Sayles Jenks Bowen

Sayles Jenks Bowen (born October 7, 1813 in Scipio , Cayuga County , New York , †  December 16, 1896 in Washington, DC ) was an American politician . Between 1868 and 1870 he was Mayor of Washington City.

Career

In 1835 Sayles Bowen came to Washington from his New York homeland, where he worked in commerce. Between 1845 and 1848 he worked for the US Treasury Department. He lost this position because of his radical support for the movement to abolish slavery . He also supported former President Martin Van Buren , who ran for the Free Soil Party , in the presidential election of 1848 , and not the Democrat Lewis Cass .

In 1854, Bowen was a co-founder of the Republican Party . Between 1866 and 1872 he was a member of the Republican National Committee . He was also in the years 1868 and 1880 delegate or substitute delegate to the Republican National Conventions , on which Ulysses S. Grant and later James A. Garfield were nominated as presidential candidates. After President Abraham Lincoln took office in March 1861, Bowen was appointed Police Commissioner for the District of Columbia . In the following year he headed the local tax authorities and in 1863 he became the post office owner of the federal capital. Politically, he campaigned vehemently for the rights of former slaves. When they were able to exercise their right to vote in a mayoral election in Washington for the first time in 1868, they made a decisive contribution to Sayles Bowen's narrow election victory.

He held this office between June 8, 1868 and June 13, 1870. It is worth noting that until 1871 the mayor of Washington did not administer the entire District of Columbia . The then independent city of Georgetown provided its own mayor until 1871. As mayor, Bowen campaigned massively for full racial integration. His demands went far beyond the political understanding of white politicians at the time, including the radical wing of the Republican Party. His ideas were 100 years ahead of his time. The fact that he also spent city money on racial integration, which was unpopular among whites, and thus accepted the city's debt, led to his being voted out of office in 1870. His party forged an alliance with the Democrats by agreeing to support Matthew Gault Emery against Bowen.

After retiring as mayor, Sayles Bowen served as president of the Freedmen's Aid Society and curator of several African American schools in the greater Washington area. He died on December 16, 1896.

Web links

• Sayles Jenks Bowen in the database of Find a Grave (English)
• The Political Graveyard

predecessor	Office	successor
Richard Wallach	Mayor of Washington 1868–1870	Matthew Gault Emery