Peter Hardeman Burnett
Bolivar Hotel Clerk Becomes California’s Governor
Peter Hardeman Burnett (November 15, 1807– May 17, 1895) born in Nashville, TN, spent his youth in Missouri. He returned to Tennessee where he worked as a clerk for a hotel in Bolivar, Tennessee. Peter married Harriett Rogers on August 20, 1828. He later became a clerk in a country store in Whiteville, TN. Burnett purchased the store in 1829. By 1830, Peter and family returned to Missouri with only 62 ½ cents in his pocket.
Burnett took up the study of law and by 1839 was working as one of the defense counsels for Joseph Smith, Jr., and several other Mormon leaders who were under indictment for treason, arson and robbery. Joseph Smith, Jr.(December 23, 1805 – June 27, 1844) was the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, a group of churches whose followers regarded him as a prophet. Defense counsel moved for a change of venue and while transporting the prisoners, they escaped to Illinois.
In 1842, after reading a congressional report on Oregon, Burnett decided to move his family there. He quickly organized a wagon train, which left for the Oregon territory on May 8, 1842 and arrived in the territory in early October of the same year. They had traveled 1,691 miles at an average speed of eleven and a half miles per day. Burnett tried his hand at farming, but was unsuccessful. He turned to politics and was elected to 1844 Legislative Committee of Oregon tasked with the organizing a provisional government. As a legislator in Oregon, Burnett proposed that all free blacks be forced to leave the state. Any who failed to leave were to be arrested and flogged every six months until they did leave. There was much public outcry over this. Oregon's Black exclusion laws would remain in effect until 1926 when referendums removed the clause from the Oregon Constitution. The barring of Blacks from voting remained until 1927.
Upon news of the discovery of gold in Coloma, California on January 24, 1848, Burnett and his family moved south to take part in the rush. After modest success in getting gold, Burnett envisioned a career in law in San Francisco, a rapidly-growing boomtownthanks largely to the Gold Rush.
In 1849, Burnett announced his intentions to return to politics. During the 1849 referendum to adopt the California Constitution, Burnett, now with name recognition in Sacramento and San Francisco, and a resume that included the Oregon Provisional Legislature, decided to run for the new territory's first civilian governor. Burnett easily won the election over four other candidates, including John Sutter, and was sworn in as California's first elected civilian governor on December 20, 1849 in San Jose in front of the California State Legislature. This was before California even became a state in 1850. As in Oregon, Burnett pushed for the exclusion of Blacks from California; his proposals were defeated in the Legislature. Burnett also pushed for heavy taxation on foreign immigrants. An 1850 Foreign Miners Tax Act, signed into law by Burnett, required every miner of non-American origin to pay US$20. Burnett was also an open advocate of exterminating local California Indian tribes, a policy that continued with successive state governmental administrations for several decades, where the state offered US$25 to US$50 for evidence of dead Natives. After his first annual address received criticism from the legislature, Burnett, the first governor of the state, became the first to resign, announcing his resignation in January 1851. Burnett cited personal matters for his departure.
One year after leaving the governorship, Burnett was finally able to repay the heavy debts he had incurred in Missouri nearly two decades before. He entered a number of careers, serving briefly as a justice in the California Supreme Court between 1857 and 1858, the Sacramento City Council, as well as becoming a San Jose-based lawyer. He died January 9, 1895 at the age of 87 in San Francisco and buried in Santa Clara, CA.
Ken Savage
January 11, 2011