Albert Pike

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Albert Pike

Albert Pike [ ˈælbɚt ˈpaɪk ] (born December 29, 1809 in Boston , Massachusetts , † April 2, 1891 in Washington, DC ) was an American lawyer , brigadier general , journalist , author and Freemason .

Life

childhood

Pike was born in Boston to Benjamin and Sarah (Andrews) Pike. He spent his childhood in Byfield and Newburyport . He attended schools in Newburyport and Framingham until he was 15 years old. By that time he had passed the Harvard University entrance examination but was unable to afford classes. So he started to self- taught .

He later became a teacher in Gloucester , Fairhaven and Newburyport.

Time in Arkansas

In 1831 Pike left Massachusetts to travel west. At first he stayed in St. Louis , later he moved on to Independence ( Missouri ). In Independence, he joined an expedition to Taos ( New Mexico on) to hunt and to act. During the excursion his horse fell and ran away; so Pike had to walk the remaining 500 miles to Taos. He then joined a trapper expedition to Llano Estacado in New Mexico and Texas . The success of the expedition was minimal, and when he was about 1300 miles (of which 650 foot) traveled, he reached Fort Smith ( Arkansas ).

When Pike settled in Arkansas in 1833, he taught and wrote a series of articles for the Arkansas Advocate in Little Rock under the pseudonym Casca . The articles were so popular that he was asked to work for the newspaper. Later, after his marriage to Mary Ann Hamilton, he bought part of the newspaper with the dowry . By 1835 he was the sole owner of the Advocate . Under Pike's administration, the advocate promoted the Whig Party's perspective in a politically changeable and divided Arkansas.

Then he began to study law and was admitted to the bar in 1837. In the same year he sold the Advocate . He was the first secretary of the Arkansas Supreme Court . He also wrote an anonymously published book called The Arkansas Form Book , A Guide for Lawyers.

Mexican-American War

At the beginning of the Mexican-American War (1846-1848) Pike joined the cavalry and was authorized as a troop commander to serve in the Battle of Buena Vista . He and his commanding officer, John Selden Roane , had various differences of opinion that ultimately led to a duel between Pike and Roane. Although several shots were fired, no one was injured and the two were convinced by their seconds not to continue the duel.

Attorney, author, and Confederation envoy

After the war, Pike returned to work as a lawyer. In 1853 he moved for a time to New Orleans ( Louisiana ). He wrote another book, Maxims of the Roman Law and some of the Ancient French Law, as Expounded and Applied in Doctrine and Jurisprudence . Although unpublished, this book increased its reputation among his fellow lawyers. He returned to Arkansas in 1857, where he became better known in the legal community and became a defender of slavery , although he remained a member of the Whigs. When the party broke up, he became a member of the Know-Nothing Party . Before the American Civil War he was strictly against the secession, but at the beginning of the war he sided with the Confederate Army .

He made several contacts with the Native American tribes of the region; at one point he negotiated a $ 800,000 payment from the federal government to the Creek and other tribes. These contacts were to determine the course of his service in the Civil War: Already at the beginning of the war, Pike was appointed the Confederation Envoy for the Native Americans. In this position he negotiated several treaties, including one of the most important in 1861 with Cherokee chief John Ross .

Battle of Pea Ridge

On November 22, 1861, Pike was appointed brigadier general and given command of Indian territory. With General Benjamin McCulloch he trained three regiments of the Confederation, which consisted mainly of troops of Native Americans from "civilized tribes" whose loyalty to the Confederation was changeable. Pike's unit emerged victorious from the Battle of Pea Ridge (Elkhorn Tavern) in March, but later the unit disintegrated and was defeated in a counterattack. As in the previous war, Pike argued with his superior officers; at one point he complained about his line manager in a letter to President Jefferson Davis .

After Pea Ridge, he was faced with allegations that his troops scalped soldiers in the field. Major General Thomas C. Hindman also accused Pike of mismanagement of money and materials and ordered his arrest. It later emerged that both allegations were unfounded. Faced with the arrest, Pike fled to the Arkansas Hills and sought release from the Confederation Army on July 12. He was finally arrested on November 3rd on charges of insubordination and treason and briefly detained in Warren . His resignation was accepted on November 11th; then he was allowed to return to Arkansas.

Post-war years

In the post-war years Pike could neither win the trust of his former comrades nor that of the victors in the civil war, the Union. As a result, he moved to New York and later to Canada . However , on August 30, 1865, Andrew Johnson rehabilitated him in a detailed apology, which enabled him to continue his career in public life in the United States. So he became a Justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court. From 1867 to 1868 he practiced law in Memphis ( Tennessee ), where he also editor of the Appeal was. He finally moved his law firm to Washington in 1870 and became the editor of the Patriot newspaper .

Freemasonry

Albert Pike as a Freemason

In the meantime he had joined a Masonic Lodge and was very active in it. In 1859 he was elected "Sovereign Grand Commander" of the Supreme Council of the "Southern Jurisdiction of the Ancient and Adopted Scottish Rite of North America". In the same year he was awarded an honorary doctorate (Ph.D.) from Harvard University. He remained “Sovereign Grand Commander” for 32 years until his death.

He devoted a large part of his time to improving the rituals of his lodge. As his main work he published the book Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (first edition 1872, last new edition 2004), which is a comprehensive philosophical and ethical doctrine of the so-called "Scottish Rite", which originated in France at the end of the 18th century. describes.

death

Pike died on April 2, 1891 in Washington and was buried in the Oak Hill Cemetery there - against his will, because he left the order that his body should be cremated. In 1944 his remains were transferred to the "House of the Temple", the headquarters of the "Southern Jurisdiction of the Scottish Rite".

statue

Pike Monument in Washington

In the course of the anti-racism movement “ Black Lives Matter ”, a statue of demonstrators erected in memory of Pike was thrown from its pedestal and set on fire on June 19, 2020 in the evening in the US capital Washington . Thus, on the sidelines of the protest marches in memory of the end of slavery 155 years ago, the only statue of a Confederate general in the US capital was brought down.

Works

  • 1837: The Arkansas Form Book (a lawyer’s guide)
  • 1853: Maxims of the Roman Law and some of the Ancient French Law, as Expounded and Applied in Doctrine and Jurisprudence
  • 1872: Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry

Lyric works

In addition to his writings on law and Freemasonry, Pike also wrote poetry - a hobby he began in Massachusetts as a youth. His poems were highly regarded in his day but are largely forgotten. Several volumes of his works were self-published by his daughter after his death.

At times, the influence of one of his works - namely the poem The Widowed Heart - on Edgar Allan Poe's poem The Raven has been discussed. Pike's poem was published in the New Mirror on October 14, 1843 , the year Poe wrote for the publication. John H. Ingram discussed this e.g. B. in his biography Poe, published in 1880, where he especially pointed to the same ending of the 12 stanzas of Pike's poem: Thou art lost to me forever, Isadore!

expenditure

  • Albert Pike: Meaning of Masonry . (English). Kessinger Publishing , Kila (Montana) 2004, ISBN 1-4179-1101-8
  • Albert Pike: Reprints of Old Rituals . (English). Kessinger Publishing, Kila (Montana) 1997, ISBN 1-56459-983-3
  • Albert Pike: Book of the Words . (English). Kessinger Publishing, Kila (Montana) 1997, ISBN 1-56459-161-1
  • Albert Pike: Indo-Aryan Deities and Worship as Contained in the Rig-Veda . (English). Kessinger Publishing, Kila (Montana) 1997, ISBN 1-56459-183-2
  • Albert Pike: The Point Within the Circle: Freemasonry Veiled in Allegory and Illustrated by Symbols . (English). Holmes Publishing Group, Edmonds (Washington) 2001, ISBN 1-55818-305-1
  • Albert Pike: Morals and Dogma of the First Three Degrees of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite Freemasonry . (English). Kessinger Publishing, Kila (Montana) 2004, ISBN 1-4179-1108-5

literature

Web links

Commons : Albert Pike  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tension before campaign appearance | Trump threatens protesters, statue of Southern general overthrows Kleine Zeitung. Retrieved June 20, 2020.
  2. ^ Albert Pike: The Widowed Heart
personal data
SURNAME Pike, Albert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American lawyer, general, author, and freemason
DATE OF BIRTH December 29, 1809
PLACE OF BIRTH Boston , Massachusetts
DATE OF DEATH April 2, 1891
Place of death Washington, DC