By Joseph Oliver
Special to The Town Common
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Although we like to see ourselves as virtuous, we all have skeletons hidden in our closets. Here is the story of one such skeleton from Newburyport’s cupboard. On June 19th, 2020, in the Judiciary Square neighborhood of Washington, D.C., a group of Black Lives Matter members protesting the murder of George Floyd gathered with ropes and chains, intent on removing the 11-foot statue of Albert Pike. Pike was the Sovereign Grand Commander of the Supreme Council of the Southern Jurisdiction of the Scottish Rite. The Scottish Rite is a full Rite of Freema-sonry, Pike served from 1859 until his death in 1891. But who was Albert Pike, and why would anyone want to destroy a 119-year-old statue dedicated to him?
Albert Pike was born in Boston in 1809 he was the great-great-grandson of John Pike, who originally came to Newbury, Massachusetts in 1635 from England alongside his son Robert who was one of the founders of Salisbury and later became known for his criticism of the persecution of Quakers and his opposition to the Salem Witch Trials in 1692.
Albert grew up in Newburyport, and was educated at The Governor Dummer’s Academy in Byfield. He attended Harvard but left before graduating to become the principal at a Newburyport Grammar School. Adventurous by nature, Pike headed west, living for short periods in St. Louis and Nashville before eventually settling in Arkansas. There, he first worked as a teacher and later as a journalist for the Little Rock Advocate, eventually buying the paper. Pike then transitioned to practicing law, where he became very successful, specializing in claims for Native American tribes against the federal government. This work allowed Pike to build close relationships with Native people.
Pike served as a captain in the Arkansas Mounted Infantry Regiment during the Mexican-American War, fighting under future U.S. President Zachary Taylor at the Battle of Buena Vista. After being discharged, Albert re-turned to Arkansas.
Originally a member of the Whig Party, he later left the party to join the pro-slavery, anti-Catholic Know Nothing Party. At the Southern Commercial Convention of 1854, Pike argued that the South should remain in the Union and seek equality with the North, but if the South were “forced into an inferior status, she would be better out of the Union than in it.” He believed that states’ rights superseded national law and supported the idea of Southern secession.
Leading up to the Civil War, the United States, not yet 100 years old, faced significant division. One of the greatest challenges was the expansion of slavery into western territories. Slavery had been a contentious issue since the Constitution was framed in 1787, with compromises being the only way to create an acceptable draft. This led to a document containing both pro-slavery and anti-slavery elements, contributing to a deeply divided country, with the South embracing slavery and the North consisting of free states.
The Louisiana Purchase, which nearly doubled the size of the United States, further complicated matters, not only because of the potential expansion of slavery but also due to the shifting power structure between free and slave states. The electoral college was constantly at stake because of the potential addition of slave states.
The Missouri Compromise of 1820, which allowed Missouri to become a slave state and created the free soil state of Maine from the separation of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, temporarily balanced the number of free and slave states. However, it also stipulated that any new states formed from the Louisiana Purchase territory above the 36-degree parallel would not be admitted as slave states. The Missouri compromise created the Mason/Dixon line, and a lawfully divided country.
With the election of Republican Abraham Lincoln in 1860, the line in the sand had been drawn, and the expansion of slavery to the west was no longer an option. War was inevitable, and the country was in constant debate. As a poet, writer, and influential leader, Albert Pike was a powerful voice during this time. He penned the song “To Arms in Dixie,” a rallying cry that Confederate soldiers sang with pride as they marched to war in 1861. The lyrics included: “Southern men the thunders mutter!—Northern flags in South winds flutter!—To arms! To arms! To arms, in Dixie!—Send them back your fierce defiance!—Stamp upon the cursed alliance!—To arms! To arms! To arms, in Dixie!”
Pike was commissioned as a brigadier general in the Confederate States Army. Utilizing his relationships he was given command in the “Indian Territory,” where he trained three Confederate regiments of Indian cavalry. Promises were made to Native Americans of their own state once the war was over. Pike and his troops won the Battle of Pea Ridge in March 1862, but later suffered a defeat in a counterattack. Pike resigned his post but remained a supporter of the Confederate States.
As the war ended, Pike petitioned for, and was granted a pardon, writing to President Andrew Johnson that he now intended “to pursue the arts of peace, to practice my profession, to live among my books, and to labor to benefit my fellows and my race by other than political courses.”
Albert Pike remained Sovereign Grand Commander of the Scottish Rite for the rest of his life. He continued to write prolifically, often under a pseudonym or anonymously. Among his works on Freemasonry was the influential Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, published in 1871. Although never proven, and denied by Pike himself, rumors and writings have suggested that Pike was a founding member of the Ku Klux Klan and that he may have even authored the group’s constitution.
On April 2nd, 1891, Pike passed away at his home, the Scottish Rite Temple of the Supreme Council in Washington D.C., after suffering for a short period with throat cancer. The headline from the Newburyport Daily News on the second edition (afternoon) Friday April 3rd was written “General Albert Pike Dead. A leader amongst the Masons of the land. He was a Principal in a Newburyport School. A man of great physique, and intellect.” New-buryport considered Albert Pike a native son.
Pike openly expressed his belief in white supremacy, asserting that “the white race, and that race alone, shall govern this country. It is the only one that is fit to govern, and it is the only one that shall.” Later in his life he built strong relationships with men of color, even sharing his rituals, and writings with Prince Hall Masons, a mostly black Masonic fraternity. Various groups, including Freemasons and Native American tribes petitioned to have a memorial erected in Washington, D.C., in his honor. Despite protests from organizations such as The Grand Army of the Republic and Union veterans, a memorial to Pike was installed in Washington, D.C., in 1901.
Although the monument faced protests for decades, it remained standing until Juneteenth 2020, when the 11-foot statue of Albert Pike was pulled from its graffiti-covered pedestal and burned. The fire was extinguished, and the statue was subsequently removed by the National Park Service.
Though he was depicted as a Mason, and not a soldier, it was the only statue of a Confederate in Washington, D.C..Newburyport would rather see itself as the birth-place of William Lloyd Garrison than as the hometown of Albert Pike. ♦