
“I’ve been getting emails
from people who are saying,
‘We’re with you and were afraid
to speak out.’ I think that’s a ter-
rible thing in 2016, that there are
people who are afraid to come
out and say that they think ... it’s
a blight on the county,” Jayapal
said.
Image from “Gallery of comicalities” 1880
john-adcock.blogspot.com
A woodcut depicts Jim Crow, a derisive symbol used by sup-
porters of a racial caste system in post-Civil War America.
White entertainer Thomas
“Daddy” Rice performed in
blackface as a “Jim Crow”
minstrel character, c. 1830.
Jim Crow became a catch-
all term for laws designed
to maintain the racial caste
system in the segregated
South between the Recon-
struction Era and the 1960s.
ing us what we do with our prop-
erty. Now they’re telling us what
to name our creeks,” Cothren
said. “It hasn’t killed anybody,
the name. It hasn’t hurt anybody.
Do we have any colored people
here? I don’t see it. Nobody’s
ever come up to me and said,
‘We need to change this name.’”
Cothren isn’t convinced the
names would make black visi-
tors or residents feel unwelcome.
“I don’t know. We grew up
with that. They didn’t grow up
with that,” Cothren said.
Commissioner Brady did not
respond to a call from the Chi-
nook Observer.
“If you really want to change
the name, pony up the $5,000
and put it on the ballot for the
people to vote,” Brady said in
a recent Wahkiakum County
Eagle article. “If this senator
doesn’t have enough work to do,
maybe she should get another
job.”
“I really don’t think most
people in Wahkiakum feel that
way. I think it’s disappointing,
but as the discussion continues,
I hope (the commissioners) will
see that it is an opportunity,”
Jayapal said.
moving to the region south of
the Columbia River. In his 2014
dissertation, Portland State Uni-
versity historian Kenneth R.
Coleman argued that the timing
was no coincidence.
“Oregon politicians sug-
gested the legacy of the Saules
case by stressing the need to pre-
vent black men, particularly sail-
ors, from coming to Oregon and
collaborating with local indige-
nous groups to commit acts of
violence against white settlers,”
Coleman wrote.
The disagreement over Jim
Crow is symptomatic of a larger
debate about the county’s future:
Should Wahkiakum continue to
be an insular place with an iden-
tity rooted in its almost exclu-
sively white recent history? Or
should it become a place that
welcomes tourism, along with
the money, new residents and
change that it would bring?
Commissioner
Cothren,
a lifelong Wahkiakum resi-
dent, isn’t interested in trying
to please outsiders. People who
grew up there “relate to Jim
Crow” and “don’t like to be dic-
tated to,” he said.
“We’re getting agencies tell-
Image courtesy of the Irene Martin Collection
The town of salmon-canning company town Brookfield,
which no longer exists, once sheltered inside Jim Crow
Point on Wahkiakum County’s Columbia River shoreline.
Owned by Joseph Megler, speaker of the Washington
State House of Representatives, the town was abandoned
in the early 20th century. Its site is now covered by sands
dredged from the river.
Big life, obscure death
Saules returned to Cape D,
and worked on a schooner that
carried freight and passengers
throughout the region.
In 1845, he fueled the grow-
ing tension between the Brit-
ish and Americans over Cape
Disappointment, when he got
involved in a dispute over an
important land claim.
In 1897, Astoria settler Silas
B. Smith described Saules as a
VNLOOHG¿GGOHUZKR³FRXOGVXV-
tain a very interesting conversa-
tion on a variety of subjects.”
Who was Jim Crow?
Saules’ life took a turn for
Most people know “Jim
the worse in the late 1840s. A
Crow” describes the discrimi-
December 1846 Oregon Spec-
natory laws that were prevalent
before the civil-rights era. But Who was James Saules? tator article said Saules was
the name comes from a much
“If it was named as a racist brought before an Oregon City
older, deeply racist tradition that name, I probably would have judge, on suspicion of causing
cast a long shadow over Ameri- an issue with that, but we don’t the death of his Indian wife, but
know that. It was named in the he later disappeared.
can culture.
“After a while, Saul got into
Minstrel show performer 1850s,” Cothren said.
Thomas Rice made the name
A few records do say the bad ways, and the settlers decided
“Jim Crow” famous in the places were named for a tree WKDWVKRXOGEHJLYHQDSXEOLFÀRJ-
1830s, Dr. David Pilgrim, pres- where crows perched, but these ging,” Smith wrote. He witnessed
ident and founder of the Jim all seem to be based on the the whipping in 1848.
“It was a shocking scene to
Crow Museum at Ferris State strength of a single letter, writ-
University in Grand Rapids, ten by settler Nellie Megler in witness,” Smith recalled. “Saul
Michigan, said. Rice dressed the early 1900s. Emlen, an avid never recovered from his dis-
in blackface and gave exagger- bird-watcher, says crows are grace. His troubles affected his
ated, capering performances not actually that common at the mind, and he became partially
of “Negro Ditties,” including point, and would have been less insane. … He died soon after,
common more than 160 years just where I am not able to say.”
“Jump Jim Crow.”
In 1850, as black-exclu-
³+H ZDVQ¶W WKH ¿UVW WR XVH ago.
In 1987, Oregon historian sion policies were strengthened,
greasepaint on his face and
act like a buffoon, but he was Sam McKinney noted “the Saules’ land at Cape D was
WKH ¿UVW WR GR LW DV D FRPSOHWH obvious racial connotation of given to a white man.
The last record of his life is
show,” Pilgrim said.
the name,” and said he believed
The minstrel shows made the local geographical features a set of ledgers from a Cath-
lamet store that listed him as a
Rice wealthy and famous. were named for Saules.
Soon, he had scores of imi-
Accounts about Saules dif- debtor in the early 1850s. Some
tators, who ridiculed Afri- fer on many points, such the accounts say he died around that
can-Americans as ignorant, lazy spelling of his name, where he time, while living on the banks
or hypersexualized.
was from, whether he was a of the Columbia, west of Cath-
“Jim Crow remained one of “black giant” or rather short, lamet, leading many historians
the stock characters,” Pilgrim and whether he was any good to conclude that he lived near
said. After slavery ended, the DW SOD\LQJ ¿GGOH %XW WKH\ DUH the “Jim Crow” landmarks.
Jim Crow character lived on, unanimous on one point: he was
fueled by whites’ romantic ideas never dull.
What’s in a name?
about plantation life. Starting in
Historians believe Saules
Pilgrim, the diversity expert,
the 1880s, an “extremely pop- settled in a cabin near Cape Dis- said too often, African-Ameri-
ular” genre of music known as appointment after jumping ship. cans have been “honored” with
“Coon Songs” carried vicious He married a Chinook woman racial slurs instead of their real
stereotypes of blacks “into peo- DQGEULHÀ\ZRUNHGDVDEDUSLORW names.
In 1842, he started a business
ple’s parlors,” Pilgrim said.
“People say this was done
By the early 1900s, Afri- running a boat between Astoria to honor this person, or chang-
ing this will not change any-
can-Americans used “Jim and Cathlamet.
6DXOHV EULHÀ\ PRYHG WR WKH thing in any meaningful way, or
Crow” as a way to describe
the discrimination that affected Willamette Valley in Oregon. But this is just an example of polit-
during the “Cockstock Affair” of ical correctness, and on and on
every aspect of their lives.
“(Jim Crow) became a syn- 1844, he was accused of incit- and on,” Pilgrim explained. “If
onym for not just the songs that ing violence among natives, and \RXFDQ¿QGDZD\WRPDNHVXUH
put black people down and the ordered to move back to the the conversations are intelligent,
then you’ve had a real victory. A
stage personas that put black Long Beach Peninsula.
A short time later, Oregon big part of that process is to lis-
people down, but for anything
that put black people down,” passed the “Lash Law” — a ten,” he said.
policy that banned blacks from
In this case, Pilgrim said,
Pilgrim said.
Jim Crow characters per-
sisted well into the 20th century,
inspiring characters in movies
DQG VKRZV LQFOXGLQJ WKH ¿YH
crows in Disney’s “Dumbo.”
Whose county is it,
anyway?
there’s an obvious way to honor
Saules, while still preserving the
history of the place.
“This one just seems easy to
me,” Pilgrim said. “If it really
LV D SRVLWLYH DI¿UPDWLRQ WKHQ
it would make no sense not to
honor (Saules) as a person.”
Looking
A
co-workers
T
Frank
T Tarabochia
E Frank Tarabochia
N Astoria Marine
1958 - 1970
T
I Cowan Heckaman
O
N
for
of
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have worked with
and/or at
from
Please contact
Bailey Peavy Bailey
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